RETRACTED (full interview with Ariel Anbar) - Periodic Table of Videos

0:00 Perhaps, professor, something I'd like to start

0:04 by asking is before any of this all started,

0:07 before things went a little bit wobbly.

0:09 Can you remember what it was like when you had first done your research

0:13 as a team and written the paper and then science had accepted it?

0:19 That must have been a good time.

0:20 That must have been a happy time.

0:22 Sure.

0:22 The team was quite excited.

0:24 Uh the reviews of the paper were very favorable as has been uh reported since.

0:28 It's not not a secret.

0:30 Um and uh yeah, I mean we were we were we were quite excited to see

0:35 what would what would come of it and uh and and talk to the world about it.

0:39 How do you all feel about it now at as of 26th of January?

0:44 Like do is it like obviously it's been a bit

0:47 of a roller coaster to say to say the least,

0:49 but like what are your feelings about it

0:51 all now the whole process and and the paper?

0:54 Do you regret it or are you still glad you did it?

0:56 No, I I I I don't regret that we published the paper.

1:01 Um I think in retrospect we probably and I I want to be careful.

1:05 I can't really speak for all the authors necessarily.

1:07 There's a diversity of opinion.

1:08 It's a large author list.

1:09 Um and I was not the first author.

1:11 Um so nor was I the senior author who is now deceased.

1:14 So it's you know it's complicated.

1:16 But I I suspect we would all agree that we would have

1:18 written the paper a little bit differently if we had to do.

1:20 We would have been a little bit a little

1:22 bit sharper about what the paper is absolutely claiming.

1:25 um uh to be the case and what is a bit more speculative.

1:30 Uh the paper was a little bit fuzzy about that and that allowed

1:34 some of the public relations and uh media and some of the authors too

1:38 in conversations to to maybe drive things a little further than needed to be

1:42 driven or or in some cases a lot further than should have been driven.

1:45 Well, good afternoon and welcome to NASA headquarters here in Washington DC.

1:50 My name is Dwayne Brown with the Office of Communications.

1:54 Despite widespread speculation on the internet, ladies and gentlemen,

1:59 we are not here today to announce we have found life elsewhere in the universe.

2:05 However, as we stated in our announcement for this event,

2:10 what you will hear today will in fact impact

2:15 the search for life elsewhere and much, much more.

2:18 Professor, I know this is hard to do because 99.9% of people

2:22 won't have read the paper and probably never will read the paper,

2:25 but can you sort of explain what you mean by being a bit

2:28 sharper like in in how it was written like what was conveyed versus

2:33 ignoring what the press did and the media did and YouTubers like us

2:36 did and that just as a scientific paper what what could have been tweaked?

2:42 So, so, so the paper reported that uh

2:46 when grown under conditions of phosphorus starvation,

2:50 uh this organism was replacing phosphorus with arsenic

2:53 in all of its biomolelecules, including in DNA.

2:55 And it's the DNA part that's been very controversial.

2:58 Um the paper did not outright say

3:00 that the DNA was being uh completely substituted with arsenic.

3:06 It simply said that we found arsenic in the DNA and left it somewhat unstated.

3:12 um and perhaps a bit to the imagination

3:13 of the reader of just how far to take that.

3:16 The title was a bacterium that can grow with arsenic instead of phosphorus.

3:20 Um and that is somewhat ambiguous

3:22 as to whether we mean completely grow without phosphorus,

3:26 complete replacement or some replacement.

3:28 And the paper is somewhat ambiguous about that throughout.

3:32 Um, it was ambiguous because there was no way with the data that we

3:36 had that we could make the strong claim that it was growing without

3:39 phosphorus because as has been well documented

3:42 and people have accused us of being

3:44 shoddy in and missing this but it was clearly stated in the paper.

3:48 It wasn't hidden.

3:49 Um, there was trace phosphorus in the medium.

3:51 The organism was starved for phosphorus,

3:52 but there was no way to grow the organism complete without phosphorus.

3:57 And there was no way uh uh well there was no way from the data in the paper

4:02 um to determine whether the replacement of phosphorus

4:06 uh for arsenic was um partial or or complete.

4:10 And so the paper was carefully worded not

4:11 to make a a claim of complete replacement,

4:15 but it was worded ambiguously enough that someone could read that into it.

4:18 And indeed many people did read that into it.

4:21 um uh uh including the press releases that uh in particular science

4:25 as well as NASA issued both certainly um went in that direction.

4:29 The science press release uh said that we had discovered

4:32 an organism that could grow without phosphorus entirely which the paper

4:36 you know was a claim beyond what the paper said

4:38 and then some of the public dialogue uh went in that direction.

4:42 Um and that is what the media saw and reported

4:44 and that is what a lot of the science community reacted to.

4:47 Um, and that led to a level of vitrial and venom.

4:51 Um, that, you know, I think was was was certainly unanticipated

4:55 by the team and and wasn't wasn't warranted under the circumstances.

4:59 You know, it's interesting.

5:00 I've had I've since then I've had I've had my students,

5:02 for example, I've had students take a look at the original paper without,

5:05 you know, students who were were um they were they

5:10 were born already by the time of the original controversy,

5:12 but they weren't very old, right?

5:13 So, they weren't really part of the the whole scrum that saw that.

5:16 and uh uh you know I told them

5:20 this is a very controversial paper here take a look

5:22 and they read and they say why was this why

5:23 was this so controversial right when they just read

5:26 the paper right was any of that ambiguity intentional

5:31 because it would make the paper seem a little

5:34 bit sexier to an outsider was or was that like

5:37 a an oversight on your behalf of the the

5:41 It's hard to say I I I wasn't the driving

5:44 author Um so and you know it's I can't get

5:50 inside the minds of all the authors and the paper

5:51 was was you know we certainly had discussions about that.

5:56 Um, we certainly discuss we certainly had

5:57 discussions to make sure that the paper

5:58 didn't overstate its claims and so which is why it doesn't it doesn't I

6:04 mean and and certainly there was we were entertaining the idea that while there

6:07 could be complete replacement is that impossible

6:10 well it's kind of speculative but maybe

6:12 so I think that I think there was an honest desire wasn't it wasn't

6:15 designed to you know tart things up I think it was an honest desire

6:19 by some authors to make sure that that notion was not ruled out because

6:23 it couldn't be ruled out although it's

6:25 obviously controvers sial and required some speculation.

6:27 So I think if we could rewrite it,

6:28 I think we probably would have rewritten it um to um uh to say look we we

6:35 clearly see phosphorus in the DNA fraction so there

6:38 must be at least some replacement in some way.

6:39 That would be our interpretation of the data.

6:41 Maybe it's wrong interpretation be wrong but that would

6:43 be our interpretation of the data and possibly although it

6:47 is speculative you know we went for that language

6:50 perhaps even complete replacement and and wouldn't that be interesting?

6:53 Um and and perhaps tweak the title just a little

6:56 bit to make very clear what the actual claim was.

7:00 Um you know and on titles just just just to be clear

7:04 right you know I'm I'm probably the only person on the planet

7:06 who has published two first authored papers in science not this one

7:10 um that have question marks at the end of the title.

7:13 Um, so I'm I'm qu you know, you don't you don't need to to to make a paper um uh

7:20 to to overdo the claim in order to get a paper published in science.

7:23 So when people say, "Oh,

7:24 you did that in order to get it published in science." It's like,

7:26 well, no, you don't you don't need to do that.

7:28 And I' I've, you know, I've done it twice before this paper was published.

7:33 I wrote two papers in science where I I made

7:35 sure that the uncertainty was communicated even in the title.

7:39 So, you know, it should have been worded a little bit differently.

7:42 Um, I think there's I think science even had

7:44 a hand in the in the way the title was worded.

7:46 So, so the lead author has told me at times.

7:48 So, you know, I don't know.

7:50 Hindsight's 2020.

7:52 When the runaway train starts and these press

7:54 releases are being written and press conferences are happening,

7:57 do the authors have a chance to apply the brakes?

8:00 Like, do the authors have a chance to say, "Hey guys,

8:03 I think maybe you guys are getting a bit carried away here.

8:05 That's not quite what we're saying.

8:07 Do you get swept up in the excitement of the attention or like

8:11 can can you can you stop that train in any way when it happens?

8:17 Well, um probably there probably could have been done more.

8:22 Um uh but I think that um some of this media was

8:28 done I mean media that was done with our uh um well

8:33 and it's hard to speak for all the authors also when ASU

8:36 issued a press release right which it did which uh you know two

8:40 of the authors three of the authors Paul Davies uh Gwen Gordon

8:42 and myself um were all were all at ASU and still are at ASU

8:46 so ASU issued a press release uh you know I went over

8:49 that pretty carefully to make sure that it didn't make any excessive claims.

8:53 science wrote a press release that they released to the media uh under embargo.

8:58 Um, so this is what the media first wrote its uh

9:00 its articles around that uh went much further than the paper

9:05 and uh certainly all the authors didn't see it and as far

9:09 as I'm aware the senior author didn't see it and nor

9:11 did the nor did the lead author um so science did

9:14 its own press um it appears um without consulting with us which

9:21 which was over the top and I I think that played

9:24 personally I think that probably played a big role in uh setting

9:27 up the um uh the media to lean into the overstatement

9:33 and then of course the the press reaction to be uh

9:38 or not sorry the science community then to be reacting strongly

9:40 to the messages they were seeing in the media about this paper

9:44 and it's all understandable you know I think I think I

9:46 think nobody was trying to do the wrong thing here um I

9:50 think I think it's a bit of a systems failure that all

9:52 the incentives are pointing a bit in the in a dysfunctional action

9:57 coming to the retraction because that's you know that's the that's

9:59 the thing that's happened more recently that seems to have

10:03 um disappointed the authors what do you think should have

10:07 been done because you've you've said you know the the paper

10:10 could have been sharper it could have been different it

10:13 could have been better in hindsight I'm sure all papers

10:15 could be better in hindsight what should science have done

10:19 to deal with um the disqu that was caused Well,

10:25 I don't think first of all,

10:26 I don't think that 15 or 14 years later is

10:29 a time to retract a paper when there's nothing materially that's changed.

10:34 That's that's um a bit odd.

10:37 Um you know, it's it's in the public record why they chose to do that.

10:41 It's in the New York Times article um uh about all this.

10:45 I mean, this was all stimulated by the New York Times uh

10:49 deciding to do a retrospective around the paper and and the lead

10:53 author Lee Wolf Simon and what's what's what her situation is um

10:58 in in so far as she withdrew from science and things like that.

11:01 Withdrew from Yeah, she didn't fully withdraw,

11:02 but it had a huge impact on her career in particular.

11:05 And so um they did a retrospective on that and uh um it was

11:10 the fact that this paper was going

11:11 to reappear in the public eye in that high-profile

11:15 way uh and that the authors were not about to retract the paper on their own

11:20 that led science to decide that that that they were going to retract it.

11:24 You know, I personally don't think that that that's a reason to retract a paper.

11:28 I think that that retraction should be based on the merits

11:31 of the paper itself not on the atmospherics

11:33 around it especially many years later.

11:36 Um the I also agree with the guidelines

11:40 from the committee on publication ethics which is the guiding body

11:43 that that that science and other journals most of their journals

11:47 um look to for guidance on retractions which says

11:49 that retractions are for cases of um you know involving

11:54 data integrity right so if there isn't integrity in the data

11:57 because of either some kind of misconduct or some

12:00 kind of gross error then there's grounds for retraction Um,

12:05 science was very clear that there's no evidence of misconduct

12:08 and they're not that's not why they're retracting it.

12:10 That's very important to note.

12:11 Nobody did anything um untored particularly uh Fleece did nothing

12:15 wrong um in in in any kind of ethical sense.

12:18 Um science argues that the retraction was due to um um

12:26 what they argue is an error in the um in the experiments.

12:32 Um so they they argue that the data are

12:35 in some way uh incorrect due to some kind of error.

12:40 The we we you know the error that they point that is

12:44 there's no error there's no specific

12:45 error mentioned in the actual retraction statements.

12:48 There is a blog post that uh the editor

12:51 and chief of science put out that alleges a particular error.

12:54 It was it's an it's an issue that was raised um uh uh many years

12:59 ago in in a comment on the original paper that we dealt with at the time.

13:03 Is this a contamination about So we don't we don't we don't agree

13:07 that we don't agree that that's that that's the case.

13:11 Um and so you know all the authors

13:13 stood behind their integrity of the original data.

13:16 So so we don't think that so obviously we obviously don't

13:19 we don't think there was any kind of misconduct nor does science.

13:22 Um, and we don't think there was any basic flaw in the data.

13:25 We think this is a debate really about interpretation.

13:27 And debates about interpretation are of course

13:30 part and parcel of the scientific process.

13:32 And papers are wrong all the time.

13:34 That's kind of how science proceeds.

13:37 Um, if you're going to start retracting

13:38 papers because they turn out to be incorrect,

13:41 then you've got to retract the whole you've got to police the whole literature.

13:45 Um, so that's Yeah.

13:47 So we, you know, we just don't think that's this was the right right approach.

13:52 Um, I I don't think I don't think there's anything that's

13:54 changed since all those years ago and um um you know,

14:00 let the record stand and let further work go on.

14:02 I mean, there has been further work.

14:04 Um there's a paper in 2018 that reproduced some of our results.

14:07 Didn't reproduce the DNA finding,

14:09 but they didn't they didn't look for arsenic in the DNA,

14:11 but they did reproduce showing that um a organism related to JFJ

14:16 when grown under phosphor conditions actually

14:19 grew better when you gave it arsenic.

14:21 I mean they saw the arsenic stimulation which

14:23 was the core observation in the original paper

14:24 which set us off looking the first arsenic

14:26 substitution and they saw arsenic substitution in um

14:30 lipids um uh very nicely very they show

14:34 very clearly that there's arsenic substitution happening um

14:36 but they didn't look at DNA because they

14:38 said that shouldn't happen so they didn't bother looking

14:42 should research continue in this area should people

14:44 keep finding out whether or not this bacterium can I think I I think Yes,

14:50 I think I think there's a I think there's actually a fascinating

14:53 question that that has been kind of the whole fur around this kind

14:56 of killed or at least put in obeyance research um into the question

15:01 of what are the limits of uh life under phosphorous starvation.

15:07 We know that arsenic substitution happens

15:09 to some extent under phosphorous starve conditions.

15:11 How far does that go?

15:13 That that seems like a a really interesting area of research um to to pursue.

15:18 Uh and so that is um uh you know and ultimately it's

15:23 only it's only new data that will kind of settle this whole thing.

15:28 Um you know there were there were two papers

15:29 in 2012 that tried to reproduce the original work and failed.

15:34 Um we have looked closely at those papers and it looks to us like

15:38 they did not uh reproduce the experimental

15:40 conditions in ways that are rather critical.

15:43 um we have a abstract we're submitting to a conference

15:46 laying that out and we plan to to develop that.

15:49 So um that's not new research but that's

15:52 at least you know re-engaging the topic.

15:54 Um so so but given that you know it's incumbent then

15:57 on us to ask okay so if we believe that the original

16:00 data were correct what is a fair interpretation of those original

16:05 data uh and we have a hypothesis or at least

16:10 I have a hypothesis that I'm I'm trying to get the group

16:13 to um or get get funding to support to to try

16:17 to uh chase down um so and it basic involves

16:22 partial substitution of arsenic phosphorus biosnic um in the nucleic acids.

16:28 So if you you can imagine scenarios where the the substitution is not complete

16:32 uh is only partial and you might have molecules then that are stable enough

16:36 to survive the lab extraction procedures and explain

16:38 all the data and would be consistently

16:40 with what was said in the original paper not with all the hoopla around it.

16:44 We're not talking about aric life hashtag artistic

16:47 life that was always you know uh out there.

16:50 Speaking of hashtags, finally,

16:53 can I ask you away from the actual research and the the proper science,

16:58 what do you and the team and what should people

17:00 take from this in terms of things like online discourse,

17:04 trolls, abuse, um, communication, rolling my eyes.

17:09 Yeah.

17:09 I mean, what's what's been I mean, is there anything you'd like to debate?

17:14 Well, I don't know.

17:15 It's interesting if you look back at the whole debate

17:17 then you know people were shocked and it was all new

17:20 you know um compared to social media convers it discourse today

17:25 and what happened back then is just turns out to be

17:28 typical of the way people seem to engage in these media

17:32 which is I don't think good for anybody frankly

17:35 but that's the world that we're living in um so um

17:41 um you You want you want to nice pit the answer?

17:46 Um, no.

17:47 I don't I I want to I guess I guess I want

17:49 to get some idea of the toll that it took on the other authors.

17:53 We know about the lead author and she's told her story in the New York Times and

17:57 uh what she went through.

17:58 Has it been the same for all of you?

18:00 Did she did she comp?

18:02 No, she she it definitely did not.

18:03 I mean, she and and Ron Ormland certainly bore the brunt of the backlash.

18:07 I think it affected all of us in some ways.

18:09 Um uh but not uh in the same way.

18:13 I mean I mean the lead author I mean she was at the press conference

18:16 as Mary can probably knows and as many of my colleagues would agree with.

18:19 I'm always interested in exceptions to the rule,

18:22 you know, and for a whole bunch of reasons bore

18:24 the brunt of the backlash as as as you're well aware.

18:28 Um, and Ron, it was his lab, so that was uh he bore a lot of backlash.

18:32 He's no longer with us, but I know he he felt it pretty keenly.

18:36 So, Denver was affected by it in different ways.

18:39 journals, science in particular and other the high-profile journals, you know,

18:44 they play a very um interesting and complex

18:48 role in the science ecosystem or they have um some people tend to see them

18:52 as the journals of record like anything that appears

18:54 in those journals must be you know

18:56 super ironclad and I think the current editorial

18:58 regime at science wants it to be

19:01 that way but historically they've played a different role.

19:05 Um, some papers are that type of paper.

19:09 But those but those journals also have been very proud over the years of playing

19:13 what they referred to one editor told me years ago as a door opening role.

19:18 Right?

19:18 They want to publish the papers that are

19:19 the first word on things, not the last word.

19:23 And when that's the style that you want to publish,

19:28 then you are inevitably going to be publishing papers that are

19:30 kind of edgy and and not the most solid work,

19:35 but work that really is provocative and and gets

19:37 people thinking about things in new ways.

19:39 Um, and so, you know,

19:41 I think our paper fell in that category under an earlier editorial regime.

19:45 Um and then you know all the miscommunication around it you know took it took it

19:52 to a crazy level and and perhaps has led then to a bit of a reassessment of what

19:55 science wants a stroll to be but but I think it it's very valuable to encourage

20:00 um publications of papers that are pushing the boundaries

20:06 um and I'll offer you a bit more.

20:07 You invited me to offer you more so I'll offer you more if you still have time.

20:10 Um, you know, there's there's different styles of science.

20:16 There's science that is um very hypothesis driven.

20:20 You know, you start with an intellectual framework of how the world

20:22 works or how the system works that you're interested in and you test

20:25 it uh and you test it in a kind of incremental way

20:28 and that's that's you know for the most part we might call normal science.

20:32 I mean I mean it is a very common it's a textbook way of doing science.

20:36 Um, but then there's another style of science

20:39 which we might call discovery based science, right?

20:41 Where you say, I want to know what's on the other side of that hill.

20:44 I have no idea what's on the other side of that hill.

20:46 I have speculation, right?

20:47 I may form a hypothesis to try to because I want to be

20:49 sure that when I go to the other side of the hill, I don't get hurt, right?

20:52 So, I'm going to form some kind of idea that's going to guide how to do that.

20:55 Um, but I don't really know and whatever I find

20:57 there is interesting and I'm going to tell people about it.

21:00 this kind of discovery science and then when you go across the other

21:03 side of that hill or for example to you know take the first images

21:06 of the surface of Pluto let's say right um and you see things

21:10 that you don't expect to see then it's incumbent on you to try to explain

21:15 what you see and in that mode of science we tend to welcome

21:18 crazy hypothesis because you see something you

21:21 didn't expect right and then you embrace

21:25 the full you want to embrace or let into the room the full spectrum

21:28 of ideas because something that seemed crazy

21:31 may turn out to be the right interpretation.

21:32 So in that first mode of science,

21:34 you tend to be pretty constrained in what hypothesis you'll accept because

21:37 a crazy hypothesis goes too far beyond

21:39 the the intellectual framework you already got.

21:42 In discovery mo modes of science um you tend to be kind

21:46 of welcoming and even celebrating the crazy

21:48 hypothesis that turns out to be right.

21:50 Um so NASA in particular, we haven't mentioned NASA, right?

21:54 NASA's in the business of discovery based science very much, right?

21:58 And so, as you're probably aware, you know,

21:59 the NASA um associate administrator for science,

22:02 you know, issued a statement, you know,

22:04 opposing the retraction because NASA feels somewhat threatened by this.

22:08 If if we're going to start retracting papers because a hypothesis that was

22:12 put forward uh to explain interesting new data turns out to be incorrect,

22:16 if that's browser retraction, then how do you do discovery based science?

22:21 Yeah.

22:21 So, so I think that's part of the dichotomy here.

22:23 I guess the thing that comes into my head

22:25 when you say that, which is a really brilliant point,

22:27 is discoverybased science can come unstuck even

22:32 more now in a world where every single

22:34 person with an idea and a keyboard can put in their two cents worth as well.

22:42 And suddenly the discourse isn't just isn't just being

22:45 underpinned by people who have years and years of expertise.

22:48 But everyone's jumping in now and it can get messy.

22:52 I I think that's very true.

22:54 um at the same so I think figuring out

22:55 how how one preserves discovery based science in the world

23:00 that we live in now is a is an is

23:03 an interesting an interesting question for sure a big

23:07 challenge as far as I know and you might want to take a look at this I don't I

23:10 don't think that science has ever before retracted a paper

23:12 where the authors unanimously stand by the original data right

23:17 I mean I mean I think this is kind of unprecedented

23:19 um as far as I as far as we're aware okay

23:23 so so the pre previous tractions, you know,

23:24 there's at least some authors who dissent and say, "Yeah, you're right.

23:27 This should probably retract." But none of us and it's a big team, right?

23:30 Big diverse team with different opinions

23:32 about the interpretation to be quite honest.

23:36 Yeah.

23:35 Um but but but we all unanimously agreed retraction doesn't make

23:39 sense because there was no misconduct and there was no major error.

23:42 I was saying, do you put like some kind of, you know,

23:45 postcript 15 years later saying in hindsight this and that?

23:48 But then do you do that for every single paper that's ever been published?

23:52 If I had to put something on every video I've ever made,

23:54 I' I'd have to do thousands of them.

23:56 So, so, so, you know,

23:57 this is probably too much for to to put on your to to put in, but you know,

24:01 there there I I I appreciate the challenge that the journals have.

24:07 And and the challenge is this.

24:10 We as scholars communicate with other scholars understands that anything

24:15 that's in the scientific literature is um uh potentially wrong.

24:21 Right?

24:21 I mean the first thing you teach your graduate students is

24:24 don't assume that just because somebody got it published it's right.

24:26 You know read the paper critically.

24:28 Right?

24:28 Read the paper critically.

24:30 There may be mistakes in the data.

24:31 There may be mistakes in interpretation and e or you know even if

24:35 it all seems right now it might turn out to be wrong later.

24:37 Right?

24:37 So that's the first thing we train new scholars to do right.

24:41 Um and in that world and and you

24:44 search the literature you look at the paper trail.

24:46 You read a paper it looks interesting that's that's that's old.

24:48 Okay.

24:49 Well, read look at, you know, see what the literature said about it, right?

24:53 What kind of literature?

24:54 Yeah.

24:55 Yeah.

24:55 And and this paper, you know,

24:57 you go to the paper in science, you'll see the comments and replies.

24:59 You'll see the editorial commentary.

25:00 I mean, there's plenty of of of of warning signs that one

25:03 should treat this paper with caution even independent of a retraction.

25:07 You don't you didn't need that, right?

25:08 For for somebody who is a scholar, right?

25:10 who is actually paying attention.

25:12 A scholar acting as a scholar should the literature has changed

25:19 in the in its accessibility which is a good thing, right?

25:21 It's much more accessible than it used to be.

25:23 It should frankly be even more accessible than it is to the general public.

25:27 Um, and technology makes it much easier

25:29 for people to get at any of these things.

25:31 You don't have to trudge to the library, right, and have a have,

25:34 you know, the the university library card in order to even read the paper.

25:38 It's these things are accessible anywhere um

25:40 for too much of a cost but they're accessible.

25:43 Um and so and also I would say not

25:45 every scholar because they're so accessible not every scholar

25:48 um uses their scholarly critical rigor when they're grabbing

25:51 a paper to to to advance their own arguments.

25:55 And so we live in a world now where

25:58 all that lit scholarly context is is not there

26:04 um is not looked at even by some scholars

26:06 and the general public doesn't even know to do that.

26:08 They they there's a tendency by many people to assume well if it's

26:11 printed it's it's true or or at least it's purported to be true

26:14 um um by more than the authors thinking that this is a good

26:18 argument and some reviewers saying it's it's it's it's it's a worthy argument.

26:22 Um and so in that world I totally understand

26:25 why editors of journals especially especially Holden who's editor

26:28 of science I want to be kind of charitable

26:30 to Holden Thorp um you know he's got a challenge right

26:33 science is a it's political it's visible um

26:37 and so how how do you in that world communicate

26:42 to people um that you as an editor and the journal

26:46 has integrity and and all this kind of stuff.

26:48 So, so I understand the desire to signal certain things.

26:52 Um, you know, I I I think retraction,

26:55 the problem is detraction is a very blunt tool.

26:59 Yeah.

26:59 It's a very blunt instrument.

27:00 And I mean, it's it's it is, you know,

27:02 kind of the death penalty in science publication, right?

27:06 And and Holden has actually, you know,

27:08 in response to that, he has actually written an op-ed a number of years ago,

27:11 not about us, but but in general,

27:13 about that we need to detoxify retractions because if

27:18 we're going to retract papers that have major errors,

27:20 we want to encourage people have errors to retract their papers.

27:23 And so, we want to we should detoxify it.

27:26 Um, oh, destigmatize it.

27:28 Sorry, dstigmatize retractions was the language used, right?

27:31 And I kind of look at and say,

27:31 no, retraction, we should have a death penalty, right?

27:34 You don't want to destigmatize if somebody cheats,

27:36 if somebody does something absolutely wrong,

27:38 that should have a scarlet letter that is really strong.

27:42 Yeah.

27:42 You know, I think I think a major error that's honest but an error,

27:45 that should probably be called something other, you know,

27:48 signal that, yes, but in some other way.

27:49 And then something like our paper where there was no

27:52 misconduct and no major error that's obvious or clear to anybody.

27:57 Um, but there's some questions around it.

27:59 Maybe that gets a different kind of flag, you know, that, you know,

28:03 and which and maybe papers that have that flag are really like right

28:06 papers to follow up do follow-up

28:08 research on because they're not obviously wrong,

28:10 but there's there's a swirl around them.

28:13 So, so that would be a much healthier world.

28:16 Instead, we have this world where now the paper's attracted.

28:17 So, of course, who would follow up a retracted paper, right?

28:19 That's that would be the psychology that most people would have.

28:23 So, but that requires, you know,

28:25 editors to get together and come up with some new signaling scheme.

28:27 You know, I don't know, red light, yellow light,

28:29 green light, I don't know what it is, right?

28:30 A numerical confidence rating system.

28:33 Um, and as you say, you need then to be to be fair,

28:37 you need to figure out how to reapply that fairly across literature.

28:40 Otherwise, you are now cherrypicking some papers

28:42 and that becomes a very political thing, right?

28:45 Yeah.

28:45 What a mess.

28:46 So, yeah.

28:46 What a messy.

28:49 Yeah.

28:49 So I think the world I think the world is well I think you know I think AI

28:52 systems could actually make it not so messy to do

28:54 it but but it would be a concerted effort.

28:56 It would be hard.

28:57 Um and but I think the world we now live in is

29:00 a world where where things like that probably need to be thought about.

29:04 Um and I don't think so so I so I

29:06 do have some sympathy with with the impetus to do something

29:10 with this paper but I think retraction is is simply

29:13 the wrong you know e it's the wrong tool to use

29:17 limits but They're sometimes more hopeful about

29:24 their results than they really should be.

29:27 There's a cliche, just because something is published in nature,

29:34 it doesn't mean that it's wrong.