Abstract
Cases of research misconduct in the ecological and environmental sciences appear to be relatively rare. A controversial paper published in Science in 2016 documenting the effects of microplastics on the feeding and innate behaviours of fish larvae has recently been retracted, with the authors found guilty of scientific misconduct. In addition to the expected fallout, such as individual and institutional reputational damage from a research misconduct finding, this case has two possibly wider-ranging ramifications. Firstly, there may be a presumptive notion that a strong negative effect could be more successfully published than a neutral effect. This presumption would belie the true stringency and rigor of research adopted by workers in the field. Secondly, the case may have a negative impact on the public’s perception of and trust in legitimate and good science that addresses critical environmental issues, such as anthropogenic climate change.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Based on Government Office of Sweden press release: https://www.government.se/press-releases/2018/06/new-procedure-for-handling-alleged-research-misconduct/ (Accessed 22 August 2018).
An English translation of the Tilburg University’s report ‘Falende wetenschap: De frauduleuze onderzoekspraktijken van social-psycholoog Diederik Stapel’ detailing the case of Diederik Stapel is available at https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/upload/3ff904d7-547b-40ae-85fe-bea38e05a34a_Final%20report%20Flawed%20Science.pdf (Accessed 22 August 2018).
References
Anthony, L., Edward, M., & Connie, R. R. (2012). Climategate, public opinion, and the loss of trust. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(6), 818–837. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764212458272.
Au, S. Y., Lee, C. M., Weinstein, J. E., van den Hurk, P., & Klaine, S. J. (2017). Trophic transfer of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems: Identifying critical research needs. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, 13(3), 505–509. https://doi.org/10.1002/ieam.1907.
Auta, H. S., Emenike, C. U., & Fauziah, S. H. (2017). Distribution and importance of microplastics in the marine environment: A review of the sources, fate, effects, and potential solutions. Environmental International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2017.02.013.
Bartlett, T. (2015). The unraveling of Michael LaCour. The Chronicles of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Unraveling-of-Michael/230587. Accessed 22 August 2018.
Baumann, L., Schmidt-Posthaus, H., Segner, H., & Wolf, J. C. (2016). Comment on “Uptake and accumulation of polystyrene microplastics in zebrafish (Danio rerio) and toxic effects in liver”. Environmental Science and Technology, 50(22), 12521–12522. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b04193.
Berg, J. (2017). “Editorial retraction”. Science, 356(6340), 812. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan5763.
Biology Letters Editorial Team. (2018). Expression of concern: Lionfish predators use flared fin displays to initiate cooperative hunting. Biology Letters. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0032.
Bozzo, A., Bali, K., Evaniew, N., & Ghert, M. (2017). Retractions in cancer research: A systematic survey. Research Integrity and Peer Review. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-017-0031-1.
British Science Association. (2014). Public attitudes to science survey. https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/public-attitudes-to-science-survey. Accessed 22 August 2018.
Burton, G. A. (2017). Stressor exposures determine risk: So, why do fellow scientists continue to focus on superficial microplastics risk? Environmental Science and Technology, 51(23), 13515–13516. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b05463.
Couzin, J. (2006). Truth and consequences. Science, 313(5791), 1222–1226.
de Souza Machado, A. A., Kloas, W., Zarfl, C., Hempel, S., & Rillig, M. C. (2018). Microplastics as an emerging threat to terrestrial ecosystems. Global Change Biology, 24(4), 1405–1416. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14020.
Enserink, M. (2017a). Fishy business. Science, 355(6331), 1254–1257. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.355.6331.1254.
Enserink, M. (2017b). Swedish plastics study fabricated, panel finds. Science, 358(6369), 1367. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.358.6369.1367.
Enserink, M. (2017c). Researcher in Swedish fraud case speaks out: ‘I’m very disappointed by my colleague’. Science Magazine. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/researcher-swedish-fraud-case-speaks-out-i-m-very-disappointed-my-colleague. Accessed 22 August 2018.
Fanelli, D., Costas, R., & Larivière, V. (2015). Misconduct policies, academic culture and career stage, not gender or pressures to publish, affect scientific integrity. PLoS ONE, 10(6), e0127556. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127556.
Foley, C. J., Feiner, Z. S., Malinich, T. D., & Höök, T. O. (2018). A meta-analysis of the effects of exposure to microplastics on fish and aquatic invertebrates. The Science of the Total Environment, 631–632, 550–559. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.046.
Galloway, T. S., Cole, M., & Lewis, C. (2017). Interactions of microplastic debris throughout the marine ecosystem. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 1(5), 116. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0116.
Hale, R. C. (2018). Are the risks from microplastics truly trivial? Environmental Science and Technology, 52(3), 931. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b06615.
Karami, A. (2017). Gaps in aquatic toxicological studies of microplastics. Chemosphere. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2017.06.048.
Kelly, C. D. (2006). Replicating empirical research in behavioral ecology: How and why it should be done but rarely ever is. Quarterly Review of Biology, 81(3), 221–236.
Koelmans, A. A., Besseling, E., Foekema, E., Kooi, M., Mintenig, S., Ossendorp, B. C., et al. (2017). Risks of plastic debris: Unravelling fact, opinion, perception, and belief. Environmental Science and Technology, 51(20), 11513–11519. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b02219.
Kramm, J., Völker, C., & Wagner, M. (2018). Superficial or substantial: Why care about microplastics in the anthropocene? Environmental Science and Technology, 52(6), 3336–3337. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.8b00790.
Lenz, R., Enders, K., & Nielsen, T. G. (2016). Microplastic exposure studies should be environmentally realistic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 113(29), E4121–E4122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1606615113.
Lönnstedt, O. M., & Eklöv, P. (2016). Environmentally relevant concentrations of microplastic particles influence larval fish ecology. Science, 352(6290), 1213–1216. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad8828.
Mittelstadt, B. D., & Floridi, L. (2016). The ethics of big data: Current and foreseeable issues in biomedical contexts. Science and Engineering Ethics, 22(2), 303–341. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9652-2.
Moreno-Rueda, G. (2013). How frequently do allegations of scientific misconduct occur in ecology and evolution, and what happens afterwards? Science and Engineering Ethics, 19(1), 93–96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-011-9289-8.
Neaves, W. (2012). The roots of research misconduct. Nature. https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7409/full/nj7409-121a.html. Accessed April 2018.
Parker, T. H., Forstmeier, W., Koricheva, J., Fidler, F., Hadfield, J. D., Chee, Y. E., et al. (2016). Transparency in ecology and evolution: Real problems, real solutions. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 31(9), 711–719. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2016.07.002.
Pew Research Center. (2015). Public and scientists’ views on science and society. http://www.pewinternet.org/files/2015/01/PI_ScienceandSociety_Report_012915.pdf. Accessed 22 August 2018.
Phuong, N. N., Zalouk-Vergnoux, A., Poirier, L., Kamari, A., Châtel, A., Mouneyrac, C., et al. (2016). Is there any consistency between the microplastics found in the field and those used in laboratory experiments? Environmental Pollution. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2015.12.035.
Raghu, G., Joel, G., & Arvind, K. (2014). Boundaries, breaches, and bridges: The case of climategate. Research Policy, 43(1), 60–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2013.07.007.
Redman, B. K., & Caplan, A. L. (2017). Improving research misconduct policies: Evidence from social psychology could inform better policies to prevent misconduct in research. EMBO Report, 18(4), 511–514. https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.201744110.
Resnik, D. B. (2011). Scientific research and the public trust. Science and Engineering Ethics, 17(3), 399–409. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-010-9210-x.
Ross, J. (2018). Fishy research opens a can of worms. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/fishy-research-opens-can-worms. Accessed 22 August 2018.
Savoca, M. S., Tyson, C. W., McGill, M., & Slager, C. J. (2017). Odours from marine plastic debris induce food search behaviours in a forage fish. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1000.
Service, R. F. (2002). Scientific misconduct. Bell Labs fires star physicist found guilty of forging data. Science, 298(5591), 30–31. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.298.5591.30.
Siebert, S., Machesky, L. M., & Insall, R. H. (2015). Overflow in science and its implications for trust. eLife. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.10825.
Smith, R. (2006). Research misconduct: The poisoning of the well. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99(5), 232–237.
Sundin, J., & Jutfelt, F. (2018). Keeping science honest. Science, 359(6383), 1443. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat3473.
Tang, B. L. (2017). Commentary: Tissue accumulation of microplastics in mice and biomarker responses suggest widespread health risks of exposure. Frontiers in Environmental Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2017.00063.
Teixeira da Silva, J. A. (2017). Ethical perspectives and ramifications of the Paolo Macchiarini case. Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, 2(4), 270–275. https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2017.048.
Uppsala University. (2017). Investigation of misconduct in research: Study of fishes’ consumption of plastic. https://www.uu.se/en/research/ethics/alleged-misconduct-fish-microplastics/. Accessed 22 August 2018.
Vogel, G. (2015). Sleuthing sheds light on STAP cell fiasco. Science, 349(6255), 1430–1431. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.349.6255.1430.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers as well as the editors, Dena Plemmons and Stephanie Bird, for their helpful and constructive comments, which improved the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tang, B.L. On Some Possible Ramifications of the “Microplastics in Fish” Case. Sci Eng Ethics 25, 1303–1310 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-018-0063-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-018-0063-z