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Reese Richardson

@reeserichardson.bsky.social

480 followers 120 following 360 posts

A newly-minted PhD studying metascience and computational biology. My blog: https://reeserichardson.blog

reeserichardson.blog

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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · Aug 4

Today, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community.

reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...

A do-or-die moment for the scientific enterprise

Reflecting on our paper “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly”

reeserichardson.blog

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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 5d

Listening: Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound (released today)
agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-sp...

The Spiritual Sound, by Agriculture

10 track album

agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com

Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 7d

My pleasure!

Reposted by Reese Richardson

Health Nerd @gidmk.bsky.social · 7d

I have just left a lengthy Pubpeer comment on the autism/Tylenol study being cited by the Trump administration. There appear to be a number of fairly straightforward errors in the paper.

pubpeer.com/publications...

PubPeer - Evaluation of the evidence on acetaminophen use and neurodev...

There are comments on PubPeer for publication: Evaluation of the evidence on acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders using the Navigation Guide methodology (2025)

pubpeer.com

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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 8d

If you're interested: we wrote guides on how to get started with post-publication peer review (osf.io/8m2tz) and best practices for PubPeer comments (osf.io/sghaq) for @cosig.net .

Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 8d

PubPeer is a post-publication peer review site where you can leave comments on any scientific article (pseudonymously or under your name)! It gets used quite frequently to flag issues with published articles. PubPeer also has a browser extension that I highly recommend!

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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 8d

Consider leaving a comment on PubPeer! pubpeer.com

Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 8d

Hello! Despite his myriad talents, Larry has not yet learned how to use a keyboard.

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

PubPeer @pubpeer.com · 9d

Catching up on a summer backlog: congrats to @reeserichardson.bsky.social, winner of the July PubPeer Award for a comment on a 2024 article in @cp-cellmetabolism.bsky.social pubpeer.com/publications...

Reese donated his $1000 prize to @msf.ca and the @elisabethbik.bsky.social Science Integrity Fund

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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 11d

I spoke recently with @sidsrivatsan.bsky.social about scientific integrity.

Sid did a fantastic job putting these problems in their historical and societal context. I hope you give the podcast episode a listen!

faultlinesessays.substack.com/p/the-con-me...

The Con Men of Science: A Conversation with Dr. Reese Richardson

Paper mills, scientific fraud, and the decline of public trust in scientific institutions

faultlinesessays.substack.com

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

Scott Myers @smyers20.bsky.social · 11d

New PubPeer comment on "Efficacy of oral folinic acid supplementation in children with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial" (Panda et al, 2024). Concerns about significant errors. #folinicacid #leucovorin, #autism

pubpeer.com/publications...

PubPeer - Efficacy of oral folinic acid supplementation in children wi...

There are comments on PubPeer for publication: Efficacy of oral folinic acid supplementation in children with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (2024)

pubpeer.com

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

COSIG @cosig.net · 13d

What is a "calculation chain" file? How can I easily identify duplicated values in a table?

COSIG's 31st guide is all about data forensics using Microsoft Excel!

osf.io/bz725

As always, all guides are available at cosig.net.

COSIG: The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides
Newest version available at cosig.net!

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

European Association of Science Editors @easeeditors.bsky.social · 15d

In this new ESE Viewpoint, @reeserichardson.bsky.social and Matt Spick help editors identify mass-produced research to reject them at the point of submission, reducing the burden on peer review, and the amount of poor-quality noise introduced to the published literature.

doi.org/10.3897/ese....

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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 14d

We are now up to 14 journals! New journals:

BMC Anesthesiology
BMC Genomics
BMC Public Health (30,000+ articles!)

Archives are now up to >600K peer review documents for >85K articles. All are available to download on Zenodo!
reeserichardson.blog/datasets

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

Retraction Watch @retractionwatch.com · 16d

If you're a journal or publisher using institutional email addresses to verify the identity of authors or reviewers, you'll want to read this story by @joelving.bsky.social.

University email addresses no longer effective bulwark against fake peer review

To guard against identity theft, academic publishers have been using institutional email addresses to verify authors and reviewers are who they say they are. Now, however, findings appearing in a p…

retractionwatch.com

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

Sholto David @sholtodavid.bsky.social · 16d

A CRO has been scamming academic and industry labs in the US with fraudulent data that has been published in Nature and other high impact journals. Leonid has written a great piece on my findings: forbetterscience.com/2025/09/22/i...

In Bad Company

“Authors thank the members of NeuroDigitech for their contribution to data generation, and all the animals that contributed to these studies.”

forbetterscience.com

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

Trevon Logan @trevondlogan.bsky.social · 18d

Channeling @brendannyhan.bsky.social to ask: “what would you say if you saw this in another country?”

Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 18d

Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion.

Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 18d

Universities. Rural hospitals. Tech companies. Several sectors are going to be profoundly hurt by this. Not to mention the chaos of the moment as current H1-B owners scramble to get back to the U.S., cancel travel, etc. due to the uncertainty. An absolute mess. As intended.

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 20d

I think it is likely that Dr. Kuperwasser and Dr. El-Deiry will present misinformation about the SV40 promoter-enhancer in COVID19 vaccines tomorrow at ACIP.

I strongly recommend that you read @gorskon.bsky.social’s excellent work on the topic before the fearmongering begins.

VAERS and plasmid DNA "contamination" of COVID-19 vaccines: The nonsense continues

A new preprint is making the rounds falsely claiming to correlate "contamination" of COVID-19 vaccines with plasmid DNA to VAERS reports.

www.respectfulinsolence.com

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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 18d

This investigation is WILD. Props to @joelving.bsky.social!

Retraction Watch @retractionwatch.com · 19d

A professor of physics in Iraq was permanently dismissed last week after a government investigation found he orchestrated a massive fraudulent publishing scheme involving hundreds of thousands of dollars paid into his bank account by unwitting researchers.

An exclusive from @joelving.bsky.social.

Exclusive: Iraqi physicist fired by ministry over massive publishing scam

Oday A. Al-Owaedi A professor of physics in Iraq was permanently dismissed last week after a government investigation found he orchestrated a massive fraudulent publishing scheme involving hundreds…

retractionwatch.com

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

Jamie Cummins @jamiecummins.bsky.social · 20d

Can large language models stand in for human participants?
Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research.

One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want.

THREAD 🧵

The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data: A call to attention

Social scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples" - synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents, aimed at revolutionising human subjects research. How...

arxiv.org

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Reposted by Reese Richardson

Zander Furnas @alexanderfurnas.com · 20d

Thrilled that my paper "Partisan disparities in the funding of science in the United States" with Nic Fishman, @leahrosenstiel.bsky.social, and @dashunwang.bsky.social was published in @science.org today!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Partisan disparities in the funding of science in the United States

Republican lawmakers consistently provided robust federal funding, often exceeding Democrats

www.science.org

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Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 19d

Hope you consider reading! Also, check out the COSIG @cosig.net entry on formulaic research:

osf.io/24dhu

OSF

osf.io

Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 19d

Several journals by these and other publishers have also recently changed their policies. Retraction Watch coverage by @katetravis.bsky.social:

retractionwatch.com/2025/09/16/e...

Exclusive: Journal bans drug safety database papers as they flood the literature

celafon/iStockPhoto Starting around 2023, a curious trend took hold in papers on drug safety monitoring. The number of articles published on an individual drug and its link to specific adverse even…

retractionwatch.com

Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 19d

Frontiers: www.frontiersin.org/news/2025/09...

Cutting through fast-churn science: How Frontiers raised the bar

“Fast-churn” science—manuscripts built from quick queries of public datasets—has become an industry-wide concern. These rapidly executed studies can flood journ

www.frontiersin.org

Reese Richardson @reeserichardson.bsky.social · 19d

PLOS and Frontiers recently updated their policies regarding these submissions.

PLOS: theplosblog.plos.org/2025/09/upda...

Updates to PLOS retrospective health database editorial policy - The Official PLOS Blog

Learn more about PLOS revised editorial guidelines for research using publicly accessible health and social science databases.

theplosblog.plos.org