The Hans Eysenck affair: Time to correct the scientific record (2019) David F Marks

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JohnTheJack

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This is a powerful editorial by David Marks, asking for the establishment of a National Research Integrity Ombudsperson to investigate allegations of misconduct.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1359105318820931

Abstract
The Journal of Health Psychology publishes here Dr Anthony Pelosi’s analysis of questionable science by one of the world’s best-known psychologists, the late Professor Hans J Eysenck. The provenance of a huge body of data produced by Eysenck and Ronald Grossarth-Maticek is highly controversial. In Open letters to King’s College London and the British Psychological Society, this editor is requesting a thorough investigation of the facts together with retraction or correction of 61 publications. Academic institutions have a conflict of interest concerning allegations of misconduct, which is why I believe that the only way forward is to have a National Research Integrity Ombudsperson to investigate allegations.
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It accompanies this paper:
Personality and fatal diseases: Revisiting a scientific scandal (2019) Pelosi

It refers to work by @Brian Hughes and James Coyne.

Coyne has blogged about it with reference to Simon Wessely here:
https://jcoynester.wordpress.com/20...-shoved-a-hans-eysenck-scandal-under-the-rug/

There is a piece by 'Neuroskeptic' on the new paper and editorial here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2019/02/25/cancer-personality-1/#.XHO_MaDgqUk
 
there seems to be something of a problem with whistleblowing within psychology being linked with personal axe grinding that benefits from the whistling. There is no suggestion that David Marks is involved in this but Pelosi seems to maybe have other irons in fires, judging by his defence of PACE. Something similar seems to have been involved in all the stuff about Cochrane and mental health - with axes to grind about Big Pharma.

David M and Brian Hughes stand out as people without axes to grind. Refreshing.
 
“Do we have the will to do anything about it?” James Heathers reflects on the Eysenck case

We have a tension about resolving inaccuracies in scientific documents when they’re past a certain age.

Specifically, what should we do with old papers that are shown to be not just wrong, which is a fate that will befall most of them, but seriously misleading, fatally flawed, or overwhelmingly likely to be fabricated, i.e. when they reach the (very high) threshold we set for retraction?

To my way of thinking, there are three components of this:

(1) the continuing use of the documents themselves as citable objects in contemporary research – some research stays current and relevant, other research is consigned to obscurity, or is so completely superseded that it has no bearing on contemporary research whatsoever.

(2) the profile of the authors – some authors of such documents are alive, famous, and have theories with contemporary relevance. Others are dead, obscure, and have theories which have no continuation in any other papers. Like it or not, these authors are treated differently.
and, of course,

(3) the nature and extent of the errors – some are small but definite mistakes, some are blatant multi-paper fabrications.

https://retractionwatch.com/2019/10...-james-heathers-reflects-on-the-eysenck-case/
 
Merged thread

A glimpse into our inevitable future. Eysenk's research, the cancer personality stuff, has been discussed a few times here and there but there isn't really a proper thread for it.

His research seems to be of similar quality and framing than the rest of the psychosocial stuff on ME and MUS in general. Irony alert: KCL. And the crisis of replicability lives on.
More than two dozen papers by a controversial psychologist who died in 1997 are “unsafe,” according to a recent report by his former employer and obtained by Retraction Watch.

The research has been subject to question for decades, because the findings — including some that “bibliotherapy” could dramatically reduce the risk of dying from cancer — seemed unbelievable.
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Also in headlines for the future:
In February, Anthony Pelosi published a paper in the Journal of Health Psychology calling the Eysenck case “one of the worst scientific scandals of all time,” accompanied by an editorial from David Marks calling for an inquiry by King’s and the British Psychological Society. The report obtained by Retraction Watch is dated May 2019.
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https://retractionwatch.com/2019/10...ntroversial-psychologist-hans-eysenck-unsafe/
 
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King’s College London Enquiry Into Hans J Eysenck Fails to Address All of His Bogus Publications

HANS EYSENCK EXPOSURE
Earlier this year we exposed the largest fraud ever perpetrated in the history of psychology (Marks, 2019; Pelosi, 2019). This audacious fraud was carried out by the UK’s most published and best known psychologist, the late Professor Hans J Eysenck (1916-1997), by all accounts, a maverick and controversial figure.

We called for an enquiry (Marks, 2019). H J Eysenck’s ex-employer, the Institute of Psychiatry in Denmark Hill, is now a part of King’s College London (KCL).

The enquiry at KCL concluded that 25 publications were unsafe. However, the enquiry report remains unpublished and incomplete.
KCL reviewed publications written by Eysenck with his collaborator Ronald Grossarth-Maticek. The enquiry failed to investigate 36 other bogus items based on exactly the same data collected by Eysenck’s collaborator.

The KCL enquiry must be properly completed to include the entire set of 61 bogus publications.
The Eysenck affair makes a strong case for a National Research Integrity Ombudsperson.​

https://davidfmarks.com/2019/10/10/...ils-to-address-all-of-his-bogus-publications/
 
another interesting read here:
“Do we have the will to do anything about it?” James Heathers reflects on the Eysenck case

This is a highly unusual situation. If these papers were retracted, it would vault Eysenck – more than a decade after his death – onto the Retraction Watch leaderboard, tied for 22nd. If the full body of 61 documents was retracted, Eysenck would eclipse Diederik Stapel (58) as the most retracted psychologist in history, a scarcely believable legacy for someone who was at one time the most cited psychologist on the planet.
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This entire mess sat, in plain sight and painstakingly spelled out in dozens of published articles, entirely uninvestigated for three decades.
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no wonder Sharpe is worried

https://retractionwatch.com/2019/10...-james-heathers-reflects-on-the-eysenck-case/
 
In case people are interested this is what happened about Diederik Stapel (as mentioned in article I posted above).

December 2011
In recent months, the scientific fraud allegations surrounding prominent Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel have intensified. Inquiry committees convened at Tilburg University, the University of Groningen, and the University of Amsterdam indicate that the research misconduct committed by Stapel was vast. The misconduct goes back to at least 2004 and involves the manipulation of data and complete fabrication of entire experiments. The fraudulent data are said to have been used in at least 30 published, peer-reviewed papers.
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social psychologist Jennifer Crocker, who serves as chair of the American Psychological Association’s Publications and Communications Board, states that “to understand fraud, we should think about how it begins and escalates, not how it ends. By the time such fraud is exposed, bad choices that would usually lead to only minor transgressions have escalated into outright career-killing behavior.” Thus, the question arises: what type of academic culture allowed Stapel to continue his misconduct for so long?
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1. The sophisticated way in which Stapel used his power and prestige. Stapel was known as a charismatic leader with great dedication to his students and colleagues.
2. Poor functioning of scientific scrutiny and criticism.
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https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2011/12/diederik-stapel

but he (DS) then wrote a book about it which was translated into english by Nick Brown. Haven't read it but it can be found here:
http://nick.brown.free.fr/stapel/FakingScience-20161115.pdf
 
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