FLICKR, MINISTERIO TIC COLOMBIAWhen its anonymous founders launched PubPeer in 2012, they intended to create a space for open, forthright discussions of the scientific literature. But they were surprised at the volume of posts—from other anonymous users, as well as those posting under their names—pointing out seemingly significant issues with published papers. “The great majority of comments point out some kind of problem,” PubPeer moderators wrote in an e-mail to The Scientist. “And a large proportion of those seem potentially serious to us—e.g. duplication of gel bands that would rarely occur by accident.”
Some papers that have been criticized on PubPeer have since been corrected or even retracted. But in other cases, critiques remain on the site for many months without any apparent resolution.
For instance, Paul Brookes, a mitochondrial researcher at the University of Rochester Medical School in New York, this February commented on a 2011 PLOS Biology paper on gut microbiota and insulin resistance, noting that it had then been around seven months since an anonymous poster first raised concerns about the work in a comment on the journal’s website.
The PLOS Biology commenter said there appeared to be “some errors” in Western blot figures, including similar-looking control bands meant to represent different conditions. The paper has been cited 66 times, according to the journal’s publisher, ...
