We’ve covered Dixson and Munday’s work on ocean acidification and fish behavior before and how it breaks down under close scrutiny.
And here.
Now the University of Delaware has concluded:
… Marine ecologist Danielle Dixson has committed falsification and forgery in her study of fish and coral reef behavior. The university is seeking to withdraw three of Dixson’s articles and has “notified the appropriate federal agencies,” a spokesperson said.
This article in Science will go into detail.
Findings against Danielle Dixson vindicates whistleblowers who question high-profile work on ocean acidification
A major controversy in the field of marine biology took a new turn last week when the University of Delaware (UD) found one of its star scientists guilty of research misconduct. .
A major controversy in the field of marine biology took a new turn last week when the University of Delaware (UD) found one of its star scientists guilty of research misconduct. . The university has confirmed to Science that it has accepted the panel’s finding that marine ecologist Danielle Dixson engaged in spoofing and spoofing in her work on fish and coral reef behavior. . The university is seeking to withdraw three of Dixson’s articles and has “notified the appropriate federal agencies,” a spokesperson said.
Among the papers is a research on coral reef restoration that Dixson published in Science in 2014, and the journal has published a Editor expressed concern in February. Science — has a News and Editorial team that work independently of each other—retracted that paper today.
The panel’s draft report, which the Science’s News team saw in its shredded form, paints a damning picture of Dixson’s scientific work, including many studies showing an increase carbon dioxide (CO) of the Earth.2) levels can have significant impacts on fish behavior and ecology. The panel of three UD researchers wrote: “The committee was repeatedly attacked by sloppy modeling, poor record keeping, copying and pasting in spreadsheets, and errors in numerous papers under investigation. investigation and deviation from established animal ethics protocols”.
Dixson did not respond to a request for comment. She “firmly denies all allegations of misconduct and will vigorously appeal any findings of research misconduct,” Dixson’s attorney, Kristina Larsen, wrote in an email to Science. Larsen described Dixson as an “excellent, hard-working female scientist” who had been “targeted” by a group of scientists who had “chosen to ‘convict’ Dr. share their accusations with a Science reporter last year. “Their cautious approach is all but assured that Dr. Dixson will never be able to receive a fair and objective review elsewhere,” Larsen wrote. UD said it would not comment on Dixson’s future there.
The accusations against Dixson have been sharply divisive among marine ecologists, with some scientists arguing that the accusers acted out of professional envy or to advance their careers. John Bruno, marine ecologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, tweeted in March. (Bruno — ai wrote a comment accompanying Dixson’s 2014 Science paper — did not respond to an email informing him of UD’s findings.)
UD “made a decent investigation. I think it’s one of the first universities that we’ve seen that actually do that,” said ecophysiologist Fredrik Jutfelt of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, one of the whistleblowers. . “So that’s really encouraging.” But he and others on the team were disappointed that the committee appeared to consider only seven of the 20 Dixson papers it had flagged as suspicious. They also expect UD to release the commission’s final report and detail any possible sanctions against Dixson. “What a shame,” Jutfelt said.
Read the full Science Mag article here.
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