[warlog]

To be clear, I'm more angry at Jonathan N. Pruitt, the fraud.

Looks like he hasn't retracted these papers from his Pubs list: https://labs.eemb.ucsb.edu/pruitt/jonathan/publications

But still, there is no fucking way that you get three papers into your research and then figure this out. Having done an MS, PHD, and postdoc in evolutionary biology, including sociality in insects, I can attest that one scrutinizes every (insignificant) data point.

And fuck off Did I read the article.

If you see fraud and don't say fraud, you are a fraud. ~Taleb (I think)

[spoontoeat]

Agreed, this reads like a pretty serious indictment of Pruitt. It sounds like he had no spine when they went back with questions about the data he provided. There didn't seem to be pushback from him about why his data was correct, simply "it's good that you're retracting". Reading between the lines it seems like the author didn't get this answer easily.

Also curious, how did no one question the data earlier when some guy, albeit respected, sends you a data file and you write several papers on the matter? No one knew what sheet #2 was and we're writing scientific papers based on this excel file? I think we need to revisit correct data hygiene and reasonable suspicion.

[eindiran]

For some reason, I can't access Pruitt's papers anymore. That link just redirects me to the main UCSB site. But here are some of his papers in Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ryyIEucAAAAJ&hl=en