There’s far more scientific fraud than anyone wants to admit

Retractions have risen sharply in recent years for two main reasons:

• first, sleuthing, largely by volunteers who comb academic literature for anomalies, and,

• second, major publishers’ (belated) recognition that their business models have made them susceptible to paper mills – scientific chop shops that sell everything from authorships to entire manuscripts to researchers who need to publish lest they perish.

These researchers are required – sometimes in stark terms – to publish papers in order to earn and keep jobs or to be promoted. The governments of some countries have even offered cash bonuses for publishing in certain journals. Any surprise, then, that some scientists cheat?