Questionable research was retracted long after the damage was done in the federal court case that will allow the Supreme Court to restrict mifepristone access. We need to prevent shoddy research from getting published in the first place, but is academia capable of enforcing even the most basic scientific standards? To answer this question, we travel back to 2018, when Trump was president, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 85 years young, and the MIT-adjacent Whitehead Institute was still enjoying its approximately $12 million dollars in fun money from federal research grants to the laboratory of one David M. Sabatini - a laboratory that published some very interesting photographs in studies of the cancer/autoimmune/abortion drug methotrexate.

Sources: 2019 paper https://web.archive.org/web/20220711023704/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2333392819841211 2021 paper https://web.archive.org/web/20240120075101/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23333928211053965 2022 paper https://web.archive.org/web/20221115212655/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23333928221103107 AMA malpractice report https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/policy-research-perspective-medical-liability-claim-frequency.pdf CDC abortion mortality https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm CDC maternal mortality https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/maternal-mortality/MMR-2018-State-Data-508.pdf Peer-reviewed paper on maternal mortality & abortion https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/58/6/2019/265968/The-Pregnancy-Related-Mortality-Impact-of-a-Total Elisabeth Bik's initial study https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00809-16 Bik NYT https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/29/opinion/science-fraud-image-manipulation-photoshop.html Technion image duplications https://pubpeer.com/publications/498E047C4B3D89C9CFA677CEE1E76A Nature image & data issues https://pubpeer.com/publications/E9FDC02781F39940EA182E3D7B1120 Another Sabatini lab paper https://pubpeer.com/publications/7E15406BC584C294DC4E9851CDC162 Sabatini lab papers no corrections https://pubpeer.com/publications/C33BEFC6E937C3B72B6DD6C353F467 https://pubpeer.com/publications/8E7D1F49609FD04FCDFB9C1898D4A2 Sabatini lab papers no author response https://pubpeer.com/publications/457A1D26443CB105F7B1F471AC3EC4 https://pubpeer.com/publications/AC65CB677739DABBB365BACB9F0EC0 https://pubpeer.com/publications/D6C1CEE4D1780DBFFA09C94CC08049 Health & Human Services investigation example https://www.thetransmitter.org/retraction/u-s-government-requested-inquiry-into-alzheimers-scientist-over-misconduct-allegations/ Other links to Sage retractions https://assaultonscience.org/ https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/study-cited-texas-judge-abortion-pill-case-under-investigation https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/suspect-science-and-claims-center-abortion-pill-lawsuit https://assaultonscience.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2023/11/1_Initial-email-from-SAGE_Redacted.pdf https://assaultonscience.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2023/11/2_Response-to-SAGE-Research-Integrity-and-Inclusion_Studnicki-et-al.pdf https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-publisher-retracts-studies-cited-by-texas-judge-suspending-abortion-pills-2024-02-06/

You wouldn't trust a scientist—not even a physicist!—to enforce the law. But we trust judges to translate science into many of its impacts on society. Dan assures Liv and Sandra that nothing could possibly go wrong.

https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2011/02/book-of-week-frogs-in-trousers.html

You wouldn't trust a scientist—not even a physicist!—to enforce the law. But we trust judges to translate science into many of its impacts on society. Dan assures Oliver and Sandra that nothing could possibly go wrong.

https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2011/02/book-of-week-frogs-in-trousers.html

On today’s episode, Sandra, Liv, and Dan take you through the tale of a climate scientist cancelled by his own petard.

Free Press article

Nature paper

Referee report

On today’s episode, Sandra, Oliver, and Dan take you through the tale of a climate scientist cancelled by his own petard.

Free Press article

Nature paper

Referee report

On today’s episode, Liv, Sandra, and Dan explore the exciting world of open access journals, where science is liberated for just a fraction of a graduate student's annual salary (per paper).

On today’s episode, Oliver, Sandra, and Dan explore the exciting world of open access journals, where science is liberated for just a fraction of a graduate student's annual salary (per paper).

Tired: a reasonably well-supported scientific consensus based on numerous lines of evidence collected by countless researchers over decades.

Wired: a rando in the twilight of his career who eventually learns to get his unique ideas through peer review.

Inspired: the most unqualified people imaginable spouting off on social media about topics they don't care to understand.

On the debut episode of Principal Instigators, Sandra, Liv, and Dan discuss ProPublica's uncovering of a scheme to make your high schooler a peer-reviewed published author. https://www.propublica.org/article/college-high-school-research-peer-review-publications