Professors’ blog

Most of us in the world of scientific publishing agree that the integrity and reliability of the literature is under threat from many directions. One of the most perfidious is generative AI. As it improves, it will soon be capable not just of writing a paper based around ‘real’ experimental data. It will become able…

Ever since the exodus of European scientists in the 1930s, people the world over have looked up to the US as the bastion of free enquiry and intellectual ingenuity, backed up by stalwart public support for science and academia. This is the world in which I grew up, forging part of my own scientific career…

It’s very hard to write about the current state of global science without getting sucked into the whirlpool of events in the United States that is perceived by most of our colleagues as nothing short of disastrous. However, so much has been written about it already. And by the time this blogpiece goes out some…

Setting aside the growing threat to the scientific literature from outright fraud, wilful misinterpretation, undeclared conflicts of interest, low-quality peer review and malign pseudo- science, it is an inevitable fact that much of what is put into print today will turn out to be erroneous when revisited in the future. At the very least,…