What is wrong with science?
https://www.statnews.com/2016/12/27/diabetes-breakthrough-retracted/
According to Damian Garde who wrote the piece in the link above, Doug Melton tested seven mice to discover a 'breakthrough' for treating Type II diabetes, wrote a research paper, submitted it for peer review and got it published by a notable journal, Cell. Seven mice!
Did he double-check his work? Probably. Did he look for alternative explanations? Probably. Did he test more mice? Clearly not!
He waited until someone else, probably on government dollars, showed his results were not reproducible that he, probably on government dollars, then tested more mice to get the same results. THIS should have been done before the research paper was written, submitted for peer review, and then published.
What were the peer reviewers thinking? Seven mice! How few is considered insufficient data as a standard of proof? With so few test subjects, one should KNOW that there was no blind study.
And, of course, Cell's editor must have overlooked the SEVEN glaring out from the paper at the reader.
And the way I read Garde's piece, one gets the impression he was selling Melton's bravery in retracting his paper, perhaps as an effort to rehabilitate the man's reputation.
What a systems failure for science!
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Is it the Devil in the whiskey, or is it the Devil in him? -- ???