Critique du papier d’elisabeth bik .

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00809-16

Abstract: 

In this short article, I demonstrate the errors made by Elisabeth Bik in the aforementioned article. It will be shown that she is mistaken, and uses erroneous arguments. It’s not science, it’s just an article to bash another magazine (the only one to be named). 

This article is a disgrace to the Royal Society’s device: Nullius in verba.

This misleading article, and should be retracted

Critic of Article : 

“The images from a total of 20,621 papers published in 40 scientific journals from 1995 to 2014 were visually screened. Overall, 3.8% of published papers contained problematic figures, with at least half exhibiting features suggestive of deliberate manipulation.”

Visually screened :  

This is an initial bias, but one which has consequences for the study as a whole. You’re making a comparison based on gauging things on screen. What are the settings of your screen? In an experiment, we give you the starting point for judging, but you determine duplications by eye. The following establishes that you are incompetent or dishonest.

3.8 % : 

This percentage seems to me to be entirely consistent with human error. So you accuse others of making mistakes, when in fact you don’t make any on perhaps more than 40,000 images (20,000 articles with 2 images per article, and even that’s a low number). 

“Inaccuracies in scientific papers have many causes. Some result from honest mistakes, such as incorrect calculations, use of the wrong reagent, or improper methodology “

methodology ? what about yours ?  

You haven’t even described your methodology, except that we’ve had a look! We’re supposed to take your word for it? I remind you « Nullius in verba. »

“Concerns about misconduct have been accompanied by increasing concerns about the reproducibility of the scientific literature. “

reproducibility of yours ? 

It’s impossible to reproduce your analysis. No setting screen, no methodology … (  « Nullius in verba. » )

Fig 4 

If you bring the incriminated areas closer together, which I hope the author at least knows how to do, it’s obvious that the two areas are different, and that human manipulation is unlikely. Of course, if you don’t bother to zoom in a bit, or if you have no knowledge of computer graphics, it’s hard to tell, but if you just zoom in, it’s as obvious as the nose on your face.

About 9 and 10 

I used a computer graphics algorithm to find a pattern 

( https://docs.opencv.org/3.4/de/da9/tutorial_template_matching.html ).

To keep things simple, this algorithm takes 3 parameters: 

1. Source image , 
2. image pattern , 
3. Threshold ( named below threshold ), here normalized so ranging from 0 to 1 ( 1 the exact image, 0 everything ).

threshold 0.99

threshold 0.96

The différence of 9 and 10 is 3 pourcent , it’s not the same , and can not be the result of a duplication.

“ For this analysis, only papers published between 2005 and 2014 were included”

A mistake ? 

It began in 1995 ? but you write “only papers published between 2005 and 2014”

“ figures were further examined for evidence of image duplication or manipulation by using the Adjust Color tool in Preview software on an Apple iMac computer. No additional special imaging software was used.”

Please use other software, like gimp it’s free… or opencv library free and open source also. By the same token, you admit that you haven’t even zoomed in to control the thing! It’s ridiculous.

Discussion 

So an article without methodology , or bad methodology , to attack a single scientific review “PLoS One” that you name several times. What is the purpose of your article, is it scientific when it has been shown here that it violates the scientific device  Nullius in verba ?