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26 September 2012, 6.18am EST

Scientific data should be shared: an open letter to the ARC

Science (real science, not the summaries in popular books and the media) is needlessly closed to the outside world. Worse, it is closed within itself, with every lab its own silo, and little sharing of data or materials. Top researchers work frantically behind the scenes, but only occasionally do they…

Authors

Alex O. Holcombe

Associate Professor, School of Psychology, and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at University of Sydney
Matthew Todd

School of Chemistry at University of Sydney

Disclosure Statement

Alex O. Holcombe receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC). However, the views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the ARC nor the University of Sydney.

Matthew Todd receives funding from several organisations including The Australian Research Council. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the ARC or The University of Sydney.

University of Sydney does not contribute to the cost of running The Conversation. Find out more.

The Conversation is funded by CSIRO, Melbourne, Monash, RMIT, UTS, UWA, Canberra, CDU, Deakin, Flinders, Griffith, JCU, La Trobe, Massey, Murdoch, Newcastle. QUT, Swinburne, UniSA, USC, USQ, UTAS, UWS and VU.

4jwsdxxm-1347251873 — Science should be conducted outside its walled garden, in full view of the public. lovelihood

Top researchers work frantically behind the scenes, but only occasionally do they share their results, by describing selected experiments in publications. This way of working may have been sensible in the paper past, but as the digital age advances it should not be the way we work now.

Recently one of us (MT) directed a fully open project in which all data and ideas were shared online. People completely unknown to the existing team came to the project and helped.

Some were employed by corporate laboratories but nevertheless provided significant inputs free of charge. This should not be surprising, as it is in our nature to help others solve problems. It is also in our nature to compete, and the open nature of the project yielded competition that helped achieve a common end. On this playing field, the greatest expertise could win out.

In an ongoing project involving open source drug discovery, a scientific dispute was settled by a discussion between an undergraduate and a professor in public view – the very best kind of educational practice.

Elsewhere in the world, a Dutch schoolteacher discovered a mysterious astronomical object by participating in the open GalaxyZoo project and was included as an author on the resulting publication.

More recently a high school student was able to devise an algorithm for detecting pancreatic cancer by reading free online scientific journals.

Our desire to see science thrive outside its walled garden and in full view of the public motivated us to write an open letter to the new CEO of the Australian Research Council (ARC).

That letter is included in full below. If readers agree with the letter, we invite them to add their signature to it by clicking on the link at the bottom of the letter. If a more cooperative, open research culture was actively encouraged by funding agencies we believe science would be more efficient and powerful.

The way the ARC evaluates scientists inadvertently fuels the secretive competition we scientists can get caught up in. We focus on competing for publications in prestigious journals. But the ARC can change its policies to lead us towards openness.

The ARC could make data sharing a condition of the grants it gives us.

An open letter to Professor Aidan Byrne, CEO, the Australian Research Council

Dear Professor Byrne,

We know you have floated plans to broaden access to scientific publications supported by the ARC. We enthusiastically applaud such moves, as we believe that citizens and businesses should be able to access the science that their tax dollars pay for. We also believe the ARC should go beyond opening access to journal articles and take steps to increase the sharing of scientific data.

As science is currently practised, many research publications are more like press releases or executive summaries than detailed records of what was done and found. They are descriptions of the primary outcome the authors wish to reveal, often with insufficient supporting data for readers to validate the conclusions themselves.

As a result, science is facing a reproducibility crisis. Recent efforts to replicate published findings have yielded a low rate of success (Begley & Ellis, 2012; Prinz, F., Schlange, T. & Asadullah, K., 2011). More details of what was actually done and found when reports are published are needed to remedy this. We think these details should usually include the raw data.

Not only would such open science facilitate replication, but it would also result in further discoveries. For example, many more publications have arisen from people re-analysing Hubble Space Telescope data than from the scientists who originally acquired the data.

The cost of conducting the Human Genome Project is acknowledged to be dwarfed by its economic benefit to scientific productivity because the data are publicly available. For a physically more isolated country like Australia to participate in cutting-edge international science, the free sharing of research data is particularly important.

In the future, data sharing will result in discoveries beyond the capability of any one lab, as data can be mined by computer algorithms to seek trends and patterns that reveal hidden truths. In a recent report entitled Science as an Open Enterprise, the Royal Society wrote that: “Governments should recognise the potential of open data … to enhance the excellence of the science base. They should develop policies for opening up scientific data that complement policies for open government data, and support development of the software tools and skilled personnel that are vital to the success of both.”

It may be only through open science, with massively collaborative efforts, that urgent problems of the world can be solved. Open science can reduce wasteful duplication of efforts (because it is clear what everyone is doing) while maintaining the highest quality work (because everything is continually peer-reviewed in a competitive environment).

We’d like to close with an invitation. We are two members of a group organising a three-day conference in Auckland in early 2013 examining how open research fits the Australian/New Zealand context. We cordially invite you to attend this meeting, and would be delighted if you were able to deliver a keynote outlining your vision for the future practice of science.

Yours sincerely,

Matthew Todd

Alex O. Holcombe

These opinions and those of the other signatories do not necessarily reflect the positions of their institutions.

Academics at ANU, Harvard, Yale, and other universities have joined in signing our letter, together with people from outside the university sector.

See the names of the other signatories here and we hope you will consider adding your name to the bottom of the letter.

Articles also by These Authors

28 March 2013 Open publishing is happening – the only question is how

9 January 2013 Free for all: ARC-funded research now open to the public

7 February 2012 Spread the word: scientists are tearing down publishers' walls

20 October 2011 We eat what we are – let’s detoxify the word ‘chemical’

26 September 2011 Scientist meets publisher: the video

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Join the conversation

36 Comments sorted by

Craig Savage

Professor of Theoretical Physics at Australian National University

Awesome! I think one of the lessons of history is that openness = productivity and creativity.

If you think research could be more open, how about education? This really goes on behind closed doors.

8 months ago report
Charles Driver

logged in via email @gmail.com

Alex, Matthew - I am very much for open science, in an abstract, idealistic sense. I don't feel like I am aware enough of the practical realities that such an alteration to the system would be likely to encourage though. I imagine there could be some negatives, at least in the short term, or if other countries did not act similarly? A better understanding of this would do more to convince me to put my name down!

8 months ago report
1. Alex O. Holcombe
  
  Associate Professor, School of Psychology, and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Charles Driver
  
  I think that greater openness of basic research is where science is going, Australia being one of the first movers would actually be a boon, yielding an increase in collaborations and impact. However it will depend on the field, and exceptions must be made for certain topics. In my view the largest short-term downside is the greater amount of work required by some of us to prepare data for sharing. So as the Royal Society wrote, research funders should support development of the software tools that will make sharing research data very easy, such as web-accessible electronic laboratory notebooks.
  
  8 months ago report
2. John Canning
  
  Professor at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Alex O. Holcombe
  
  Great thought provoking article - it will require a sort of revolution in the field to be able to move away by the implications of open data repositories. As an editor of existing journals it’s obvious there is so much rubbish being put out there and one the major challenges is finding enough reviewers willing to pass judgment on papers these days. The major journals in fact undermine peer review, and science, completely by selecting articles on what the editors think is of contemporary and high…
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  Great thought provoking article - it will require a sort of revolution in the field to be able to move away by the implications of open data repositories. As an editor of existing journals it’s obvious there is so much rubbish being put out there and one the major challenges is finding enough reviewers willing to pass judgment on papers these days. The major journals in fact undermine peer review, and science, completely by selecting articles on what the editors think is of contemporary and high impact popularity. Many are so lazy that a lot of garbage is allowed through whilst others are just malicious and provide no supporting assessment.
  Any open forum that gains credibility to the same extent as a journal will undoubtedly be subjected to a similar proliferation in garbage data and discussions and even with machine filtering the clarity of distinguishing between acceptable work and other work will be blurred, biased by groups and so on. If this is hard to believe remember Schon at Bell labs whose work took a long time to pick up even with supposedly the highest quality peer review. And there is almost certainly buckets more of that around that has yet to be uncovered. In our own internal assessments of journal papers from top journals, we realized there is a lot of questionable data and assessment that are at least ambiguous.
  The other practical aspects involve the natural conflict between the idealization of science and pragmatic realization that funding is driven by commercial gain and other motives – therefore, the ability to publish openly, especially in a more obvious area such as medicine is highly conflicted and most of the substantial breakthroughs are being made behind closed doors. Potentially much of what may appear in open science today may in fact already have been done elsewhere in a company laboratory.
  Increasingly, there are serious defence issues as the science of mass destruction becomes more accessible to anyone – we see this leading to significant attempts to restrict technology to overseas people for example ( we are all familiar now with the restrictions on people of Iranian background for example). Again, in medical oriented areas this involves the work with lethal pathogens – stopping the publication of the artificially fabricated virus is a recent example. There was an incredible naivety of the scientists to assume scientists were good judges and that they all act in good faith underlying the debate of that particular issue.
  In theory I support the call – but in practice, it needs substantial and careful thinking if the exercise is not to sink into yet another political tool that ultimately does not achieve the noble aspirations of its champions.
  
  8 months ago report
3. Craig Motbey
  
  PhD candidate in Psychopharmacology at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Alex O. Holcombe
  
  There may be other issues with animal research, however. Fully public access to animal study notes could result in groups like PETA using out-of-context images in their advertising campaigns and, worse than that, allow the psychotic nutters of groups like NIO to extend their campaigns of harassment and violence.
  
  The current closed-access scientific publishing system is a parasitic dinosaur that actively retards scientific progress, and the sooner it dies the better. It is entirely within our technical…
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  There may be other issues with animal research, however. Fully public access to animal study notes could result in groups like PETA using out-of-context images in their advertising campaigns and, worse than that, allow the psychotic nutters of groups like NIO to extend their campaigns of harassment and violence.
  
  The current closed-access scientific publishing system is a parasitic dinosaur that actively retards scientific progress, and the sooner it dies the better. It is entirely within our technical ability to create a single database, freely available to the world, of every piece of research ever published, cross-referenced and hyperlinked into an incredibly valuable resource. There is no sensible reason not to do it.
  
  I like the idea of taking it further; there's certainly a lot to be said for enhancing collaboration. However, there would be resistance, particularly from fast-moving areas of research where the competition is fierce.
  
  In my field (and others), there's a great deal of pressure to work fast and get there first: multiple teams work in parallel on the same questions. There's always a fear of being "scooped", and people are protective of their data as a result. But I would certainly appreciate having access to the knowledge of a few statisticians and chemists on a regular basis, and I've often got "spare" data that could potentially yield a paper with careful analysis that I don't always have time to do.
  
  Opening things up to a substantially greater degree than just the open-access journal model is going to significantly shift the forces at play within the scientific enterprise. If we're going to do it, we need to consider and prepare for the consequences of that.
  
  8 months ago report
Christopher Stevenson

Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Deakin University

In principle I fully support the idea that data arising from publicly funded research (eg via ARC or NHMRC grants) should be made freely available. However, we need to be careful how we implement this. I work in epidemiology and public health. The major data sources for our work include population surveys and clinical studies which include highly sensitive personal data provided to us on the basis of strict confidentiality. The release of raw data from these studies would be a violation of the study subjects’ trust. There are ways of making data less identifiable, but these also reduce the useability of the data for detailed analysis. Also, it is already difficult to recruit people into clinical trials and population health studies. If people knew that their personal data would be made generally available it would be even more difficult to find people willing to take part in such studies.

8 months ago report
1. Alex O. Holcombe
  
  Associate Professor, School of Psychology, and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Christopher Stevenson
  
  Agreed. To handle such cases, I have heard about the idea (perhaps from Dan Simons?) of escrow accounts for data. With such a system, ethically sensitive data would be held by a third party who would share it to authorised scientists. In the current system, some journals such as those published by PLoS require that (de-identified) data be shared with other researchers, as a condition of publication. However, follow-up studies have revealed that the authors of those published studies, when contacted, rarely share the data even though they are required to. We need some way to guarantee compliance, and a third party (escrow) is one idea. Of course, for many studies such as those on rats, on electronics, and the environment, these ethical issues fortunately do not arise.
  
  8 months ago report
2. Matthew Todd
  
  School of Chemistry at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Christopher Stevenson
  
  Yes, this is an important point. I believe people better placed to comment are looking at this, e.g. Jon Wilbanks at Sage and his Portable Legal Consent idea: http://www.nature.com/news/open-data-project-aims-to-ease-the-way-for-genomic-research-1.10507
  
  8 months ago report
3. Chris Booker
  
  Research scientist
  
  In reply to Christopher Stevenson
  
  These problems of identifiable information are not insurmountable. I would say definitely upon publication submission of raw data should be mandatory. Obviously for human-subjects research this gets trickier with the need to maintain anonymity, but I don't think we should baulk at the idea and not pursue it.
  
  8 months ago report
Chris Booker

Research scientist

This is fantastic, I'm all for it. I really believe we need a complete overhaul of the way science is published - the current models are simply no longer working (or never were, it's not clear which given, ironically, there's no research on it)

8 months ago report
1. John Canning
  
  Professor at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Chris Booker
  
  In this open letter to the ARC Director, our colleagues have called for a similar consideration given to open publications also be given to “open science” – a term used to describe the supposed sharing of data from the bench worldwide. To justify their call, they provided some interesting and good examples of where some apparently useful results were obtained and demonstrate the potential for even citizens to participate. Certainly this latter aspect, where it is done with a different motivation…
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  In this open letter to the ARC Director, our colleagues have called for a similar consideration given to open publications also be given to “open science” – a term used to describe the supposed sharing of data from the bench worldwide. To justify their call, they provided some interesting and good examples of where some apparently useful results were obtained and demonstrate the potential for even citizens to participate. Certainly this latter aspect, where it is done with a different motivation to open access, is to be commended and encouraged and there are indeed some projects, particularly in astronomy and where large amounts of “safe” data need analysis, that are well suited for this.
  However, there are inherent problems with this ideology when linking it to open access which have been completely overlooked in the letter, not the least of which assumes research communicates of all kinds are essentially good-willed and predisposed to such openness, even before they have analysed their own data. Open science is not the same as open access and the two should not be conflated – open access has a filtering process, based on peer review, that is critical to addressing many of the concerns open science claims to address (arguably the concept of open science is what probably triggered journals in the first place but pragmatism brought in peer review and care). Whilst there are certainly problems with publications (and have and always will be), they do stem from a desire to communicate robustly data and information – it is the community members which determine the success or failure of a model.
  I will therefore list specific points of contention that must be considered before any serious discussion can go ahead on this topic:
  (1) Peer review – the reason why journals, including open ones, have peer review is in fact to partially address the concerns being used to justify openness. Peer review is supposed to ensure that the work published in a journal is sufficiently detailed enough to allow a reasonably well trained expert in the field to reproduce published work. The failure to do so is a reflection on a weakness of the human condition and a need to improve peer review and referees qualities, rather than reflecting a need for a new system. The references cited are indicative of a weakness of review not of the idea behind it.
  (2) The rise of mediocrity and banality - If there was no peer review and data was indiscriminately dumped into repositories given the same weight as journal papers, then it is clear that they would be overwhelmed with considerable rubbish including analysis. Journals already experience this to unprecedented levels as more funding bodies demand publications in them. Peer review suffers from poor referees and work overload. The use of machines to help deal with this assumes a level of sophistication that can outwit some of the bright minds in science that have always benefited by manipulating data – e.g. it is highly unlikely a high profile highly intelligent, subversive such as Schon would have been defeated by this approach; rather arguably strengthened by the flexibility offered.
  (3) Does open science favour mediocre scientists who would otherwise be unable to generate similar quality of data as much as favouring those who would otherwise not have access to the tools that generate such data? How do we contain mediocrity from diluting repositories?
  (4) The fundamental conflict between funding motives and ideology raises numerous challenges. The ARC is founded on principles of undertaking exploratory research and providing a large degree of freedom for creativity and originality with the ultimate aim being the underlying principle that such creativity generates wealth for the nation. In this day and age when the diminishment of one country’s science and technology is led by rapid transfer of know-how and data, we also have serious economic and political interests to consider. Australia as a small country has both benefited from this and lost from this – for example, we punch above our weight in science despite relatively small investments because we do interact globally and openly, but we do terribly in the utilisation of this science and technology for the benefit of our citizens with much being done outside the country often without our engagement. By contrast, other countries that do not have the same quality of work gain tremendously by accessing data and knowledge from here – open science would literally accelerate this and make its utilisation even more clandestine and difficult for Australia to participate. Other examples include:
  - The ability to publish openly, especially in a more obvious area such as medicine is highly conflicted by commercial sources of funding and most of the substantial breakthroughs are being made behind closed doors. Potentially much of what may appear in open science today may in fact already have been done elsewhere in a company laboratory – that is always tragic but in the age of large laboratory research in the Untied States that was in fact common, for example. It is almost certain a new similar age of corporate research is going to appear in Asia.
  - Increasingly, there are serious defence issues as the science of mass destruction becomes more accessible to anyone – we see this leading to significant attempts to restrict technology to overseas people for example ( we are all familiar now with the restrictions on people of Iranian background for example). Again, in medical oriented areas this involves the work with lethal pathogens – stopping the publication of the artificially fabricated virus is a recent example. There was an incredible naivety of the scientists to assume scientists were good judges and that they all act in good faith underlying the debate of that particular issue.
  (5) There are other serious issues including privacy of data when it involves matters of a sensitive nature.
  (6) The reality is researchers from around the world DO NOT share common principles of openness and collaboration. Funding agencies all over the world have similar interests at their core as the ARC does. The bigger problem of how research is funded on the basis of very tough competition and uncertain employment is what generates the very existence of silos mentioned by our colleagues – if all Australian researchers got together and published a paper with 30 000 authors who would get the funding amongst them? These reflect that even within Australia collaboration is tainted by the need to compete for funds, in the absence of permanent positions, so simply having open science is not going to get rid of this; rather the motivation to manipulate and taint open science could actually favour the disingenuous and the clever manipulators. Put this on a global scale and the problem is potentially unprecedented.
  There are many more aspects that need consideration but the above quickly highlights the philosophical challenges to open science. It is in its present form noble but lacking in pragmatism. The open science debate is important for other reasons which are more global in context and encompass many, many other issues. Without addressing the issues holistically it will be like many political mantras – favouring some and disadvantaging others, usually the good will folk.
  So let’s not rush into anything without serious thought and review - by all means call for an open enquiry in the meantime.
  
  8 months ago report
2. trevor prowse
  
  retired farmer
  
  In reply to Chris Booker
  
  Where science involves a later stage of patent rights , I can not see scientists freely giving out their notes. Where it involves public funding alone , then the question arises as to what stage information is released. I have visited agricultural departments , universities, agricultural research stations , the CSIRO all around Australia . My experience in most cases , wonderful cooperation. In some case great progress was made. I think in nearly all contacts, I did not report the results which probably gave scientists more freedom to discuss their work..In plant breeding the technology involves buying parts of the means to conduct that research. Public research has been reduced because of the cost, so joint research has been the only way public research could continue. This complicates the availability to report or devulge the methods and results. In plant breeding ,the sharing of information between scientists has been productive.
  
  8 months ago report
Richard Helmer

REsearch Engineer

in principle this is what happens and is indeed what i personally practice most within my limits...the time scale is perhaps curently long and level of filtering high... is this good/bad...not sure?... digital communciations are drastically increasing the system speed, facilitating new collaboration, and so addressing some aspects of the productivity of the system as a whole... in general, once reliable/accepted methods of measurement are achieved 'science' [sic method] starts to become algorithmic…
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in principle this is what happens and is indeed what i personally practice most within my limits...the time scale is perhaps curently long and level of filtering high... is this good/bad...not sure?... digital communciations are drastically increasing the system speed, facilitating new collaboration, and so addressing some aspects of the productivity of the system as a whole... in general, once reliable/accepted methods of measurement are achieved 'science' [sic method] starts to become algorithmic which is possibly where digital data will go...and indeed is a theme of some aspects of my work

anyway...the use of the word 'should' seeks to push the argument in a particular direction that gives me moment for pause... i "would " probably prefer to reserve the right to that which is shared and that which is not...a bit like what i do with my artisitc works [?] and jokes [?] and social media...but i guess we live in the era of wiki leaks ...so if its digital [as much science data is] it can move very quickly...i suspect this will take on a life of its own

finally, i remain a fan of the orchestra where there is groups of people playing a variety of parts, some the same, to fill out the sound and fill in when someone goes missing...the different orchestras help to shape a collective music sphere

best of luck

8 months ago report
Christopher Stevenson

Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Deakin University

Another issue to consider is who would fund the maintenance and distribution of research data. Preparing data for open access and maintaining the resultant database are not trivial or cost-free exercises. How would we fund them? On the one hand, you could make it a user-pays exercise, but then data would only be available to researchers with the spare cash to purchase them. On the other hand, we could insist that ARC/NHMRC properly fund data distribution with each grant they fund. However, as we know, both ARC and NHMRC do not have anywhere near enough money to fund all the worthwhile projects submitted to them. So how many fewer funded research projects would we be willing to have in order to pay for data to be made freely available?

8 months ago report
1. John Canning
  
  Professor at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Christopher Stevenson
  
  Yes indeed. Open access is upwards of 2K these days in science and 5K in Nature - and growing. Assuming most good researchers published between 3 and 10 papers a year, that is a considerable cost that is simply not covered by existing funding agencies. Repositories of data will no doubt be looking at similar levels.
  
  8 months ago report
2. Alex O. Holcombe
  
  Associate Professor, School of Psychology, and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to John Canning
  
  Christopher: fortunately the Australian government has already been providing, through channels separate from the ARC, considerable funding for data infrastructure. I hope someone familiar with those initiatives and resources can comment on that. For my part, most recently we posted our data and code in the university web-accessible erepository, with no fuss. Although certainly the cost is not trivial, that infrastructure is needed anyway for disseminating other things. John: it's true that most…
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  Christopher: fortunately the Australian government has already been providing, through channels separate from the ARC, considerable funding for data infrastructure. I hope someone familiar with those initiatives and resources can comment on that. For my part, most recently we posted our data and code in the university web-accessible erepository, with no fuss. Although certainly the cost is not trivial, that infrastructure is needed anyway for disseminating other things. John: it's true that most journals charge more than $2K but it can be done much cheaper now, it seems. For example, Ubiquity Publishing uses a open-source publishing platform that has matured over the years and allows it to charge only several hundred per article or less. Relative to the amounts our libraries pay for subscriptions to these journals, there is considerable cost savings to be realised by flipping the model to paying for publication, although it won't be easy to get there. Also note that PLoS journals publish articles for free by those authors who don't have money to pay, and yet remain in the black at $1350 for PLoS ONE.
  
  8 months ago report
3. John Canning
  
  Professor at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Alex O. Holcombe
  
  That is true - in our field the closest one is perhaps ArXiv which is a repository that is in fact free (and the quality is surprisingly good overall - I suspect in part because its not formally recognized by anyone and has no impact factor so it hasn't yet been swamped by the masses!). Depending on your community it is taken seriously and cited or it is ignored. It also has periodic debates on how to sustain itself and is currently supported by one institution so it will need to eventually charge I suspect. It is also not ranked making it vulnerable perhaps in terms of ongoing support. I totally agree the costs should not be as much as they are but for the major impact journals they largely are - not sure about PLoS and where its funding comes from but its a very interesting case indeed especially if its doing well on a sustainable basis.
  
  8 months ago report
Kim Flintoff

logged in via Facebook

Much of this can already be enabled via the ANDS and NECTAR. The cloud services support for data sharing are already in place. Open Access data should be seen as the future of research, as should crowdsourced expertise and analysis...

8 months ago report
1. Matthew Todd
  
  School of Chemistry at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Kim Flintoff
  
  Indeed, we're trying to work these resources into what we're doing. NECTAR in particular could be a very useful place for online electronic lab notebooks.
  
  8 months ago report
rory robertson

rory robertson is a Friend of The Conversation.

former fattie

Good on you Alex and Matthew, for pushing towards a more transparent and collaborative scientific process. I agree. But it would be good if your University of Sydney could get the basics right first. Like up versus down, the difference between valid and invalid indicators, and the need to correct published errors. In particular, my concern is that two of the University of Sydney's highest-profile scientists have published eye-popping errors - driving a spectacularly false and somewhat dangerous…
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Good on you Alex and Matthew, for pushing towards a more transparent and collaborative scientific process. I agree. But it would be good if your University of Sydney could get the basics right first. Like up versus down, the difference between valid and invalid indicators, and the need to correct published errors. In particular, my concern is that two of the University of Sydney's highest-profile scientists have published eye-popping errors - driving a spectacularly false and somewhat dangerous scientific observation - yet the authors and the University of Sydney have repeatedly refused to correct the obvious errors, leaving a critical public-health debate hopelessly misinformed: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/Sept2012-Conversations.pdf .

Sorry to barge into the second day of your discussion, Alex and Matthew, but public forums on publicly funded science research are the obvious and appropriate place for unresolved issues such as this to be discussed. Apologies also to those already aware of this dispute.

To be upfront from the outset, I am arguing near and far for the correction or retraction of the University of Sydney's high-profile "Australian Paradox" paper. In my opinion, the deeply flawed paper is both an academic disgrace and a menace to public health. For those interested in the key facts, check out Slides 8-10, 17, 38-44 and 46 at http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/AUSTRALIAN-PARADOX-101-SLIDESHOW.pdf .

In the past six months, no-one has put a dent in my claim that the paper is dominated by serious factual errors and a spectacularly false conclusion. Importantly, in over three months, no-one from the University of Sydney nor anywhere else has come close to picking up the $40,000 cash - or the published apologies in national newspapers - offered in my AUSTRALIAN PARADOX CHALLENGE to University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence in June: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/SydneyUniVC%20LETTER070612.pdf .

And it's not just me who thinks the paper's analysis is lightweight and its conclusion false. Dr Rosemary Stanton (Slide 23), Professor Boyd Swinburn (Slide 24), Professor Robert Lustig (Slide 25), and high-profile Australian government nutritionist Chris Forbes-Ewan have publicly agreed that the University of Sydney scientists have seriously misinformed the public-health debate.

Amusingly, the latter recently performed a spectacular backflip in his assessment of the paper (Slide 27), while one of the authors has - after the publication of the paper - publicly contradicted the paper's main conclusion (Slide 26).

Unreasonably, the University of Sydney refuses to address the paper's simple but dominating errors: to recap, the authors clownishly confused up with down in their own published chart (Slide 9) and drew their spectacularly false conclusion from a preferred series based on an official dataset that was discontinued as unreliable by the Australian Statistician a decade before the disputed paper was published (Slide 10).

Yet the University dismisses criticism of its marketing of false facts in an important public-health debate with an arrogant wave of the hand: “If you wish to engage me again on this topic, please do so by sending me a reprint of a publication that you have had accepted by a peer reviewed journal”

That’s rather a rather silly and circular position: I've documented very clearly that University of Sydney scientists have published an extraordinarily faulty paper – via a peer-review process that was an extraordinary failure (Slide 36) – only to be told by the University that it will not consider my concerns about the disturbing failure of the peer-review process until my claim is peer reviewed and published! What a farce.

The University of Sydney even has taken to pretending that quality control involved “internationally accepted standard practice”, when it must know that the influential lead author and the "Guest Editor" of the relevant edition of the publishing journal are the same person! Is that really standard practice? (http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/Sept2012-Conversations.pdf )

BACKGROUND: The University of Sydney's Dr Alan Barclay and Professor Jennie Brand-Miller have published charts of FIVE different indicators of (added) sugar consumption, with FOUR of them trending upwards - not downwards - in the relevant 1980-2010 timeframe (Slides 12-19 at http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/AUSTRALIAN-PARADOX-101-SLIDESHOW.pdf ).

So it’s hard to conclude down rather than up, especially when the only series actually consistent with the authors' long-time pet story of a 30-year downtrend in sugar consumption turns out to be based on a dataset discontinued as unreliable by the ABS after 1998-99. What a blunder!

Thus the so-called "Australian Paradox" - “an inverse relationship” between sugar consumption and obesity - collapses the moment the available facts are properly assessed by any objective observer. That is, there is no "Australian Paradox", just a couple of high-profile University of Sydney scientists who have failed to pay attention to the readily available facts in their own published charts.

There certainly seems to be plenty of negligence involved. My favourite example was when the “scientists” – under scrutiny from an economist and a high-profile journalist – claimed falsely in their rebuttal that cars not humans have been consuming up to 14kg pp pa of the available sugar via the rapid growth of ethanol production. Yet a 10-minute Internet search reveals the true answer to be zero, as raw sugar is not used in ethanol production in Australia. (These are two of Australia’s highest-profile scientists!) But instead of conceding the point, the authors simply deleted the made-up false claim and rushed to publish “Australian Paradox Revisited”, which largely just restated the original false conclusions rather than dealing with the highlighted serious errors.

Again, all this is documented on Slides 8-10, 17 and 38-44 at http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/AUSTRALIAN-PARADOX-101-SLIDESHOW.pdf .

My concern is that the deeply flawed "Australian Paradox" paper's spectacular false conclusion - “an inverse relationship” between (added) sugar consumption and obesity - is having a very unhealthy influence on what ordinary Australians - seeking to be healthy - are being encouraged to eat (Slide 46).

That is, with the Australian Paradox paper in the background, the Heart Foundation and the prestigious University of Sydney explicitly give added sugar a pretty clear run into our bellies and those of our children, via trusted Ticks and Stamps. If the consumption of unnaturally high levels of added sugar/fructose year after year - decade after decade - is a key driver of the Australian and global obesity and diabetes epidemics – as very likely it is - then Australian Paradox is contributing to that growing public-health disaster (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all ).

Did I mention the University of Sydney's profound but undisclosed conflict of interest in this matter? (Slide 50 and http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/Sept2012-Conversations.pdf )

For now, we are left with the problem that everyday Australians look to the University of Sydney - and other publicly funded research entities - for reliable information on health matters, yet the University seems relaxed about its marketing of high-profile misinformation on the links between sugar consumption, obesity and diabetes.

In my opinion, “diabesity” is the most important public-health issue of our time, so the University of Sydney should correct the high-profile misinformation it has promoted in this critical public debate, without further unreasonable delay.

Readers, please look at the facts in the links above. If you agree that I have a good case, please do what you can to encourage the University to correct the public record.

Conversely, if you think I'm the one being unreasonable - maybe you think I'm a clueless idiot - please be very critical of me in comments below.

8 months ago report
1. John Canning
  
  Professor at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to rory robertson
  
  Hi Rory, interesting controversy you've raised - would open science make it worse or better? The main criticism I have of graphs 3 and 4 is that you don't mention they are averages for two or three particular years only. Solely focusing on these, it's always a bit risky to go beyond anything more than a speculative statement about correlation (up or down) based on graphs that have only two or three data points! Perhaps all the years in between its been oscillating wildly in keeping with solar oscillations driving an increased thirst for sugar products and everyone has got it wrong?? How do you want to pay me the 40K???
  
  8 months ago report
2. rory robertson
  
  rory robertson is a Friend of The Conversation.
  
  former fattie
  
  In reply to John Canning
  
  Thanks for your response, Professor Canning. I'm not sure if "open science" would have made this situation worse or better. What I do know for sure, however, is that simple scrutiny of basic facts shredded the credibility of the highest-profile paper ever written by the University of Sydney's highest-profile nutrition scientists. The Australian Paradox paper, in my opinion, is an academic disgrace.
  
  Professor Canning, I absolutely agree with you that "...it's always a bit risky to go beyond…
  Read more
  
  Thanks for your response, Professor Canning. I'm not sure if "open science" would have made this situation worse or better. What I do know for sure, however, is that simple scrutiny of basic facts shredded the credibility of the highest-profile paper ever written by the University of Sydney's highest-profile nutrition scientists. The Australian Paradox paper, in my opinion, is an academic disgrace.
  
  Professor Canning, I absolutely agree with you that "...it's always a bit risky to go beyond anything more than a speculative statement about correlation (up or down) based on graphs that have only two or three data points!". Yes, given the available data in their own published charts, your University of Sydney colleagues' published claims seem to reflect negligence bordering on recklessness (http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/AUSTRALIAN-PARADOX-101-SLIDESHOW.pdf ).
  
  That is, how on earth on the basis of their own five published charts - FOUR pointing up (reproduced as my Slides 12-15) and one pointing down but DISCONTINUED AS UNRELIABLE (my Slide 10) - did the University of Sydney's Dr Alan Barclay and Professor Jennie Brand-Miller think it reasonable to conclude (with a straight face):
  
  "This analysis of apparent consumption, national dietary surveys and food industry data indicates a consistent and substantial DECLINE in total refined or added sugar consumption by Australians over the past 30 years"?
  
  Four datasets point UP, one points down but was DISCONTINUED AS UNRELIABLE over a decade before the disputed paper's publication, yet the authors claim "The findings confirm an 'Australian Paradox' - a substantial DECLINE in refined sugars intake over the same timeframe that obesity has increased"! Huh?
  
  The misreading of simple charts is eye-popping. Looking at a data series for sales of sugary softdrinks that increases by 30% between 1994 and 2006, Dr Alan Barclay and Professor Jennie Brand-Miller insist that the series "decreased by 10%" (my Slide 9).
  
  Yes, the TREND in sales of sugary softdrinks between 1994 and 2006 was UP. No surprise there. The particular rise in this case is 30%. Fine. Yet the authors claim down! By 10%. Both lines in that Slide 9 clearly trend up but the authors insist the top line trends down? That's bizarre. At the very least, the authors needed to publish a correction that replaced "decreased by 10%" with "increased by 30%".
  
  But alas, when challenged, the authors rushed off to publish a rebuttal claiming that their paper contains no errors.
  
  That rebuttal process - featuring the University of Sydney scientists' refusal to admit or even address obvious factual errors in a published scientific paper - was clownish and possibly fraudulent.
  
  To recap, under scrutiny from an economist and a high-profile journalist, Dr Alan Barclay and Professor Jennie Brand-Miller claimed falsely in their rebuttal that cars not humans have been consuming up to 14kg pp pa of the available sugar via the rapid growth of ethanol production. Yet a 10-minute Internet search reveals the true answer to be zero, as raw sugar is not used in ethanol production in Australia. (These are two of Australia’s highest-profile scientists!) But instead of conceding the point, the authors simply deleted the made-up false claim and rushed to publish “Australian Paradox Revisited”, which largely just restated the original false conclusions rather than dealing with the highlighted serious errors. (All this is documented on Slides 38-44.)
  
  So sorry, Professor Canning, the $40,000 cash remains unearned. As all who look at this issue can see, it's on offer but not at risk. That is, the four valid indicators of sugar consumption - imperfect as they are, and all trending up as they do - obviously do NOT support the University of Sydney's (false) claim of a "consistent and substantial decline" in the relevant 1980 to 2010 timeframe.
  
  In my opinion, the key question is WHY the exact moment in March that Dr Alan Barclay and Professor Jennie Brand-Miller agreed with each other that it was time to quietly retract/delete without acknowledgement their false made-up claim about ethanol production/cars consuming a big chunk of the available sugar, somehow was NOT also the right moment to agree to formally correct or retract their error-ridden Australian Paradox paper?
  
  The unreasonable delay in removing the clearly false but supposedly twice-verified claim of an “Australian Paradox!" - an extraordinary "inverse relationship" between sugar consumption and obesity - from the scientific record - and the public debate - increasingly has reasonable people wondering when a series of inadvertent errors deliberately left uncorrected becomes scientific fraud? (Slides 43 and 44)
  
  I'm hoping that readers to whom it is obvious that the Australian Paradox paper is embarrassingly faulty will join my efforts to have it corrected or retracted. How about it Professor Canning? How about you and other hardworking scientists with integrity at the University of Sydney stepping up together to encourage the University to correct the public record on this serious public-health matter? (Slide 46)
  
  I haven't made much of the University of Sydney's profound but undisclosed conflict of interest in this matter (Slide 50) but it is possible that the University is struggling to balance:
  
  # its desire to maintain a high standard of academic and scientific integrity in its research; against
  # its desire to maintain and grow the low-GI enterprise to which its Australian Paradox authors are devoted.
  
  Whatever the case, it's a very bad look. If University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence – who unwisely has vouched for the veracity of this deeply flawed study (Slide 28) – turns out to be unable or unwilling to fix this mess, I’ll increasingly be urging a cut in the University of Sydney’s public research subsidies and a public investigation into this Australian Paradox fiasco.
  
  8 months ago report
3. John Canning
  
  Professor at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to rory robertson
  
  Hi Rory, I am not a nutrition expert to comment on the article - in general statistical correlations can be a touchy subject when topics are somewhat subjective and you need to understand these. I am certainly not an expert on how nutrition research is undertaken and I am sure you know more about the dangers of correlations having worked at the RBA! I merely made reference from a hard science perspective to the use of the plots since you offered 40K to anyone who could point out an error in your own case! Saying that the data trends upwards is to me as equally invalid as saying it trends downwards - so I reckon you owe me 40K!
  
  8 months ago report
4. rory robertson
  
  rory robertson is a Friend of The Conversation.
  
  former fattie
  
  In reply to John Canning
  
  G'day again, John. This Australian Paradox dispute is not about nutrition or science, so there's no need to be sheepish about not being an "expert". This is a dispute about simple empirical facts. It is a dispute about what those five sets of data - some valid, some invalid - reveal; those five sets of data sitting there unacknowledged by the authors in the authors' own published charts.
  
  John, if you were inclined to say, "The quality of the available data is rather poor so we cannot conclude…
  Read more
  
  G'day again, John. This Australian Paradox dispute is not about nutrition or science, so there's no need to be sheepish about not being an "expert". This is a dispute about simple empirical facts. It is a dispute about what those five sets of data - some valid, some invalid - reveal; those five sets of data sitting there unacknowledged by the authors in the authors' own published charts.
  
  John, if you were inclined to say, "The quality of the available data is rather poor so we cannot conclude with confidence whether the real underlying trend in sugar consumption is up or down", then I would not jump up and down. I would say "fair enough". But to be "fair dinkum" you would then go the next step and say, "The University of Sydney's (false) claim of a 'SUBSTANTIAL AND CONSISTENT DECLINE' in sugar consumption over the past 30 years has no basis in fact".
  
  John, you owe nothing to your underperforming colleagues. Perhaps you could be supportive of my clearly correct view that the Australian Paradox paper should be corrected or retracted? After all, as you say, the evidence does not support Dr Barclay and Professor Brand Miller's published (false) claim of a "consistent and substantial decline".
  
  Importantly, the need for correction is acute given that the paper has become a menace to public health (Slide 46). And then there's the rather troubling fact that the authors' various false claims on sugar consumption (Slides 48 and 49) all - by coincidence? - tend to be supportive of revenues flowing to the University of Sydney's low-GI-stamping enterprise (Slide 50).
  
  John, my critique of the Australian Paradox paper highlights the particular problems in the data (Slide 38), and the fact that a "SUBSTANTIAL DECLINE" between 1980 and 2010 is a completely unreasonable characterisation of the facts.
  
  The disputed Australian Paradox paper clearly has a spectacularly false conclusion. Moreover, Australian Paradox Revisited features that same false conclusion. And yet these papers were "peer reviewed" and published in a pay-as-you-publish E-journal for which the influential University of Sydney lead author was the "Guest Editor". How? Whatever happened to competent and objective quality control?
  
  Has an influential lead author wearing an Editor's hat ever decided: “Sorry, but my paper is full of serious errors culminating in a spectacularly false conclusion, so I’ve decided to junk it rather than publish it”?
  
  Why is the University of Sydney's Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) now pretending that quality control involved “internationally accepted standard practice”, when we now all know that the lead author and the Guest Editor are the same person? Is that really standard practice? (Along the same lines, Dr Evil once claimed that his rather non-standard childhood was "pretty standard".)
  
  Yes, John, the quality of the available information is less than ideal. But let's not just ignore it. The available facts are far from worthless - they actually tell a fairly consistent and credible story. In summary:
  
  (i) All FOUR valid data series illustrated in the authors' own charts point UP not down (my Slides 12-15).
  
  (ii) The national nutrition information showing the estimated intake of sugars by children - Total, Sugary products, Confectionary, Non-alcoholic beverages, and Cereal-based products and dishes - points UNAMBIGOUSLY up not down (Slide 18).
  
  (iii) The trend in per-capita sugar imports clearly is up not down (Slide 20).
  
  (iv) Moreover, John, both you and I were alive 30 years ago. Does anyone else remember what the insides of our grocery stores, service stations and cafes/convenience stores looked like in the 1960s and 1970s before they were filled with today's extraordinary variety of local and imported foods and drinks infused with heaps of sugar? It is very clear - to me at least - that sugary junkfoods - like softdrinks and fruitjuices, breakfast cereals, biscuits, snack bars, flavoured yoghurts, not to mention chocolates, lollies, icecream and many other processed foods - are taking up more shelf-space now than they were 30 years ago. Maybe everyone today is "just looking"? Yeah, right.
  
  UP seems much more likely than down, John, so I think you are stretching it with "Saying that the data trends upwards is to me as equally invalid as saying it trends downwards". John, only the data series that was discontinued as unreliable points down. And we know why it points down. It's the same reason it was discontinued as unreliable: For decades the ABS had struggled to know how much added sugar was contained in the rapidly expanding varieties of sugar-laden imports of bakery products, confectionary, soft-drinks, cordial and syrup, processed fruit and vegetables, and “other processed foods”. After a detailed feasibility study, a reliable count was assessed as impossible - given ABS resources - because increasingly the sugar arrived already mixed into tens of thousands of food and drink imports. (To confirm all that, an experienced ABS officer is available on 02 6252 5337, as documented on that final data release; Slide 19.)
  
  Bottom line, John, is that your colleagues Dr Barclay and Professor Brand-Miller owe the Mums and Dad and kids of Australia a correction of their spectacularly sloppy pro-sugar paper. A "consistent and substantial decline in total refined or added sugar consumption by Australians over the past 30 years". What a joke.
  
  And if Dr Barclay and Professor Brand-Miller think I am wrong in my harsh criticism of their negligent - and possibly fraudulent - analysis, then they should stop reading this Conversation in their offices, press "Reply" and answer credibly the awkward questions that need answers: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/8-QUESTIONS-FOR-AWB-&-JBM-BANNED.pdf .
  
  They will not, John, I predict with confidence.
  
  Further, the University of Sydney's senior management should stop embarrassing itself with its lame, disingenuous defence of the indefensible: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/Sept2012-Conversations.pdf .
  
  Instead, the University of Sydney's senior management should end this troubling episode by insisting that Dr Barclay and Professor Brand-Miller correct or retract their "shonky sugar study".
  
  John, I'm assume you were joking when you reckoned I now owe you that 40k. After all, Australian Paradox still stands before us a spectacularly faulty paper, a paper dominated by serious errors and a false conclusion, a paper that should have been strangled at birth, yet one that survived to become both an academic disgrace and a menace to public health.
  
  Actually, I have given you something better than cash, John. By explaining to you in detail the extreme negligence involved in the production of the faulty paper and its ham-fisted defence, you now have the inside running on being the first Professor of Science from the University of Sydney to hold his/her head high and state the obvious: the Australian Paradox paper should be corrected or retracted.
  
  How about it John? After all, this is the sort of sub-standard publicly funded research that annoys taxpayers and brings Universities - in this case, your University of Sydney - into disrepute.
  
  As I mentioned earlier, to the extent that the deeply flawed paper is not corrected, I’ll increasingly be arguing that public research subsidies paid to the University of Sydney should be reduced substantially. After all, taxpayers are unlikely to be keen to continue to subsidise research at a University that publishes, republishes and then refuses to correct factually incorrect conclusions that survive - attached to the prestigious University’s badge of credibility – to become a menace to their own health and that of their children (slide 46).
  
  8 months ago report
5. rory robertson
  
  rory robertson is a Friend of The Conversation.
  
  former fattie
  
  In reply to John Canning
  
  John, it was good of you to engage with me. I'm grateful for your time. My dispute is not with you, but with those who unwisely have vouched for the veracity of the deeply flawed Australian Paradox papers and processes. Best wishes, Rory
  
  8 months ago report
6. Sean Lamb
  
  Science Denier
  
  In reply to rory robertson
  
  Mr Robertson, I also read your contributions on retractionwatch, so I will respond to both here.
  
  You may be right about sugar consumption, you probably are for I know or care. But the scientific literature is packed with papers that reach the wrong conclusions, being wrong is generally not grounds for retraction or anything else. It is an invitation for someone to submit a better study.
  One researcher estimated that 80% of medical studies were wrong (presumably not including his own)
  http…
  Read more
  
  Mr Robertson, I also read your contributions on retractionwatch, so I will respond to both here.
  
  You may be right about sugar consumption, you probably are for I know or care. But the scientific literature is packed with papers that reach the wrong conclusions, being wrong is generally not grounds for retraction or anything else. It is an invitation for someone to submit a better study.
  One researcher estimated that 80% of medical studies were wrong (presumably not including his own)
  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/
  So the fact that Brand-Miller may have written a bad paper is nothing extraordinary or unusual. What would have been extraordinary and unusual is she had not written a bad paper.
  
  I don't know what denouement you are expecting from your campaign, but I can guarantee you are going to be disappointed. You would be better served focusing your commendable fructose-free energy into alternative avenues to pursue your interest in nutrition.
  
  8 months ago report
7. rory robertson
  
  rory robertson is a Friend of The Conversation.
  
  former fattie
  
  In reply to Sean Lamb
  
  Sean, I'm amazed that you like many others have defended the disputed paper on the basis that heaps of published papers are sloppy with false conclusions. If all the "scientists" behind Australian Paradox had done was write a sloppy academic paper and publish it in an obscure and little-respected pay-as-you-publish E-journal, Sean, I wouldn't have noticed.
  
  But Australian Paradox is not some obscure factually incorrect study that would not have seen the light of day but for me. In fact, the Heart…
  Read more
  
  Sean, I'm amazed that you like many others have defended the disputed paper on the basis that heaps of published papers are sloppy with false conclusions. If all the "scientists" behind Australian Paradox had done was write a sloppy academic paper and publish it in an obscure and little-respected pay-as-you-publish E-journal, Sean, I wouldn't have noticed.
  
  But Australian Paradox is not some obscure factually incorrect study that would not have seen the light of day but for me. In fact, the Heart Foundation, Diabetes Australia, Nutrition Australia and the Dietitians Association of Australia all seem to have drawn false comfort from the paper's mistaken conclusion of "an inverse relationship" between sugar consumption and obesity. In turn, these entities unfortunately have tended to misinform many of those countless Australians who have made contact seeking reliable nutrition and health advice.
  
  Notably, the authors of Australian Paradox appear to be Australia's leading academic defenders of added sugar in food as harmless:
  # http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/a-spoonful-of-sugar-is-not-so-bad/story-e6frg8y6-1226090126776
  # http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/war-over-sweet-nothings/story-e6frg8y6-1226261140744
  # http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/weight-a-minute-dont-blame-sugar/story-fn59niix-1226080214264
  # http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/disgust-at-claims-sugar-as-dangerous-as-alcohol/story-e6frg8y6-1226260002393
  # http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/how-hard-can-it-be-to-cut-sugar-20100630-zmvt.html
  
  At the same time, Dr Barclay and Professor Brand-Miler are perhaps the world's leading advocates of the low-GI approach to nutrition, also running the University of Sydney's Low-GI-food-stamping enterprise, the prosperity of which depends on the general public continuing to assume that added sugar in food is not a health hazard. (The issue is that half of added sugar - fructose - has a super-low GI of 19.)
  
  Awkwardly, there is a growing nucleus of scientific opinion that added sugar/fructose is in fact the single-biggest driver of global obesity and diabetes: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all .
  
  Sean, are you not a bit concerned about the University of Sydney's serious-but-still-undisclosed conflict of interest in that serious public-health matter (Slide 50 in http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/AUSTRALIAN-PARADOX-101-SLIDESHOW.pdf ).
  
  In any case, the deeply flawed paper also is cited by the Australian Food and Grocery Council in its lobbying against the proposed (mild) recommendation to limit (added) sugar consumption in the Australian Government's current draft nutrition guidelines. So too, it is cited by Kellogg's, Coca-Cola, Pepsico, the US Sugar Association, the Canadian Sugar Institute, Mackay Canegrowers and Queensland Senator Boswell in the Australian Senate. There probably are plenty more, but that’s enough for Blind Freddie to see what is going on (see #6 at http://www.australianparadox.com/ ).
  
  Sean, I'm concerned that the spectacularly false conclusion of the Australian Paradox paper – strongly supported by the University of Sydney’s badge of scientific credibility – provides the intellectual basis for the Heart Foundation to maintain outrageous "Ticks" on breakfast cereals containing 30% added sugar and on other sugary junkfoods (http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/02/02/the-sugar-bomb-is-ticking-away-dangerously ). It also provides the intellectual basis for putting LowGI stamps on sugary junkfoods.
  
  As you may know, Sean, GI = 55 is the chosen dividing line between low and high GI carbohydrates. Check out the low GIs of high-added-fructose “Coca Cola”, "Milo", “Snickers Bar”, "Ice Cream", and “Cake” in a search at http://www.glycemicindex.com/foodSearch.php .
  
  Importantly, adding super-low GI=19 fructose to the product mix is a simple recipe for a lower-GI product. And while the University of Sydney’s low-GI advocates choose to restrict energy, fat and salt in their low-GI production, adding sugar/fructose is not viewed as a particular problem. The good news is that co-author Dr Barclay is keen to help lower the GI reading of manufactured food products, for a tasty payment of $6000 per product: http://www.foodhealthdialogue.gov.au/internet/foodandhealth/publishing.nsf/Content/D59B2C8391006638CA2578E600834BBD/$File/Resources%20and%20support%20for%20reformulation%20activities.pdf . (Some food companies are choosing to bypass the paid assistance of the University of Sydney altogether, putting lame “unofficial” LOW GI stamps on whatever they please.)
  
  My concern, Sean, is that the deeply flawed paper's spectacular false conclusion is having a very unhealthy influence on what ordinary Australians - seeking to be healthy - are being encouraged to eat. With Australian Paradox and the University of Sydney's stamp of credibility in the background, the Heart Foundation and the University of Sydney explicitly give added sugar a pretty clear run into our bellies and those of our children.
  
  As I've suggested, if the consumption of unnaturally high levels of added sugar/fructose decade after decade is a key driver of the Australian and global obesity and diabetes epidemics – as very likely it is - then Australian Paradox is contributing to that growing public-health disaster (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all ).
  
  From an academic and scientific perspective, Sean, the critical fact is that the paper’s key conclusions are spectacularly false. And, extraordinarily, the false conclusions have been published twice, in rather disturbing and unusually well-documented circumstances (Slides 38-44).
  
  The authors already have published a formal correction of a minor tangle involving references (Slide 34), so it's hardly unreasonable for me to encourage them to formally correct the spelling of my name - from "Roberston" - as well as the simple but serious problems highlighted in my Slides 9 and 10.
  
  Sean, I’ve worked hard to document what I think is a very strong case for the deeply flawed and somewhat dangerous Australian Paradox paper to be corrected or retracted.
  
  If you don't agree with me, that's fine. You apparently have a very high bar for correction or retraction. On that basis, I assume you wouldn't be very tough on quality control in the publication process either. Scientists could show up with their serious conflict of interest, a strongly held opinion and a handful of cash, and within days the next layer of false information - with the University of Sydney's stamp of credibility on it - would be dutifully reported in the media. Critical public debates would be further poisoned with false facts.
  
  Yep, Sean, your approach is working really well. In this case, the main thing I'm saying is that our taxpayer-funded research entities should correct any serious misinformation that they - either inadvertently or deliberately - injected into public debates on critical public-health matters. Is that unreasonable?
  
  Sean, I'm surprised that you thought you could "guarantee" I was "going to be disappointed" after my efforts on this issue. Actually, I won't be disappointed Sean, because I already have achieved my simple objective of bringing serious attention to the "shonky sugar study". That's all I wanted to do. No-one with a clue in the nutrition space will mention "Australian Paradox" without knowing that is a sub-standard piece of work that is an academic disgrace. And when the clueless cite it as an authoritative piece of work, others will snicker.
  
  Sean, the best that you can say of the "shonky sugar study" is that it is only as bad as the rest of the junk out there. I think you are wrong. It is a bit worse than that. If the relevant errors in the University of Sydney’s research were tiddlers rather than shockers (Slides 9 and 10), you might have a point. But – as the University now well knows - this dispute is not about subtle differences in scientific interpretation - it is about the University of Sydney scientists clownishly getting mixed up between up and down, while also bizarrely relying on a dataset discontinued as unreliable by the ABS a decade before Australian Paradox was published!
  
  The perplexing question – not quite a “paradox” - is whether the publication of the two faulty papers - Australian Paradox and Australian Paradox Revisited - with their spectacularly false conclusion was the result of (A) repeated negligence by (i) the authors, (ii) any independent reviewers and (iii) the Guest Editor wearing her second hat, or (B) deliberate scientific fraud?
  
  Sean, was the repeated publication of that false conclusion – “an inverse relationship” between added sugar and obesity – inadvertent or deliberate? They seem to be the only two possibilities. I have always assumed the former, but I’m aware of several analysts who reckon it’s a simple case of scientific fraud (Slides 36-44).
  
  8 months ago report
8. Sean Lamb
  
  Science Denier
  
  In reply to rory robertson
  
  Mr Robertson, you make me feel like the adult who finally tells his daughter there is no Santa Claus.
  
  I don't defend the paper at all. I simply state that being wrong is not grounds for not being published. In fact it is important that papers that are wrong are published, in order that better papers get published.
  
  Its the old Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
  Universities across Australia are full of people publishing dodgy research, why get excited about this particular one?
  
  8 months ago report
9. Matthew Todd
  
  School of Chemistry at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Sean Lamb
  
  I feel I need to call time on this discussion gents. I don't see an end in sight here, but I also think we're straying from the issue of the value of open data. Might you be able to continue on a site dedicated to this particular case?
  
  8 months ago report
Sean Lamb

Science Denier

Being against open science is a little bit like being against kittens. I do my best to disagree with every proposition thrown up on The Conversation, this is my greatest challenge yet.

Cooperation is good, but so is competition - and like sausages sometimes the process that end in a published paper are not best not seen if you wish to fully trust the results.
Having a quick look through the malaria page, to me it does not seem to be the true open science that the letter suggests http://malaria…
Read more

Being against open science is a little bit like being against kittens. I do my best to disagree with every proposition thrown up on The Conversation, this is my greatest challenge yet.

Cooperation is good, but so is competition - and like sausages sometimes the process that end in a published paper are not best not seen if you wish to fully trust the results.
Having a quick look through the malaria page, to me it does not seem to be the true open science that the letter suggests http://malaria.ourexperiment.org/
Entries are comparatively sporadic and mostly seems to consist of summaries - with very little or no raw data. So I assume their must be old fashion lab books underlying it.

I think using electronic lab books, more or less like a blog, would be intriguing idea - although at least initially I would be keeping it as an intranet. When you have a lab journal there is a natural reluctance to have others leaf through it - certainly I would never have done so without being explicitly invited. Using a format where it is taken for granted that all lab members could look whenever they liked sounds like a good idea, and good for when people leave the lab, their past work will be easily to sort through. And it would make lab meetings a bit different, everyone sitting around with their tablets.

there are issues around data security (backups and malicious destruction) and archiving, but nothing that wouldn't easily be solved. There are plenty of surprisingly easy downloads that all offer pretty much the same things - wikis, image galleries, blogs, bulletin boards, document collections and different level of users. I would personally recommend Tikiwiki. Openwetware looks a little bit restricted at the moment.

8 months ago report
1. Matthew Todd
  
  School of Chemistry at University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Sean Lamb
  
  Sean - just to answer a couple of things:
  
  1) Either you were looking at recent entries, or maybe you didn't click on the titles of the experiments in the lab books? The idea is that everything is shared - all the raw data. e.g. http://www.ourexperiment.org/racemic_pzq or http://malaria.ourexperiment.org/tcmdc_ap/3787. If the data are not there, that's an error. There are no paper versions. Summaries are published separately on The Synaptic Leap or Google+. Project summary is updated on a wiki. But the publicly available ELN is the primary data source.
  
  2) There are two types of competition. One where you know what other people are doing, and one where you don't. I see the first as real competition and the second as a kind of federated monopoly. Open science encourages the first, open innovation is the second. A good example of the power of open competition is the Matlab contests http://www.mathworks.com.au/matlabcentral/contest/contests/3
  
  8 months ago report
2. Sean Lamb
  
  Science Denier
  
  In reply to Matthew Todd
  
  Apologies - my mistake due to my crappy wireless connection, the files simply weren't loading. At work they looked fine. Open science is going to need good bandwidth.
  
  I think there is a lot of work needed on the actual format. It is not my field so it is difficult for me to judge, but just some of images of the blots or membranes just don't seem to have the same immediacy as pasting them into a lab book. But possibly that needs feedback from the users as to whether there is any tradeoff in…
  Read more
  
  Apologies - my mistake due to my crappy wireless connection, the files simply weren't loading. At work they looked fine. Open science is going to need good bandwidth.
  
  I think there is a lot of work needed on the actual format. It is not my field so it is difficult for me to judge, but just some of images of the blots or membranes just don't seem to have the same immediacy as pasting them into a lab book. But possibly that needs feedback from the users as to whether there is any tradeoff in the convenience and ease of use of a physical labbook versus the benefits of totally open science. For example losing the freedom to scrawl diagrams or layouts of an experiment.
  I don't think the term of ELN really means anything at the moment. A content management system is a content management system, Your ELN don't appear to be any different from a group of blogs - and there more sophisticated CMSs than blogs around.
  
  Also attempting to mandate this isn't going to go anywhere, it is far better to persuade people to take it up voluntarily, because it offers obvious advantages.
  
  8 months ago report
3. Katrina Badiola
  
  Student, University of Sydney
  
  In reply to Sean Lamb
  
  Sean - just on the ELNs,
  
  My very first lab notebook was electronic form (http://www.ourexperiment.org/racemic_pzq/ starting around November 2011). I've recently been required to keep a traditional lab notebook as opposed to the ELN. Ease of use of a physical lab notebook? I'm finding keeping a paper book much more tedious than using an ELN for some of the reasons below:
  
  1) Paper has no search functionality.
  
  2) I personally find it easier to type than to write.
  
  3) Linking of experiments…
  Read more
  
  Sean - just on the ELNs,
  
  My very first lab notebook was electronic form (http://www.ourexperiment.org/racemic_pzq/ starting around November 2011). I've recently been required to keep a traditional lab notebook as opposed to the ELN. Ease of use of a physical lab notebook? I'm finding keeping a paper book much more tedious than using an ELN for some of the reasons below:
  
  1) Paper has no search functionality.
  
  2) I personally find it easier to type than to write.
  
  3) Linking of experiments. If I repeat an experiment, or it is somehow related to a previously performed experiment, I can just link the posts. Much easier to trace back steps. A couple of clicks rather than flicking through the pages of a book trying to find what I need.
  
  4) I'm finding that much information is lost when I'm trying to write up an experiment in my book e.g. looking over some of my previous ELN posts, I used photographs a lot. Makes for richer content: http://www.ourexperiment.org/racemic_pzq/month/1328054400
  
  Why try to describe something when you can just take a photo of it? (I even considered taking polaroids of my reactions and sticking them in my lab book but quickly discounted that idea. No substitute for electronic visual records in the paper lab book format).
  
  Also, the "blots or membranes". They're Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) plates. They're generally not pasted into lab books, but drawn in (much easier to stick a ruler next to it and take a photo). Even if they're pasted in, they tend to fade or discolour over time. More loss of information than a photo?
  
  I'd use an ELN over a traditional lab notebook any day.
  
  8 months ago report
4. Sean Lamb
  
  Science Denier
  
  In reply to Katrina Badiola
  
  "I'd use an ELN over a traditional lab notebook any day"
  
  Ah well, then you should have no trouble in persuading most of your fellow students at the University of Sydney to take them up.
  
  Let us know how you get on.
  
  8 months ago report
5. Chris Booker
  
  Research scientist
  
  In reply to Katrina Badiola
  
  I with you there Katrina - for all the reasons you cite, plus the fact that an electronic file can be backed up. I have known people who have lost their physical lab notebook and been left without records for months of experiments! It's crazy that in this day and age physical books are still more-or-less standard, when there's so much time and money tied up in what's in them. I don't think it's being very responsible as a scientist to use a system of record-keeping which is lacking such safeguards.
  
  8 months ago report
Matthew Todd

School of Chemistry at University of Sydney

A general point of clarification, in response to some of the comments above which are focussing on open science (a process) rather than the central theme of open data (the theme of the article).

Alex and I to some extent see the debate about open access as having reached a tipping point (ignoring for a moment how it should be funded, and what flavour it might be). The point we're advocating in the article above is that encouraging the deposition of open data is perhaps the more valuable long-term goal. Open data does not require open science (where data are released prior to publication, interactively). We used open science projects as one example. The more general point is the value of mandating open data associated with standard publications, i.e. that upon publication, the data associated with a project is made freely available - so that the data are a) comprehensive, b) digital and c) free to mine by computer.

8 months ago report

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