Comments on: Sign Error => Five Papers Retracted

By: Computational Scientists Still Don’t Get It « Software Carpentry

Computational Scientists Still Don’t Get It « Software Carpentry — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:51:08 +0000

[...] they’re talking about algorithms, not about coding bugs. Given stories like this one, it’s a revealing oversight. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Special Issue [...]

By: The Third Bit » Blog Archive » Three Years Old

The Third Bit » Blog Archive » Three Years Old — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:43:40 +0000

[...] Five months later, scientists from the Scripps Institute had to retract five papers published in various prestigious journals because of a sign error in a computer program. Stories like these are making the course easier to sell… [...]

By: The Third Bit » Blog Archive » Computational Scientists Still Don’t Get It

Sat, 05 May 2007 14:30:32 +0000

[...] Once again, there’s no mention of making sure the programs actually work—nothing about testing, nothing about tracking results so that when a bug does appear you know what you should retract, nothing. I’m sure the organizers would say, “Oh, that’s part of accuracy,” but I’ve been part of enough discussions to know that when numerical scientists say “accuracy and robustness”, they’re talking about algorithms, not about coding bugs. Given stories like this one, it’s a revealing oversight. [...]

By: Stefan

Stefan — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 01:11:33 +0000

It’s fairly hard for journals to verify computational experiments, given that source code is often jealously guarded, rather than published, in the scientific world. I guess this is mainly due to the cut-throat grant-application process, and the constant fear that other teams may publish work based on your efforts before you do (again, publications == money). It reminds me of the old anecdote: “Why are academic fights so ferocious?” … “Because the stakes are so low.”

By: adam

adam — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 04:20:37 +0000

Not having been exposed to having to publish in journals, I would have thought that part of the purpose of these journals is that the the experiments and results where checked before publication. Obviously this was not the case. This natually leads into the discussion of the fate of journals of this nature and their future when information can be diseminated so cheaply on the web. Oh and a surprising amount of software done by software professionals is also not totally up to “modern” development practices either.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:57:06 +0000

I’m not fully doing TDD for the analysis code I’m writing in my PhD program, but I’m doing a fair amount of automated unit testing. I’m not sure that the software development done in the sciences is totally up to “modern” development practices. For example, I’m the only one in my research group to use unit tests and source control. I’m also one of two people in our group (of about 10) that is *not* using fortran (not that there is necessarily anything wrong with it, I just don’t care for the language).