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closeQuestionable Citation
Posted by WalterLamb on 27 Sep 2012 at 06:26 GMT
less expensive and more efficient lethal control methods
http://plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0044616#article1.body1.sec1.p3
The Stoskopf and Nutter paper cited does not appear to support the assertion that lethal control is less expensive or more efficient than non-lethal control. A sentence by sentence review of that paper yields no such comparative findings. The paper does say that "High-level TNR management requires the application of substantial resources over a prolonged time to be successful." However, no comparison is ever made to lethal control. Stating that a trip to Paris is expensive does not imply that a trip to Rome is less expensive, nor does stating that "high-end TNR" requires substantial resources to be successful imply that lethal control requires fewer resources to be successful. In fact, the unconditional nature of that assertion is inconsistent with the Stoskopf and Nutter's primary theme, which is that variability dictates things like cost and efficiency. The lead author declined to clarify this citation via an e-mail exchange.
RE: Questionable Citation
WalterLamb replied to WalterLamb on 30 Oct 2012 at 20:05 GMT
I may have misunderstood the process for requesting corrections on this site. Based on this site's guidelines page, I was under the impression that PlosOne staff would review comments marked as corrections and respond here with their determination.
I think it is dangerous to allow ideology to affect published scientific conclusions. In this paper, the authors offered a statement of fact and cited a study which does not actually support that statement of fact. By referencing a different study in the comments section, the authors seem to acknowledge that error.
Correcting this error would not, by itself, undermine this paper's core conclusions. However, not correcting the error sets a bad precedent. If staff has already reviewed this correction and made a determination, I'd be interested to read their explanation here.
RE: Questionable Citation
MattJHodgkinson replied to WalterLamb on 31 Oct 2012 at 11:00 GMT
The author provided a supporting citation in another thread. I have noted this here: http://www.plosone.org/an...
RE: RE: Questionable Citation
WalterLamb replied to MattJHodgkinson on 09 Nov 2012 at 00:14 GMT
Thank you for responding. It seems as though you are saying that your comment referencing the alternate study serves the purpose of officially correcting the error in the original paper. However, the Lohr et al paper is not included in the list of references of the original paper. I'm still unclear as to why it would not be more accurate to add that paper into the list of references and to change the actual citation to reflect that.
It is also worth noting that the Lohr et al paper was published several weeks after the Petersen et al paper that now retroactively cites it.
In any event, I appreciate your making this correction so that readers (at least on-line readers) will know that the Stoskopf and Nutter paper does not actually address questions of relative cost and efficiency.