Retraction in academic publishing

In academic publishing, a retraction is a mechanism by which the content of a paper published in an academic journal is disavowed so that its results and conclusions can no longer be relied upon. Retracted articles are not usually removed from the published literature but marked as retracted. In some rare cases a retracted article may be removed from publication, such as if it is defamatory, breaches copyright, violates personal privacy, is the subject of a court order, or might pose a health risk to the public. The purpose of retraction is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity, not to punish the authors. Detailed guideline on retraction have been published. Papers are typically retracted as seriously flawed and essentially incorrect, due to error or misdeeds, as distinct from small corrections to published articles.

Although the majority of retractions in biomedical and life sciences are linked to scientific misconduct, they are often cited as evidence of the self-correcting nature of science. However, some scholars argue this view is misleading, describing it as a myth. A retraction may simply be due to a paper later being found to be in serious error, as in the historical case of Benjamin Wilson's 1756 paper, discussed below.