I really love this description of a retracted study: not only does it explain what was retracted (turns out men don't generally divorce their sick wives), but also it covers what the error was (a coding problem treated people who left the study as divorced) how it all went down (someone tried to replicate, asked for data and didn't get the same analysis. Contacted the authors and they were horrified and immediately worked to retract).
It's a really nice story of why replication matters and how to be good at science. This is how I was taught science should work, but I rarely come across such good retrospectives.
I really love this description of a retracted study: not only does it explain what was retracted (turns out men don't generally divorce their sick wives), but also it covers what the error was (a coding problem treated people who left the study as divorced) how it all went down (someone tried to replicate, asked for data and didn't get the same analysis. Contacted the authors and they were horrified and immediately worked to retract).
@terri So was the retracted study the only primary source of the widely-repeated claim?
@terri The most ironic thing for me reading this is that my sister's husband divorced her while she was in chemo.
@terri I'm really glad you posted this, cause I hadn't seen the retraction before! Thank you!
[* Edit because of autocorrect]