Abstract
Many of the messages presented in respectable scientific publications are, in fact, based on various forms of rumors. Some of these rumors appear so frequently, and in such complex, colorful, and entertaining ways that we can think of them as academic urban legends. The explanation for this phenomenon is usually that authors have lazily, sloppily, or fraudulently employed sources, and peer reviewers and editors have not discovered these weaknesses in the manuscripts during evaluation. To illustrate this phenomenon, I draw upon a remarkable case in which a decimal point error appears to have misled millions into believing that spinach is a good nutritional source of iron. Through this example, I demonstrate how an academic urban legend can be conceived and born, and can continue to grow and reproduce within academia and beyond.
| Adesman, A (2009) Baby Facts: The Truth about Your Child’s Health, from Newborn through Preschool. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Google Scholar | |
| American Medical Association (2007) AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors, 10th edn. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Ashmore, M (1993) The theatre of the blind: Starring a Promethean prankster, a phoney phenomenon, a prism, a pocket, and a piece of wood. Social Studies of Science 23(1): 67–106. Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Bauerlein, M, Gad-el-Hak, M, Grody, W, McKelvey, B, Trimble, SW (2010) We must stop the avalanche of low-quality research. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 June. Available at: http://chronicle.com/article/We-Must-Stop-the-Avalanche-of/65890/ (accessed 20 March 2014). Google Scholar | |
| Bender, AE (1972) The Wider Knowledge of Nutrition. Inaugural Lecture by Arnold E. Bender. 24 October 1972, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London. London: Castle Cary Press. Google Scholar | |
| Bender, AE (1975a) The Facts of Food. London: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | |
| Bender, AE (1975b) The meaning of nutrition in a changing society. Journal of the Canadian Dietetic Association 36(1): 137–149. Google Scholar | |
| Bender, AE (1977) Iron in spinach. The Spectator, 9 July, p. 18. Google Scholar | |
| Bender, AE, Bender, DA (1982) Nutrition for Medical Students. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Google Scholar | |
| Carroll, AE, Vreeman, RC (2009) Don’t Swallow Your Gum!: Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies about Your Body and Health. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. Google Scholar | |
| Coughlin, R, Zitarelli, D (1984) The Ascent of Mathematics. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. Google Scholar | |
| De Beuckelaer, GM (2002) It’s Broken, Let’s Fix It: The Zeitgeist and Modern Enterprise. Berlin: Springer. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Frangoulis, C, Carlotti, F, Eisenhauer, L, Zervoudaki, S (2010) Converting copepod vital rates into units appropriate for biogeochemical models. Progress in Oceanography 84(1–2): 43–51. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Garfield, E (1998) I had a dream … about uncitedness. The Scientist 12(14, 6 June): 10. Available at: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/18998/title/I-Had-a-Dream—about-Uncitedness/ (accessed 20 March 2014). Google Scholar | |
| Garrison, C (ed.) (2009) The Iron Disorders Institute Guide to Anemia, 2nd edn. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House. Google Scholar | |
| Gavras, H (2002) Inappropriate attribution: The ‘Lazy Author Syndrome’. American Journal of Hypertension 15(9): 831. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Gustavii, B (2003) How to Write and Illustrate a Scientific Paper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Hamblin, TJ (1981) Fake! British Medical Journal 283(6307): 1671–1674. Available at: http://www.bmj.com/highwire/filestream/351132/field_highwire_article_pdf/0/1671 (accessed 20 March 2014). Google Scholar | |
| Hamblin, TJ (2010) Spinach – I was right for the wrong reason. In: Mutations of mortality: Random thoughts of Terry Hamblin about leukaemia, literature, poetry, politics, religion, cricket and music. Available at: http://mutated-unmuated.blogspot.com/2010/12/spinach-i-was-right-for-wrong-reason.html (accessed 19 March 2014). Google Scholar | |
| Hamilton, DP (1990) Publishing by – and for? – the numbers. Science 250(4986): 1331–1332. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Harzing, A-W (2002) Are our referencing errors undermining our scholarship and credibility? The case of expatriate failure rates. Journal of Organizational Behavior 23(1): 127–148. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| The Independent (2011) Popeye had it right: Spinach really does make you stronger. The Independent, 2 February. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/popeye-had-it-right-spinach-really-does-make-you-stronger-2201458.html (accessed 16 April 2013). Google Scholar | |
| Kronick, DA (1985) The Literature of the Life Sciences: Reading, Writing, Research. Philadelphia, PA: ISI Press. Google Scholar | |
| Lariviere, V, Gingras, Y, Archambault, E (2009) The decline in the concentration of citations, 1900–2007. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 60(4): 858–862. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Larsson, KS (1995) The dissemination of false data through inadequate citation. Journal of Internal Medicine 238(5): 445–450. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Morrisey, LJ (2004) Bibliometric and bibliographic analysis in an era of electronic scholarly communication. Science & Technology Libraries 22(3–4): 149–160. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Pendlebury, DA (1991) Science, citation, and funding. Science 251(5000): 1410–1411. Google Scholar, Crossref, Medline, ISI | |
| Rajasekaran, S (2012) Publish to flourish: Is it corrupting science? Bone & Joint360 1(4): 5–7. Google Scholar | |
| Reader’s Digest Association (1988) Facts and Fallacies: Stories of the Strange and Unusual. Pleasantville, NY: Reader’s Digest Association. Google Scholar | |
| Rekdal, OB (2012) En vandring på akademiske snarveier. UNIPED 35(1): 44–59. Google Scholar | |
| Rekdal, OB (in press-a) Academic citation practice: A sinking sheep? Portal, Libraries and the Academy. Google Scholar | |
| Rekdal, OB (in press-b) Monuments to academic carelessness: The self-fulfilling prophecy of Katherine Frost Bruner. Science, Technology & Human Values. DOI: 10.1177/0162243914532138 Google Scholar, SAGE Journals, ISI | |
| Sismondo, S (2005) Boundary work and the science wars: James Robert Brown’s Who Rules in science? Episteme 1(3): 235–248. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Skrabanek, P, McCormick, J (1989) Follies and Fallacies in Medicine. Glasgow: Tarragon Press. Google Scholar | |
| Skrabanek, P, McCormick, J (1998) Follies and Fallacies in Medicine, 3rd edn. Whithorn: Tarragon Press. Google Scholar | |
| Steer, P (2008) Follies and fallacies in medicine. British Medical Journal 336(7645): 673. Google Scholar, Crossref | |
| Sutton, M (2010a) Spinach, iron and Popeye: Ironic lessons from biochemistry and history on the importance of healthy eating, healthy scepticism and adequate citation. The Internet Journal of Criminology. Available at: http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Sutton_Spinach_Iron_and_Popeye_March_2010.pdf (accessed 20 March 2014). Google Scholar | |
| Sutton, M (2010b) The spinach, Popeye, iron, decimal error myth is finally busted. BestThinking. Available at: http://www.bestthinking.com/articles/science/chemistry/biochemistry/the-spinach-popeye-iron-decimal-error-myth-is-finally-busted (accessed 20 March 2014). Google Scholar | |
| Wetterer, JK (2006) Quotation error, citation copying, and ant extinctions in Madeira. Scientometrics 67(3): 351–372. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI | |
| Wright, M, Armstrong, JS (2008) The ombudsman: Verification of citations: Fawlty towers of knowledge? Interfaces 38(2): 125–139. Google Scholar, Crossref, ISI |


