We find that at least 31.2% of the citations to retracted articles happen a year after the article has been retracted, that 91.4% of these post-retraction citations are approving, & that problematic research continues to be approvingly cited long after the problems have been publicized

Propagation of Error: Approving Citations to Problematic Research. Ken Cor and Gaurav Sood. https://github.com/recite/propagation_of_error

Abstract: Reports of serious errors in published research are increasingly common. Once the issues have been made public, we expect approving citations to the problematic articles—citations noting no concerns with the cited article—to stop. Using a novel database of over 3,000 retracted articles and nearly 74,000 citations to the retracted articles as well as data from a prominent article that highlights a statistical error in a set of articles published in prominent journals, we estimate citation rates and rates of approving citations pre- and postnotification. We find that at least 31.2% of the citations to retracted articles happen a year after the article has been retracted. And that 91.4% of these post-retraction citations are approving. We also find that problematic research continues to be approvingly cited long after the problems have been publicized. Our results have implications for the design of scholarship discovery systems and scientific practice more generally.