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Another Slew of Science Papers Retracted Because of Fraud

Posted by samzenpus on from the never-happened dept.

schwit1 writes: A major scientific publisher has retracted 64 articles in 10 journals after discovering that the so-called independent peer reviewers for these articles were fabricated by the authors themselves. From the article: "The cull comes after similar discoveries of 'fake peer review' by several other major publishers, including London-based BioMed Central, an arm of Springer, which began retracting 43 articles in March citing 'reviews from fabricated reviewers'. The practice can occur when researchers submitting a paper for publication suggest reviewers, but supply contact details for them that actually route requests for review back to the researchers themselves." Overall, this indicates an incredible amount of sloppiness and laziness in the peer-review field. In total, more than a 100 papers have been retracted, simply because the journals relied on the authors to provide them contact information for their reviewers, never bothering to contact them directly.

186 comments

  1. When you can't trust scientific journals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WHO CAN YOU TRUST?

    1. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WHO CAN YOU TRUST?

      No one.

    2. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Definitely not the review process. When you write an exam paper in college, do you provide name and contact details of the examiner?

    3. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is a big deal. I submit articles to these publishers, and this is outrageous. The idea that I would give email addresses to editors that came back to me in order to review my own papers not only never occurred to me, it seems like it would require a researcher with absolutely no ethics or morals whatsoever. The entire peer review process needs to be revamped from the ground up, and I think it would benefit science to have an open comment period on submitted articles or something similar. Authors should not be able to suggest reviewers, and both authors and reviewer should know who each other are, and interact as the paper goes through review. The absurd situation now where the reviewer knows who the authors are, but not visa versa, and where there is extremely limited interaction, mostly in the form of reviewer critiques that are often off-base but nonetheless accepted by editors, is not acceptable. A more interactive system is required, possibly with crowd-commenting for a limited time. The idea that the reviewers on high end papers were giving "reviewer contacts" to editors that went back to them is insane. I guess this is what money and desperation does to people.

      --
      A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
    4. Re: When you can't trust scientific journals by TheMeuge · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The review system is deeply flawed as it stands now. Cronyism, favoritism, and punitive harassment run rampant. Since experts in your field are often people who review your papers its not uncommon to be rejected out of spite or to let a competitor publish first. The competition isn't just fierce it's underhanded and extraordinarily wasteful in terms lost money and lost brainpower.

    5. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 0

      I agree. If these people are in academic positions, they should be fired immediately. If they work in private industry, that's probably too much to hope for.

      --
      Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
    6. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1

      This is a big deal. I submit articles to these publishers, and this is outrageous. The idea that I would give email addresses to editors that came back to me in order to review my own papers not only never occurred to me, it seems like it would require a researcher with absolutely no ethics or morals whatsoever.

      It depends on the journal. I review for a number of CS journals, and none of them would ever allow this, there's a predefined pool of vetted reviewers who get sent papers, the submitters have no control over who reviews them, or even know who the reviewers are, it's all anonymous and blinded. Conversely, I've reviewed for an MIS journal where the submitters suggest the reviewers (which included charming notes like "please don't send them to X, Y, or Z, because they've given us bad reviews in the past"). It was a really strange process, there was an endless amount of reviewing and re-reviewing and re-re-reviewing, I think more time was spent in the reviewing process than in writing the paper, for papers where you could tell from half a beers' worth of analysis that they should never get published. It may have just been my science bias that saw this as a strange way to do things, and in some sense a certain amount of snobbery, "it's an MIS paper, who cares if the review process is broken...".

    7. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I agree they should be fired. What makes you think private industry would be more reluctant to fire them? I think it is the opposite.

    8. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The authors are likely from China, Taiwan or similar.

      This is how it works here. Publish -> you get a bonus (and people are crazy even for petty cash). Not publish X times a year -> fired.
      They will only get fired if they embarass someone, or because they got caught and brought their for-profit "university" to disrepute.
      They will NOT get fired for cheating or gaming the system. That is expected, and everyone does it.

    9. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by davester666 · · Score: 2

      The Republican Party.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    10. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by jandersen · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The idea that I would give email addresses to editors that came back to me in order to review my own papers not only never occurred to me, it seems like it would require a researcher with absolutely no ethics or morals whatsoever.

      Well, true; a certain proportion of any group are likely to be liars, cheats, parasites etc. I'm not sure about the complete lack of ethics or morals, though - it is not difficult to imagine a path from 'excusable inaccuracies' to full blown fraud, and when you're measured on the volume of articles rather than the quality of your research, then it isn't surprising that you may occasionally start taking shortcuts to make your results look better. The thing is, when you have taken the first step down that slippery road, it quickly becomes impossible to turn back without your whole career exploding in your face - so you carry on.

      I think we need not just a better way to manage reasearch results - peer review comes from a time when scientists were few and far between, and when most of them came from the upper crust of society, where concepts like honour were literally beaten into them at school with a blunt instrument. I don't suggest a return to that, of course, but I think a rigorous course in ethics for students of science would be a place to start. Not so much to instill some sort of unthinking adherence to a code of conduct, but to teach people to reason and think critically about these issues before they are in a situation where the pressure tempts them to make the wrong decision.

    11. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wish we could mod the reviewer to 6. The submitting author should be permanently banned from the journals and the corresponding editor should be reviewed as to if he/she should keep his/her position. (I am a reasonably new PhD that is published and disgusted by the cronyism in peer review.)

    12. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 1

      Yes, this is all journal dependent. Recently we have stopped even suggesting possible reviewers when we get to that stage in the submission process. We stopped listing negative reviewers a long time ago. The process is broken, and needs to be revamped from the ground up. I think that each journal maybe should even consider having an open comment period on submitted manuscripts, and that back and forth discussions occur between the authors and the commenters and reviewers. Many papers would probably end up being much more accurate by the time they were published if they went through a more public process. Of course this would only work in an open access environment, because the pay-walled journals would never let anyone see the papers before they were published.

      --
      A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
    13. Re:When you can't trust scientific journals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Republican Party.

      This was intended to be sarcasm, I hope.

  2. And this is why people don't trust science by danbuter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When so many news stories about scientific papers being faked are published, it gives all the wackos ammo. They see this and start yelling about global warming and autism from innoculations. Blah. Publishers, get your act together!

    1. Re:And this is why people don't trust science by msauve · · Score: 5, Funny

      But who's more of a peer than the author themselves?

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:And this is why people don't trust science by Mr.CRC · · Score: 1

      You're missing the point, which is that some of the wackos might not be wackos after all. Note that I said *some*, which is not equivalent to all.

    3. Re:And this is why people don't trust science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That only works if they are siamese.

    4. Re:And this is why people don't trust science by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      "Publishers, get your act together!"

      No, it doesn't necessarily mean that people will mistrust science. It means that scientists need to stop trusting journals that promise illusory prestige in exchange for being overpriced.

    5. Re:And this is why people don't trust science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HAHA! Nice one - but don't think that absolves you from your recent idiotic comments.

    6. Re:And this is why people don't trust science by carbonates · · Score: 2
      Exactly. I have worked with some very well respected scientists who have been credited with leading their field. Most of them come across as wackos if you don't know who they are. Good science is like many other fields- creativity and refusal to accept the norm are what allow good scientists to become great scientists. That's why when someone quotes "97 percent of scientists" I just stop listening, because they obviously do not understand science.

      That said, self-review is clearly not peer review, but peer review has been a rigged game in many publications for as long as it has existed.

  3. Kill the market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If we could alleviate the pressure on academics to 'get published' or 'win grants', the market for the B.S. publications and garbage articles would dry up in a hurry.

    1. Re:Kill the market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You are right, but you are also wrong.
      There are many Scientists, even many in Academia, who don't Publish. I've got a co-author on a few Papers, but it never meant much in over three decades of Performance Reviews.
      I was a Working Scientist. It's very much like being a Working Actor- a face seen briefly a few dozen times over a career, but never a Leading Role. Still, it paid the bills.
      You are an utter asshole for promoting the "Publish or Perish" myth. It is simply not true.
      But you are quite right about Killing the Market.

      This is about Ideas. There shouldn't _be_ a Market for sharing Idea; that's a Middleman concept.
      Middlemen- kill them all.
      Let's first start with Shakespeare's recommendation- Lawyers.
      And then we can go after the for-profit Academic Publishers.

      Oh, I love this Captcha: anodes

    2. Re:Kill the market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oddly enough, the "publish or perish" myth isn't a myth for those of use who do hear "# articles published" in our performance reviews.
      You are an asshole for calling OP an asshole. Congratulations on finding a job that does not do that.

    3. Re:Kill the market by tnk1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You don't need to publish to work as a scientist, but it is something that is important to do in order to get tenure in many schools and as you said, is the way to be a leading scientist. And if you're working towards that sort of leading role, you're the type of person who would be publishing to begin with.

      As you said, you didn't have to publish, and many don't, but the ones who do publish are often the ones under the most pressure to do so, for whatever reason. This means that the people who have an important part to play in the scientific world are also the most likely to have a reason to misrepresent their results or strive to be underhanded to avoid actual peer review.

      What is the upside for a working scientist to misrepresent their results? A better review? Even then, you probably get reviewed more for your investigative technique or your experimental or apparatus design. Which means that you'd get just as good a review for being good at knocking down novel hypotheses as you would for sustaining them. In other words, you'd get a good review for being a good scientist.

      A leading scientist is under a lot more pressure to offer something that they can publish which gets themselves or their labs more grant money so that research can continue. Like you, they are valued if they are good at science and falsifying hypotheses, but grants are usually offered for new, interesting science. Knocking over your own bad hypotheses is necessary, but you have to have something to offer in the meantime.

      Some researchers end up with nothing they can offer, and they realize that, but they can't pay the bills with all negative results. So they peer review their own work to keep the grants coming. This is no doubt done in the hope that their faith in their hypothesis is rewarded and that they will be able to produce a return on investment, but there are certainly other reasons for that.

      Publish or perish is real, it's just not real for everyone who calls themselves a scientist. However, it is a real problem for the scientific community, because grant money and prestige is what keeps academic scientists working. No doubt you would be fine, albeit at a different school or lab, but you and your ilk are not the problem, your bosses and senior researchers are the ones at risk.

      I don't want to defend academic publishers here. I have heard many uncomplimentary things about them. The thing is, the middlemen aren't the ones falsifying the peer review recommendations, the scientists are. And there's really only one reason for that: they don't want to go through the peer review process. That's a *science* problem and it must be solved by *scientists*.

      If the peer review process for journals does not work, then the scientists on the editorial boards need to stand up and work out a better method. An academic journal isn't worth wiping your ass with if the scientists involved with it refuse to endorse it. And that is what they need to do. Policy makers and laypeople tend to trust scientists in general in a manner that some trust their priests. In fact, these days, a lot more than priests.

      However, that is all based on faith and trust, as they are not doing the experiments themselves. Scientists need to work at maintaining the trust they have in their field as a whole or it provides the ammunition to either distrust science or to encourage misrepresentation of results for certain unscientific aims.

    4. Re:Kill the market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You don't need to publish to work as a scientist ...

      Wrong.

      Here in Taiwan you have to publish three papers per year (on top of almost full-time teaching) to keep your job. If you don't publish, they hire someone who will.

    5. Re:Kill the market by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      What is the upside for a working scientist to misrepresent their results? A better review? Even then, you probably get reviewed more for your investigative technique or your experimental or apparatus design. Which means that you'd get just as good a review for being good at knocking down novel hypotheses as you would for sustaining them. In other words, you'd get a good review for being a good scientist.

      Tenure is more or less dead. To get grants and even continue your ob in many places, you have to actually perform well. This means doing high profile science.

      The high profile journals like *results*. Nature Methods, a journal specifically dedicated to new methods won't actually publish your paper unless you have a cool result in there. After all what better way to prove a technique that to do some new science with it.

      Make no mistake, almost everything in science publishing and careers is judged on results. No one cares about your technique or method if you're unable to show anything new with it.

      OK that's a slight exaggeration but not much. Hardly anyone makes a career that way.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:Kill the market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you all are missing the point of what a "Working Scientist" is, even though I gave the analogy of "Working Actors".
      I know of a couple of Chemists who work for Chevron. They share a Lab, and they do Environmental Studies- Pollution, how much and where.
      They send in daily reports and weekly summaries. They don't write up Papers for Publication.
      I worked at a National Lab. My Title was "Associate Scientist", which meant when an Outside Researcher came in, I got them and their Experiment up and running. I was never a Co-Author, but I was mentioned many times in the Acknowledgements section of their Published Papers.
      I know Scientists who work for NASA or the Aerospace Corporation. They _might_ get a mention in a NASA Tech Brief for Radiation Hardened Solar Cells. They might get mentioned in a Patent.
      I know Scientists at Livermore who not only not Publish, but are forbidden from discussing their Research outside of their Group.
      I know a couple of Nuclear Physics PhDs from Berkeley who opened up a Brewpub, because there aren't many Job Openings for Nuclear Physicists these days. They may pop in for an Experiment or two, as "Participating Guests", who are not Paid.

      The "Publish or Perish" myth comes from _some_ Academic fields, where Grants may be based on previously Published work.
      But there are far more Scientists in the National Labs, in Industry, and in Government, than are in the Research Universities. These Working Scientists pull down a Salary, and Performance Reviews are based on actual Work done.
      And frankly, there may be some Snobbery involved. People who get a PhD. in Chemistry, and then go to work for Chevron or the EPA may be looked down on by Academics, and not considered to be Real Scientists, because to them, only Real Scientists can do Original Research, and Publish, and get Tenure, and have to then do the one thing that they really don't want to do- Teach.

  4. These people... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Should be placed in the center of a circle of fellow scientists; their pocket protectors should be yanked out; their labcoats torn off; and the backs of all gathered turned upon them.

    Cuz this shit is why you get, "Hurr, climate change isn't reel". Because look - look at all the bad science and bullshit studies.

    1. Re:These people... by jopsen · · Score: 1

      Should be placed in the center of a circle of fellow scientists; their pocket protectors should be yanked out; their labcoats torn off....

      It's a pretty efficient way to terminate your academic career. I think at my former University you would be banned for 3 years...
      That plus your name in google you career is pretty much over.

  5. Calm down by schneidafunk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Overall, this indicates an incredible amount of sloppiness and laziness in the peer-review field" No, it indicates sloppiness & laziness from these awful journals. The "peer-review field" (science) is still working just fine.

    --
    Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
    1. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      "Overall, this indicates an incredible amount of sloppiness and laziness in the peer-review field" No, it indicates sloppiness & laziness from these awful journals. The "peer-review field" (science) is still working just fine.

      Go ahead and keep telling yourself that.

    2. Re:Calm down by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would like to see a list of the retracted articles. It would be interesting to see if the subject matter were slanted toward the hot topics of the day.

    3. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Republicanism is being practiced by most scientists now

      Scientists now elect representatives to govern them? ZOMG THE HORROR!!! It's destroying science!!

    4. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can search the Springer page for the list:
      http://link.springer.com/search?query=The+Publisher+and+Editor+retract+this+article+in+accordance+with+the+recommendations+of+the+Committee+on+Publication+Ethics+(COPE)&date-facet-mode=between&facet-start-year=2015&previous-start-year=1995&facet-end-year=2015&previous-end-year=2015

      More commentary at RetractionWatch: http://retractionwatch.com/2015/08/17/64-more-papers-retracted-for-fake-reviews-this-time-from-springer-journals/

    5. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you, interesting list of authors there...

    6. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what does that say about the people who choose to publish in "these awful journals"? Or the people who subscribe to them or cite them?

    7. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you, interesting list of authors there...

      Yes, it is an interesting list. All or most of the authors have Chinese-sounding names.

      I don't know about some of the names. Ex: Is "Ou Bai" (on page 3) a Chinese name?

    8. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But how do we know which journals are crap and which aren't? What tests have been performed to separate the crap journals from the non-crap? We can know that the scientific process is robust, yes, but we can't really know whether science itself is until we have more data about just how widespread this sort of fraud is and in which fields, if any, it's prevalent.

    9. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I dunno, I wonder if they all know each other, or if people of certain ethnicity are being singled out. I datamined a bit to get a list for easier viewing: http://pastebin.com/cnMS8Pq8

    10. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, it may not be correct to blame the authors:

      Findings suggest some third party agencies, offering pre-submission editing and submission assistance services to authors, may have been involved during the submission process. In situations where institutional investigations have found that authors have been inadvertently affected by the compromised peer review process, they will be encouraged to resubmit and go through a legitimate peer review process.

      http://retractionwatch.com/2015/08/17/64-more-papers-retracted-for-fake-reviews-this-time-from-springer-journals/

      It would be interesting to find out what the commonality is here.

    11. Re:Calm down by tnk1 · · Score: 2

      Journals have editorial and advisory boards. These are staffed by scientists. If they aren't, then they aren't actual scientific journals and scientists would be morons for accepting any work published by them.

      If I opened a journal called Big Joe's Journal of Quantum Chromodynamics and started publishing papers to it from my friends, no one would give a shit because I am not a physicist or even a scientist, and neither are most of my friends.

      If these publishers wanted to open a journal without scientists involved, they'd be about as authoritative as my journal, except mine would have better illustrations because I'd buy the big box of Crayola crayons.

      Point being, the scientists themselves need to police their field. If you dump it on the publishers, you're ducking responsibility. It's like suggesting a new weapon that specifically targets children, puppies and unicorns, writing the documentation for it, taking money for it from the government, accepting an award for it and then taking zero responsibility when the government uses it as designed. The primary responsibility for these journals is the moral, ethical, and professional duty of scientists and only scientists. If the publishers want to increase readership or something, then they can put tits on every other page or something, but if they are impacting the actual scientific content of a journal, that is the fault of the scientists involved, period.

      Sure, all scientists are not on these review boards, but scientists live and die by their professional reputations. If you don't accept them, they lose their career. You are effectively the electorate and the College of Cardinals for these guys. If you let bad scientists keep up this sort of behavior to cater to publishers or their own egos, no one can really change for the better that other than scientists. If you rely on the law or outsiders to do it, you will rue the day, because it will be done based on a broken trust and lost faith in science.

      The first step is simply standing up and stop deflecting all blame to publishers for a problem with the practice of science itself. Despite the undoubtedly sleazy nature of those publishers, it fundamentally dishonest to make that deflection.

    12. Re:Calm down by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      Thanks

    13. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Um, I didn't see a non-Chinese name in that list....

      *whistles uncomfortably*

    14. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Looking through the list, it looks like basically all the retracted papers are written by Chinese medical researchers..?

    15. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But how do we know which journals are crap and which aren't?

      It really is easy. Try to figure out what the authors actually did. I mean really try, spend a week on a paper including asking others you think may have inside knowledge. If you still cant figure it out for even one paper, that's a crap journal.

    16. Re:Calm down by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not an uncomfortable observation, it's what's happening to the Chinese research/academic establishment about now. There's nothing racial or whatever about it, it's an artefact of the recent history of Chinese academia.

      10 years+ ago, the Chinese research landscape was not very good. Getting academic jobs was easy, for example people straight out of PhDs at well known western universities would be offered lectureship jobs off the bat. Result it was big, flabby and staffed with many mediocre people. China is huge so naturally there were notable exceptions, but it's not the exceptions that matter here. Nonetheless, the jobs are/were still good in that the pay is good and they're well respected.

      About 10 years ago the Chinese government decided it wanted to be a world leader in research. This meant there was going to have to be a tough, competetitive, results driven research environment of the sort that's more prevalent in other parts of the world. Being the Chinese government they want results fast and they want results now and they can exert a lot of pressure to make it happen.

      The simple explanation now is there are a lot of deeply mediocre people who got their jobs when their jobs were easy to get and they're now under immense pressure to perform or lose their job. Being largely mediocre, they're not able to do this and they are frankly desperate.

      There's a subtler point that having more good people around who care about the academic subject leads to a degree of policing of this sort of thing. It's far from perfect of course and there have been plenty of cases in the west, but we're talking trends and averages here. The universities staffed with large numbers of mediocre, desperate people don't have the inclination to do such things.

      But basically it is very, very hard to go from more or less nothing to a world leading research environment in a short time and it's downright impossible without serious growing pains. That's all you're seeing here.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    17. Re:Calm down by Stem_Cell_Brad · · Score: 1

      Agreed on the calm down message. Here is a recent article with a good perspective on this fraud: http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea...

    18. Re:Calm down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      then you weren't looking. For example, Theagarten Lingham-Soliar doesn't look very Asian to my eyes...

  6. Peer review by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Morally disappointing. Scientific honesty was drilled into me during Bsc and PhD. Times have changed.

    1. Re:Peer review by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

      I got a PhD recently. I find this news shocking. I'd known of people making up figures or fudging data, but I thought, "Well, there is so much pressure in academia, sometimes people lose the ability to make proper judgements." Not that that makes it ok, of course.

      But this is... just downright evil. How do you even get a bunch of co-authors to get on board with something like this? What institution do these people come from?

      Damn, I'm definitely not taking any institution seriously when this kind of stuff happens in it.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    2. Re:Peer review by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      This assumes the co-authors were aware of the deception, which may not be true depending on the study and how it was run. If someone who is in charge of data analysis is fed bad data, how much can you fault them for providing an incorrect analysis? Perhaps they were suspicious but suspended their own disbelief and are therefor culpable, but most people don't operate at a level of paranoia to suspect that type of thing, even if the results fly in the face of common sense.

      Personally I find that the whole incident leaves me with a positive feeling. Rather than looking at this from the perspective of "Oh look, science is full of crap as well", I look at as science being willing to point out when it is full of crap and take corrective measures. When you find the same behavior in religion, politics, or other of life's institutions that people tend to take seriously if not put a lot of faith in, then we can talk.

      Like any endeavor involving humans, science is capable of folly. However, institutionally it has one of the best track records for identifying and removing that folly, even if it takes a while. Much else in life seems as—if not more—subject to the whim of those in charge as it does to any laws of nature or the universe.

    3. Re:Peer review by Beck_Neard · · Score: 0

      > I look at as science being willing to point out when it is full of crap and take corrective measures.

      Obviously, but the question is whether these corrective measures are enough.

      > When you find the same behavior in religion, politics, or other of life's institutions that people tend to take seriously if not put a lot of faith in, then we can talk.

      I don't put a lot of faith in them. Actually, I put zero faith in them. Can we still talk? :)

      > However, institutionally it has one of the best track records for identifying and removing that folly, even if it takes a while.

      Does it?

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
  7. PeerReviewGate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kind of like allowing a professional football team to control their own balls!

  8. Note the Field by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Biomed.
    Not Physics, nor Chemistry, nor Astronomy, nor Geology, nor any number of other Fields.
    Biomed.

    You can draw your own conclusions, but my conclusion is that Biomed is irretrievably corrupted.
    The sad thing is... at this point, it isn't even about the Money any longer...

    1. Re:Note the Field by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

      Biomed....You can draw your own conclusions, but my conclusion is that Biomed is irretrievably corrupted.

      What is the basis for your conclusion? TFS is talking about 43 "bad" papers over an unknown (at least to me) timeframe. How many biomed papers in total were produced during the timeframe? Do the "bad" papers constitute 10%? 1%? .1%? .01% of the total?

      Fraud is everywhere. Always has been, always will be. Are you going to reject the research of an entire field of study because of the misdeeds of a few researchers?

      Furthermore, this misconduct was identified and rectified. Sounds to me like the system is working as intended.

    2. Re:Note the Field by narcc · · Score: 1

      The assumption you're making here is that those 43 papers represent all of the fraudulent papers. That's foolish. It could very well be more.

      When you see one roach...

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    3. Re:Note the Field by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aw, the least that you could have done was mod me down as "Flamebait". Because "Flamebait" it was. However...
      Mosey on over to Wikipedia and look up Pfizer.
      Pfizer may be the biggest rotten apple in the Biomedical Barrel, but they aren't the only one.
      But even if Pfizer was the only Big Bad, their history of corruption, fraud, unethical conduct, and arguably... Murder, pretty much dwarfs all other misconduct in all other fields, combined, many times over.
      In fact, the 2.3 _Billion_ Dollars that they owe for Fraud is the largest of their many settlements.

      That said, I know a Researcher in Telomere regulated Gene expression. Her cubicle is in Oakland, but her Labs are in Eastern Europe, where there is easy and cheap access to Fetal Stem Cells. She is somewhat concerned with the silly illegality of such Research in the US, but she is more concerned that her Research will be stolen, and then patented, because this has happened to her before, by Genentech.

    4. Re:Note the Field by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

      I've made no such assumption. I simply asked a question.

      But OK, instead of 43 papers, let's say it's 430 papers. Or let's say it's 4,300 papers. I still have the same question: why should anyone conclude that "Biomed is irretrievably corrupted" as GP claims? If there was 43,000 papers submitted during the timeframe in question, 10% of papers are questionable. Is that enough?

      IMO, there has to be something more than a few anecdotal reports of fraud before I'll write off an entire field of study as being "irretrievably corrupted".

    5. Re:Note the Field by narcc · · Score: 1

      Here's the problem.

      this misconduct was identified and rectified. Sounds to me like the system is working as intended.

      See, the system is, quite clearly, not working as intended. That's what allowed those particular instances of fraud to happen in the first place! Worse, these few were caught only because Curtis thought the contact details for the reviewers looked a bit off.

      Further, look at your reasoning here. If no fraud is noticed, you go "Look how great things are, no fraud spotted." When fraud is found, you go "Look, we rooted out the fraud, the system works." You are simply incapable of acknowledging any problems.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    6. Re:Note the Field by Stem_Cell_Brad · · Score: 1
      Is "Get me off your fucking mailing list" biomed?

      http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/11...

    7. Re:Note the Field by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

      You are simply incapable of acknowledging any problems.

      Not at all. There's certainly a problem. Research integrity has been a problem since Academia was born. That's why every research university has an "Office of Research Integrity" or somesuch.

      But as I've said (repeatedly), I want to know the magnitude of the problem. Do you think that ONE fraudulent biomed paper is enough to conclude the entire field is "irretrievably corrupted"? Do 43 fraudulent papers vilify the field? Because that's the ridiculous claim I'm challenging. If one isn't enough, how many then?

    8. Re:Note the Field by narcc · · Score: 1

      Part of the problem is that we have no viable way of determining the magnitude of the problem. Yes, that means everything is tainted to some degree.

      Some one here made an analogy some time back. If you had a bag of m&m's and I told you one of the candies was deadly, would you still eat a few? What if it were 100 bags? 1000? Of course not. Every piece is suspect.

      Making excuses for these journals or outright denying the problem as "the system is working as intended" (when it clearly is not) isn't helpful. Real protections need to be put in place to prevent this kind of fraud beforehand. We also need ways to find fraudulent papers and excise them, should some any find their way to publication.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    9. Re:Note the Field by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

      Making excuses for these journals or outright denying the problem as "the system is working as intended" (when it clearly is not) isn't helpful.

      Clearly to who? Evidence (non anecdotal) please.

    10. Re:Note the Field by narcc · · Score: 1

      See the article linked in the summary.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    11. Re:Note the Field by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

      Uh huh. So the supposed irretrievable corruption in the biomed field is a figment of your imagination. Got it.

  9. This can all be disproved. by timrod · · Score: 4, Funny

    I have written a paper that conclusively proves that there is absolutely no fraud within the field of academic publishing within the biomedical field. It was peer reviewed by no fewer than sixty of my peers (who definitely aren't me making up names) and is absolutely concrete in its findings... provided you don't look too hard at my evidence. Clearly, anyone who says there is fraud within the biomed field is in fact fraudulent themselves.

    Also, I take checks, Visa, and Mastercard, but no Amex.

  10. How lazy can journals get? by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Academics submit articles to journals for free. Other academics provide feedback and do quality control for the submitted articles, also for free. Yet more academics peer review the submitted articles, you guessed it, for free. Logistics are handled by a board of volunteer academics. I guess the journal staff... typeset the cover and table of contents, print the journal, and maintain the website? The typesetting is probably automated, actually.

    Out of curiosity I checked the pricing on the Journal of Algebra, probably the most prestigious journal in my field. An individual subscription is $291. A 5-person e-journal subscription is $2,070.67. An institutional paper subscription is $5,314.

    I guess they're too busy raking in money hand over first to bother trying to find independent reviewers.

    1. Re:How lazy can journals get? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess the journal staff... typeset the cover and table of contents, print the journal, and maintain the website? The typesetting is probably automated, actually.

      Nah, it's outsourced to some country that's cheap, where they push it through some semi-automated overblown sed script, and then you have to keep pushing the same article back until they stop mangling it.

    2. Re:How lazy can journals get? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very lazy and very profitable. I've been ripped off personally by some, and now just self publish for free (well, I pay for a site that does it for me). All I want to do is share my work, not enrich those parasites - and that's what they are. Mod parent up....

    3. Re:How lazy can journals get? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess the journal staff... typeset the cover and table of contents, print the journal, and maintain the website? The typesetting is probably automated, actually.

      ...if you are lucky, of course. I'm currently publishing a book chapter with Springer and let me tell you that I would prefer if the typesetting was actually automated. Instead, they apparently outsourced that part to some random place in India whose employees couldn't even get the title right (let alone everything else), with hilariously bad results.

  11. You see this Sir by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The practice can occur when researchers submitting a paper for publication suggest reviewers"

    That's your problem right there, you gone got bullshit in your peer review system. I'm afraid I'll have to tear half the discipline out and replace it with some parts borrowed from pure mathematics.

  12. Use of suggested reviewers is terrible by students · · Score: 1

    Aside from fraud, this practice does not lead to good reviews. When I am asked to suggest reviewers to the editor, I am not able to suggest my friends, because they would not be able to provide objective reviews. Therefore, I must suggest a reviewer who I do not know much about. If the editor simply follows my suggestions, nothing has been done to ensure the reviewer is an expert in the field. Editors' primary responsibility is to know who the appropriate reviewers are. They should not cede that responsibility to authors.

    --
    Simon's Rock College
    1. Re:Use of suggested reviewers is terrible by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      It's not terrible. Turns out that according to editors I've spoken to, the harshest reviews often come from the suggested reviewers "friends", as those are the ones with most knowledge of the field and therefore closest.

      Also, I've sometimes been listed as a suggested reviewer by someone I've never met simply because I'm quite well known (still, even though I'm no longer in academia).

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Use of suggested reviewers is terrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This occasionally is justified when dealing with a novel topic. When bootstrapping was first making its way around, a professor of mine was asked to name a few people who understood it to review the paper he had submitted.

    3. Re:Use of suggested reviewers is terrible by jklovanc · · Score: 2

      Editors' primary responsibility is to know who the appropriate reviewers are.

      So the editor must know the credentials and area of work of every possible reviewer in the world. That seems to be a tall order.

      If the editor simply follows my suggestions, nothing has been done to ensure the reviewer is an expert in the field.

      That is the problem. The editor should check the credentials of the suggested reviewers and filter them for expertise and conflict. A good editor would also add at least one reviewer not on the list.

    4. Re:Use of suggested reviewers is terrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Speaking as an academic I agree 100%.

      Essentially under the system of author suggested reviewers honest academics get punished because they will suggest reviewers with deep, specific knowledge of the field who will therefore provide pointed, well thought out, insightful, hard to rebutt reviews, while dishonest authors can hand themselves glowing co-authored endorsements co-written by unscrupulous friends.

      There is nothing good about this system.

    5. Re:Use of suggested reviewers is terrible by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      The editor absolutely should not have a better idea or who is an expert in your specific sub-field of a sub-field of science. You are the best judge of that.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    6. Re:Use of suggested reviewers is terrible by students · · Score: 1

      Editors are specialized. They should know the reviewers within the speciality.

      --
      Simon's Rock College
    7. Re:Use of suggested reviewers is terrible by students · · Score: 1

      Editors have subject specialities, and (hopefully) read a lot more papers than authors do. Typically they are senior academics, while authors are usually students. Editors are picked from among the most successful authors. So actually the editor should know better than authors.

      --
      Simon's Rock College
  13. Fraudulent "Science" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    One wonders if any of the fake peer reviews supported anthropogenic global warming claims.

    1. Re:Fraudulent "Science" by Baloroth · · Score: 1

      One also wonders if this Anonymous Coward is a wife beating rapist pedophile. What, I'm just asking the question, not making any accusation or anything! I'm just saying, we don't know you're not.

      But, in case anyone else is actually wondering what the papers really are about (as opposed to mister AC who is asking a loaded question in an attempt to create doubt where none exists), it's a mix of biomedical stuff. Probably boring stuff unless you're in the field (but I don't know enough about biology/medicine to know for sure).

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
  14. Nonsense by s.petry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The same claim you make about wacko's having ammo works in both directions. People on the side you believe to have the better opinions use the same papers as their "proof" for what ever they want.

    People quote mythical 'facts' regularly. Today I heard yet another bonehead talking about the alleged "Rape Culture" at college which uses a 40 year old bullshit study for it's statistics. Not because we can't do better studies, but because the numbers in that particular study favor the bullshit they want you to believe.

    Not very much "Science" relates to pure black or pure white answers. In fact the majority of science is trying to figure out what shade of gray something is. The most difficult task is to figure out your own biases, and in a world that puts "feelings" over correctness.. we are getting what we should.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re: Nonsense by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Yes, but what color is it?

    2. Re: Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever watch that crapshoot called TV? It has all kinds of programs on "hidden", "secret", "unknown", blah blah blah. It's all pure propaganda. All Of It. The same lying motherfuckers producing the show are the same lying pos's that pretend they are educating you in some form or other.
      Television has become nothing more than reruns of commercials. Read: propaganda to either take your money or MISinform.
      Seriously. TV does not explain squat. Not about the universe, aliens, the govt (farce), nothing. They are ALL liars and there is NO such thing as a "reality" show when everybody knows they are being filmed and it's never "live" to begin with. The only thing TV can teach you is how stupid the people are who produce it.

    3. Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The same claim you make about wacko's having ammo works in both directions. People on the side you believe to have the better opinions use the same papers as their "proof" for what ever they want.

      People quote mythical 'facts' regularly. Today I heard yet another bonehead talking about the alleged "Rape Culture" at college which uses a 40 year old bullshit study for it's statistics. Not because we can't do better studies, but because the numbers in that particular study favor the bullshit they want you to believe.

      Not very much "Science" relates to pure black or pure white answers. In fact the majority of science is trying to figure out what shade of gray something is. The most difficult task is to figure out your own biases, and in a world that puts "feelings" over correctness.. we are getting what we should.

      These aren't "facts" being discussed - they're FRAUD.

      And that IS black-and-white.

      GP is right, and you're trying to obfuscate the issue.

    4. Re:Nonsense by s.petry · · Score: 0

      Read what GP stated, then read what I wrote. To anyone that knows how to read it should be obvious that my comments regarding convenient 'facts' are related to him, and not TFA or it's summary.

      I get that reading chronologically can be hard, but good grief... my commentary is directly below the post I commented on.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    5. Re:Nonsense by danbuter · · Score: 1

      You're the one with poor reading comprehension. If the bastions of scientific literature are regularly seen to be publishing falsifified research, then all of their work is put into question, even the really well done/researched stuff.

    6. Re: Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing TV can teach you is how stupid the people are who produce it.

      Well, there's one more thing TV can teach us: How stupid the people are who watch the drivel and somehow find it to be good.

    7. Re:Nonsense by Stem_Cell_Brad · · Score: 2
      I disagree with you on what science is about. I think this article sums it up better by saying that science is about "becoming less wrong" about things (http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/). For some areas, this can get to black and white answers (benefits of vaccines). Other areas remain gray (almost anything diet).

      As you noted, folks can ignore science and quote mythical facts or just deny science (climate change deniers). But that is their fault, not the fault of Science.

    8. Re:Nonsense by denzacar · · Score: 2

      Today I heard yet another bonehead talking about the alleged "Rape Culture" at college which uses a 40 year old bullshit study for it's statistics. Not because we can't do better studies, but because the numbers in that particular study favor the bullshit they want you to believe.

      There is a possibility that people who want to do those studies actually CAN'T do better studies.

      CDC did a phone survey study on rape. Spent tens of thousands of work hours and several million dollars on it.
      http://www.cdc.gov/violencepre...
      And got "rates of sexual violence in the United States...comparable to those in the war-stricken Congo".
      Their methodology was tainted at several steps, from framing the questions, through all survey takers being female (which totally can't alter their approach to asking questions after first couple of cases of women reporting rape), to paying for answers (paying more for taking part in the rape-related part of the "health" survey).

      So, they did another one.
      http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss...
      This one not only had numbers once again shooting through the roof, this time you didn't even have to look up methodology to see glaring errors.

      Results: In the United States, an estimated 19.3% of women and 1.7% of men have been raped during their lifetimes; an estimated 1.6% of women reported that they were raped in the 12 months preceding the survey.
      The case count for men reporting rape in the preceding 12 months was too small to produce a statistically reliable prevalence estimate.
      An estimated 43.9% of women and 23.4% of men experienced other forms of sexual violence during their lifetimes, including being made to penetrate, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, and noncontact unwanted sexual experiences.

      If dad forces mom to have sex - that's rape.
      If dad forces dad to have sex - that's also rape.
      If mom forces dad to have sex... that's not rape. That's "other forms of sexual violence".

      It's the old "It's only the guy who's GIVING the blowjob that's gay" logic.
      Along with the "men can only be raped by other men" logic - i.e. "women can't rape".
      I.e. All rapists are men.

      Could it be that people doing these studies simply can't give up their confirmation biases, and that they are taking existence of "rape culture" as a foregone conclusion?

      When about 1 in 5 (or more) of population reports being raped... which is about 63 million people in USA...
      That either means that there are tens of millions of rapists out there, working overtime to meet their rape quotas while everyone, INCLUDING VICTIMS, is just going with it and shrugging their shoulders without a care for themselves or others - or that the people doing the studies have serious issues with the methodology of their studies.

      --
      Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    9. Re:Nonsense by s.petry · · Score: 2

      You seem to be missing the obvious conclusion. Science is surely capable of yielding better results than the irrational numbers you demonstrated in your last paragraph (amazingly the same number as the BS study I referred to). The issue is that people are inherently manipulative, so they don't want better numbers. Studies use intentionally incorrect information, like you point out with male rape not being counted as rape. That study claiming one in five counted any unwanted sexual advance as rape. Even if it was a woman being nice to her husband because she was not in the mood but he was.

      Two other manipulations heavily used are studies that count bisexuals as gay and as bisexual to double the wanted demographics numbers. Murders not being counted as murders to make it appear like crime is being reduced. Deaths being linked to a specific cause to manipulate society even when the cause was only a minor factor.

      My point was not intended to say that science is not possible, it was more a notice of the pot calling the kettle black.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    10. Re:Nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Confirmation Bias fucks us all

  15. Now that science is wrong.... by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 2

    I guess Christianity is true, by process of (now perfectly valid) non-scientific reasoning.

    1. Re:Now that science is wrong.... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      I guess Christianity is true, by process of (now perfectly valid) non-scientific reasoning.

      I asked Jesus to review your assertions, but I haven't heard anything back. Anyone have better contact info?

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    2. Re:Now that science is wrong.... by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      I hear there are plenty of people in Mexico named Jesus, but I think in English speaking countries naming your child Jesus is taboo.

    3. Re: Now that science is wrong.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, using logic there? Welcome to the 'unscientific ' world of philosophy :-)

  16. Don't blame the journals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't blame the journals. They didn't fabricate research. No, if blame is to be found (besides the researcher), it should be their employer. Start holding employers accountable and this crap will stop.

  17. Bullshit by damn_registrars · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Overall, this indicates an incredible amount of sloppiness and laziness in the peer-review field.

    That is more anti-science FUD - which is not a surprise coming from the deeply conservative "failure machine" samzenpus. They said that 64 papers were retracted. The volume of papers published in any given year is so high that 64 papers isn't even a rounding error. Yeah, some errors will be made but that is pretty well unavoidable. This kind of error rate is so low that even Toyota looks at it with admiration.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  18. Re:Not really news at this point by seyfarth · · Score: 1

    Good suggestion! Articles could be rated much like SlashDot. There could be any number of reviewers for an article. Some reviewers would have more weight than others. Knowing that a large number of reviewers think an article is worth reading is good enough. This need not cut out the publish or perish game, but the rules would need to change.

    --
    Ray Seyfarth, ray.seyfarth@gmail.com, http://rayseyfarth.blogspot.com
  19. What are you talking about? by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    Academics submit articles to journals for free

    Very few academics submit articles for free, especially in biomedical sciences. Many journals - even open access ones - charge $1-3k for publication. There are some cases where certain academics can submit for free if they are employed at sponsoring institutions, but those are the minority of researchers by a long shot.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:What are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Academics submit articles to journals for free

      Very few academics submit articles for free, especially in biomedical sciences.

      All pure mathematicians submit their articles for free. I wouldn't generalize from the biomedical sciences to the rest of academia.

    2. Re:What are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Academics submit articles to journals for free

      Very few academics submit articles for free, especially in biomedical sciences. Many journals - even open access ones - charge $1-3k for publication.

      All pure mathematicians submit articles for free. I wouldn't generalize from the biomedical sciences to the rest of academia.

    3. Re:What are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do they also submit the same paper multiple times?

    4. Re:What are you talking about? by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      Here is a list of math journals and their submission price. It is a bit old but I doubt they are all free now.

    5. Re:What are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those are, at best, vague about whether they are talking about subscription prices, or actually what you're implying. However

      ...I have used the price that UC Berkeley pays for the journal

      would indicate that this is indeed subscription prices. So please, check your sources.

      Actually,

      This letter concerns the high price of most math journals and discusses what we mathematicians might do about it. I hope you will discuss it with your colleagues, print and post it on your bulletin boards, and inform other mathematicians of its existence.

      rather solidly places the support as contrary to your position. The cost per 10,000 words, which the author advocates as a valid comparison metric, also supports the contention that this is about the journal subscription, not how much someone pays to be in a journal.

    6. Re:What are you talking about? by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 1

      I've never heard of someone having to pay for the privilege of letting a journal use your work for profit.

      AFAIK there are no pure math journals that require a submission fee. Either universities have been sheltering me and paying these fees in secret (doubtful,) there just aren't any fees (less doubtful,) or I've never submitted to a journal prestigious enough to have a fee (pretty likely.)

    7. Re:What are you talking about? by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 1

      As the other poster said, I think that webpage isn't talking about what you think it's talking about. But if it's out of date, it's out of date in the other direction. There's some journals on that list that definitely don't have a publishing fee nowadays. I've never even heard of a publishing fee for a math journal.

    8. Re:What are you talking about? by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 1

      I've never heard of an author submitting a paper multiple times.

    9. Re:What are you talking about? by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      It appears you may have confused submission with subscription.

    10. Re:What are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now you have:

      A group of researchers conducted a clinical trial on hundreds of hypertensive patients. Then, they published the resultssix times.

      http://retractionwatch.com/2015/08/18/exactly-the-same-clinical-study-published-six-times/

    11. Re:What are you talking about? by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      You are right but I found a journal that has a publishing fee.

      d) The authors revise paper and pay publication fee (300USD).

    12. Re:What are you talking about? by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      And the funny thing is that I think maybe the original post meant that they didn't get paid to submit a paper, but having to pay is even worse. Who's really doing who a favor here?

    13. Re:What are you talking about? by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 1

      That website has been slashdotted. Is it a math journal? Googling the URL just pulls up some sort of for-profit Canadian science organization.

    14. Re:What are you talking about? by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 1

      What I meant is, I've not heard of an author submitting to multiple journals at the same time. Sometimes an author has to modify a paper based on editor feedback and resubmit.

    15. Re:What are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was making fun of the double post, but that does happen.

    16. Re:What are you talking about? by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      They call themselves "Journal of Mathematics Research"

    17. Re: What are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those prices do not mean what you think they do. The prices listed have to do with subscription costs -- not for fees that an author would pay to publish his or her work. I'm a math professor and I have published papers in a number of those journals. The author does not need to pay anything to publish.

      Now, you may be able to find one or two journals that sound like they are mathematics journals which have a fee for authorship. However, you need to understand that unscrupulous "fake" publishers / scammers are always creating new "journals" and spamming the academic world (including mathematics) trying to make a buck. Everyone knows that they are just scammers that have nothing to do with the academic world, and they are just ignored. I just mention this in case you find one example of a journal with submission fees and think that proves your point.

      Bottom line, essentially all math journals used by pure mathematicians do not require the authors to pay to publish. This form of "open-access" simply doesn't exist within my field.

    18. Re: What are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think this one of those "fake" math journals I mentioned in a different post. I've certainly never heard of it before, nor have I ever come across a paper published in it. Seriously man, pure mathematicians in academia do not pay author submission fees when they publish their papers. It is unheard of.

    19. Re:What are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's quite common in some areas. Page Charges can be quite significant. Colour pages are even worse because, you know, colour pixels cost more.

  20. Which is why you need to... by Karmashock · · Score: 1

    ... Question, Audit, Check, Recheck, and remain open minded as to whether X actually equals Y.

    There's something of a cult these days of people that say "well newspaper M said X=Y so it must be true!"... and anyone that so much as remains skeptical about that is anti science. Because after all, science is about dogmatic acceptace of authority and slavish memorization and repetition of whatever your betters tell you it is...

    Oh wait, that's religion.

    Cue a horde of douchebags that will tell me I'm being anti science without getting the irony that they've just outed themselves.

    Mindless acceptance OR rejection of anything is not science or helpful. You need to think about these things. Or the reality is that you never thought about them and so you don't really have an opinion so much as programming.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  21. I beg to differ. by linear+a · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Overall, this indicates an incredible amount of sloppiness and laziness in the peer-review field." To me, this is outright fraud, not carelessness or sloth on the part of the contributors.

    1. Re:I beg to differ. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's all of the above. Some were committing fraud, others were too lazy to notice it.

  22. Blame the journals, research and employers. by jklovanc · · Score: 2

    Journals are there to filter out the bad science. If they don't check the credentials and conflicts of reviewers they are not doing their jobs. It is not an all or nothing situation. Journals should be blamed for not checking reviewers. Researchers should be blamed for bad research. Employers should be blamed for allowing bad research. The blame is shared.

  23. Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by damn_registrars · · Score: 2

    The volume of papers published per year in biomed is staggering. Indeed the volume is so high to make 64 papers insignificant.

    If we were to assume that all 64 of those papers were published in the same year - which the article does not specify - it still would not be significant. Even if we assumed them to all be in the same year and roughly related - which again we don't see stated in the article - it still would not be significant.

    For a good point on this, let's look at one popular field in biomed. A lot of work in done under the term "proteomics" currently. Pubmed shows nearly 6300 papers in 2014 under this term. Hence if all 64 of these papers were published last year and were proteomics papers, that would be barely 1%.

    How many industries have recall rates below 1%? Not many. Sure it would be better for it to be zero, but there are bad actors in any industry and academia is not the shangri-la stress-free hippy paradise that conservative commentators make it out to be.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  24. Holy off-topic rant, batman! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mindless acceptance OR rejection of anything is not science

    This is not about mindless acceptance or rejection. Did you even read the summary? This is about some number of bad actors who gamed the peer-review system so that they were reviewing their own papers.

    The rest of your rant appears to suggest that you think you are countering problems with global warming science. Did you notice in the summary that it said these were biomed papers? There are certainly findings in biomed that are overturned by new discoveries but no sane person accuses the body of biomedical science as a whole of pushing a political agenda.

  25. It's mostly a problem in medical fields by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    I've noticed that these stories about retractions of peer reviewed papers are nearly always about medical research. I wonder why.

    1. Re:It's mostly a problem in medical fields by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

      Also every single name on the retracted list sounds Chinese.

    2. Re:It's mostly a problem in medical fields by nbauman · · Score: 2

      Also every single name on the retracted list sounds Chinese.

      Up until about 5 or 10 years ago, Chinese medicine was famous for fraud.

      There was one Chinese neurosurgeon who was doing effectively lobotomies with the claim that it would cure all kinds of mental diseases. Families gave him their life savings, and their relatives turned out worse than they were before, if they survived.

      It's also still popular in China for doctors to give monthly intravenous antibiotic infusions, to healthy patients, as a "tonic." As you might expect, this produces antibiotic resistance, making the antibiotics worthless when somebody really needs them. And occasionally the IV infusions lead to life-threatening infections. One woman got a flesh-eating bacterial infection, and lost 2 feet and a hand.

      (It's not just China. This is what happens in the free market anywhere, when doctors can make a lot of money and don't have competent government oversight. See Quackwatch.com for U.S. examples.)

      According to Science magazine, there was (and is) a big fight going on between the "traditional" do-your-own-thing Chinese practitioners and the Western-educated MDs who are trying to impose modern scientific methods and education. The modern Chinese MDs seem to be winning.

      I read about 10 scientific journals a week and I noticed a dramatic increase in the Chinese names, either among the "et al." or now increasingly as principal investigators, either from Western institutions or now increasingly from Chinese institutions.

      I remember one paper in Science in which they sequenced the DNA of 2 species of Chinese bats -- one a fruit-eating bat and the other an insectivorous bat. Of course anyone can sequence DNA these days, but they did a great job of identifying the interesting differences between the 2 species and interpreting the evolutionary significance.

      There are also a lot of good Chinese papers in the major medical journals. If you consider Taiwan as part of China, they have the entire Taiwanese population in their medical insurance database, and they're running studies to see how many people with **disease or drug** get **adverse effect** over 10 or 20 years.

      They also seem to have a big bureaucracy in which scientists get rewarded and promoted on the basis of their citations, since it's an easy metric. I'm glad that doesn't happen here.

  26. Re:Not really news at this point by 0123456 · · Score: 1

    Over time the models got better and we now know that the climate will change.

    Everyone who looks out the window now and again knows the climate changes. Only a few fanatical climate change deniers claim the climate didn't change before humans came along.

    Some places will get hotter and some places will get cooler, but over all the trend is towards more heat and climate change.

    That'll be why the models continue diverging from reality unless we continually 'adjust' the temperature record to make them a better fit.

  27. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These are just the people who are too lazy or stupid to p-hack. Outright making things up is a nonissue which would be caught by any method that catches p hacking and inappropriate logical leaps.

  28. Fraud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Overall, this indicates an incredible amount of sloppiness and laziness in the peer-review field" No, it indicates sloppiness & laziness from these awful journals. The "peer-review field" (science) is still working just fine.

    Sure, the journals are not doing their due diligence, but intentionally peer reviewing your own papers is fraud.

    The word is FRAUD. The fraudsters need to be outed, if not criminally charged.

  29. Correspondence vs. Publishing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In the olden times, it was called correspondence. Now it is called publishing. Confused they are, those well-meaning people of science.

  30. Re:Not really news at this point by lucm · · Score: 1

    Knowing that a large number of reviewers think an article is worth reading is good enough.

    Even better: there should be a way to find the article score in various demographics, like they have on imdb. That way when an article is rated 8.4 by females age 18-29 and 6.4 by males 30-44 (like Divergent on imdb), I will know better than read it.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  31. Given that there was no list published by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You must have powerz of clairvoyance.

    1. Re: Given that there was no list published by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You missed it. Search this thread for RetractionWatch (ignoring this one).

      Most of the papers were about cancer, nearly all about medicine. I hope this is just a dodgy third-party review service rather than corrupt authors trying to legitimize crap science.

  32. More like that's where hockey sticks come from by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2

    Cuz this shit is why you get, "Hurr, climate change isn't reel". Because look - look at all the bad science and bullshit studies.

    Actually it's looking more and more like that's EXACTLY were we got "Hockey stick! We're all going to die! (Unless we give governments the power to regulate the economy back into the bronze age and Al Gore a carbon-credit market from which he can make billions in profits {even after paying for his movie}.)"

    Which is really annoying, because if there REALLY IS a DANGEROUS climate change PROBLEM that DOES NEED FIXING and CAN BE FIXED, "climate science" has been so discredited that it will no longer be possible to convince people this is the case. B-b

    And your characterization is part of the problem.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    1. Re:More like that's where hockey sticks come from by jma05 · · Score: 1

      > "climate science" has been so discredited that it will no longer be possible to convince people this is the case.

      Climate Science is only "discredited" in US. Its non-controversial science for the rest of the world. US citizens have *by far*, the largest carbon foot prints per capita - current and historical. So it is only natural for them to be in eager denial. If it wasn't this, they will look for something else to discredit inconvenient facts.

    2. Re:More like that's where hockey sticks come from by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      33 C

    3. Re:More like that's where hockey sticks come from by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ???

    4. Re:More like that's where hockey sticks come from by RingDev · · Score: 1

      And your characterization is part of the problem.

      we give governments the power to regulate the economy back into the bronze age

      Pot, meet kettle.

      -Rick

      --
      "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
  33. GOP prepping for 2016 election by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are these fake articles the product of right-wing.orgs funded by uber-wealthy republican donors relying on dirty industries for their wealth and power? The question needs to be asked. Because it might be part of a deliberate strategy to smear all peer-reviewed science and all candidates who respect science.

  34. Probably about global warming by jlgreer1 · · Score: 0

    Most probably about global warming is history is any indication.

  35. Yeah.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Colleges need to band together to form groups to do things other than play sports. Like boycott the paid journal model of scientific publishing.

  36. "Nature" is not a legit publisher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I stopped subscribing to "Nature" when I encountered an article authored by more than 60 individuals.

    Really? All 60+ wrote the article?
    It was clearly a load of Bat Guano to claim that all 60 were principals who researched and wrote the article. And then this became a trend.
    Clearly, this is a case out outright fraud and sloth on the part of the proclaimed contributors.

    1. Re:"Nature" is not a legit publisher by jma05 · · Score: 1

      > It was clearly a load of Bat Guano to claim that all 60 were principals who researched and wrote the article.

      You are missing the point. Its that authorship credits should not be just limited to just the principals. You haven't seen the article about the one with 5154 authors?

      http://science.slashdot.org/st...

      You better have a lot of valid arguments before dissing one of the top journals in the world (not an opinion - going by impact factor).

  37. Behold the power of clairvoyance! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    List of retracted papers

  38. Re:Not really news at this point by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    That'll be why the models continue diverging from reality unless we continually 'adjust' the temperature record to make them a better fit.

    I'm always amused by statements that say things like that without applying any rigorous science to back it up.

  39. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Peer review is designed to catch the logical leaps part and potentially p-hacking IF reviewed by someone else - historically, there has not been motivation for outright fraud, so the main goal of peer review is catching poor analysis or mistakes in analysis rather than "Did they lie about the data?" That seems to have shifted of late and the model of review is struggling to adapt.

  40. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by ISoldat53 · · Score: 1

    Is slew the proper collective term? I would think pan-tload would fit better.

  41. I know what's happening here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Chinese 'researchers' are being paid to fake research that is then used to support new ineffective or harmful medications.

  42. Re:Not really news at this point by mjperson · · Score: 2

    On the other hand, the media is often sensationalizing a few outlying cases. A single research group was caught falsifying global warming data? A few dozen others were publishing real data.

    In this case, 100 papers were retracted for fraud. The most recent two issues of the planetary astronomy journal I frequently publish in which few of you have even heard of comprised 100 articles total. 100 articles retracted is a *tiny* tiny percentage of the reliable peer reviews published.

    Fraud is bad. When found, punish it. But this single incident does not signal the end of science.

  43. You think that's shocking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you were blown away by that news, e turns out to be 2.71, NOT MC squared!!!

    By law, I think in a county in Georgia, the mathematical constant "pi" is 3. It's an integer. Anyone who says different is in the pocket of Big Decimal!

    Recent research into pi has revealed that contrary to popular belief, pi are ROUND, not SQUARED!

    etc. other funny math or science joke...

  44. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    Even pantload is an exaggeration. Handful is stretching it, even. Considering the minuscule fraction represented here, a better term would be "blip" or even just "few". But this is slashdot, and to not put something like this on the front page in a way that excites the conservative base would be considered a disservice. Notice how many people started threads here telling us their feelings about global warming, even though this has absolutely nothing to do with global warming; that shows that this front page story did its job quite well.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  45. Consequences? by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

    So now what? We always hear of fraud, bad practices, and papers disproved/invalidated. But what happens then? Are hundreds/thousands of scientist fired and rendered un-hire-able every single year? Or do things like this not have repercussions? When a peer review journal has absolute proof of fraud is there any chance the scientists will lose their job? Will be ostracized and forever more be ineligible for grants and no community college would touch him? Or does he continue working and researching? What about lesser offences, what if it just turns out that your ground breaking research that got you a job turns out to be false. It is not proof of fraud, but it invalidates your results at the very least.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  46. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    I don't think this article implies that 64 is the total number of articles that used this method of feud. Just that a single publisher spent tiny amount of effort and found 64 articles. What is this publisher 1% of the industry? .00001%? It does not say. It states 10 journals, what does a single journal publish per year? I imagine these 64 are out of a pool in the thousands, possible a little less or a little more. But we have no reason to assume that they caught any big percentage of the fraudsters.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  47. Channeling or maybe a spin on GLaDOS, part 1 by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    I'm not calling you anti-science.

  48. Channeling or maybe a spin on GLaDOS, part 2 by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Remember before when I was talking about how you weren't anti-science? That was a metaphor. I wasn't actually talking about you. And I'm not sorry. You didn't react at the time, so I was worried it sailed right over your head. Which would have made this non-apology seem insane. That's why I had to say you weren't anti-science a second time just now."

    1. Re:Channeling or maybe a spin on GLaDOS, part 2 by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  49. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they knew someone would try to replicate it before it was taken seriously however... In biomed they want peer review to replace the scientific method of independent replication and significant p values to replace a priori predictions. It's a mess.

  50. Re:Not really news at this point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Even better: there should be a way to find the article score in various demographics, like they have on imdb. That way when an article is rated 8.4 by females age 18-29..."
    You're not going to get enough Females from that demographic responding on Slashdot, to draw any meaningful kind of statistical conclusion.

  51. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

    How many industries have recall rates below 1%?

    Pretty much every one. That's why recalls are such big news - they're actually pretty rare compared to the volume of products. And recalls for products that simply don't work (the equivalent of faked papers) as opposed to one or more features not working are practically non existent.

  52. AAAAAANNNDDDD this is why I'm skeptical of AGW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...yep.

  53. Re: Not really news at this point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm always amused when people say, "I'm always amused..."

    So ignorantly petulant you can taste it!

    (And yes, embrace the irony of my statement.)

  54. Yay, job openings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hahaa

  55. It happened to me. by lfp98 · · Score: 1

    Yes, I was once recruited to review my own paper, and I didn't suggest me. I can't remember which journal. I sarcastically refused, but always wondered whether I would have gotten away with it.

  56. List of retracted articles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://link.springer.com/search?query=The+Publisher+and+Editor+retract+this+article+in+accordance+with+the+recommendations+of+the+Committee+on+Publication+Ethics+%28COPE%29&date-facet-mode=between&facet-start-year=2015&previous-start-year=1995&facet-end-year=2015&previous-end-year=2015

    All the articles are in the biomedical sciences (so cool down, climate change deniers)

  57. Like Job References? by nicoleb_x · · Score: 1

    Sounds like the way a lot of people do job references. You can get away with it too as it's real easy to get temporary phone numbers and with contracted out reference checkers it's easy enough to pretend to be multiple people. I've detected this scam a few time for companies that were trying to hire for "commodity" type jobs.

  58. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't overlook the fact that these are just the ones that were caught, and the papers retracted. This could easily just be the tip of the iceberg.

  59. familiarty breeds.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like the way most journalists I know check their stories.

  60. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by Stem_Cell_Brad · · Score: 1

    0.02% of articles are retracted according to 538: http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea...

  61. people don't understand peer review by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 1

    Peer review exists to help a journal editor to decide whether an article is worth publishing in their journal, not whether the article is true. In principle, a peer reviewer for "The Journal of Irreproducible Results" would have to determine not whether the submitted article is true, but whether it is sufficiently irreproducible and funny to be published there (the JIR doesn't use peer review AFAIK, but it's just to illustrate the point). A low-end, high acceptance journal may not use very rigorous peer review. A journal like Nature, on the other hand, may reject many excellent articles simply because they don't judge them interesting enough, while accepting some questionable articles in order to start discussion. Failures in peer review are a problem for a journal that prides itself on high quality content, but they are not per se a problem for science.

  62. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    How many industries have recall rates below 1%?

    Pretty much every one.

    That is not an example. Do a little research before making such an extravagant claim.

    That's why recalls are such big news - they're actually pretty rare compared to the volume of products.

    No. Safety recalls - such as the airbag recalls that are effecting almost every car made in Japan in the past 5 years - are huge. There are tons of smaller recalls for products all the time that don't make the news. To stick with my example of the automobile industry, I'm not aware of a car on the market today that hasn't been recalled for something in the past 2-3 years. A lot of recalls are pretty benign - things relating to audio or climate control, or exterior trim issues - but they are out there nonetheless.

    (the equivalent of faked papers)

    The papers described here are not necessarily completely bogus, however the authors gamed the review system to get them in. Whether the science was crap or not is not clear. Cheating the peer review system suggests there is a chance of the paper being fabricated completely but that does not guarantee it.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  63. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

    That is not an example. Do a little research before making such an extravagant claim.

    Don't hold me to a standard you refuse to hold yourself to mate.
     

    I'm not aware of a car on the market today that hasn't been recalled for something in the past 2-3 years.

    Ah, I see that you're unaware that cars are only a very small part of "industries". Or, you're trying to retroactively limit your former claim of "what industries?" to "what automobiles?". No dice.
     

    The papers described here are not necessarily completely bogus, however the authors gamed the review system to get them in. Whether the science was crap or not is not clear. Cheating the peer review system suggests there is a chance of the paper being fabricated completely but that does not guarantee it.

    Nice - you act like all recalls should be held accountable, but hold the papers to an entirely different standard.

    Can you say "bias"? I thought you could.

    Kindly fuck off.

  64. That sounds a bit like conspiracy theory to me... by denzacar · · Score: 1

    The issue is that people are inherently manipulative, so they don't want better numbers. Studies use intentionally incorrect information, like you point out with male rape not being counted as rape.

    Had they been manipulative they'd change the data and simply report inflated numbers - not use vague, badly worded definitions, prone to misinterpretation, or protocols and methodology prone to bias from both surveyors and surveyed.

    You are describing a conspiracy where "studies use intentionally incorrect information".
    I am describing a situation where confirmation biases of people designing and running the study, forces them to set goalposts so wide in order to get the results they are expecting - that the results they get are so high it is obviously ridiculous.

    Your theory proposes existence of scientifically sound studies which produce correct conclusions based on falsified data (scientists lied), which could not be proven wrong without repeating the study.
    My theory suggests a reason for faulty interpretation of correct data (both scientists and subjects told the truth) - which can be proven by just looking at the data and methodology of the study.

    Two other manipulations heavily used are studies that count bisexuals as gay and as bisexual to double the wanted demographics numbers. Murders not being counted as murders to make it appear like crime is being reduced. Deaths being linked to a specific cause to manipulate society even when the cause was only a minor factor.

    Now that sounds even more conspiratorial.
    Fake gays, hidden murders and lying about causes of death. Oh my!

    My point was not intended to say that science is not possible

    Neither was mine.

    It was to suggest that people coming up with those specific studies have their minds set about what those studies MUST show - so they unintentionally or through the lack of scientific rigor (they are often psychologists) produce badly designed studies.
    No one is lying, faking or hiding anything. They are just incompetent.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  65. Peer reviewers are not lazy, but may be sloppy by JohnWilliams · · Score: 1

    "Overall, this indicates an incredible amount of sloppiness and laziness in the peer-review field."

    I disagree with this statement, but it has some merit. I hope my insider experience can give some insight for those who care. The main problem is that "the peer review field" is ambiguous. It could include publishers, but also researchers, journal editors and reviewers. The last three are not paid jobs, they are part of the general job of being an academic. But academics are pressured more and more to publish more (note, not do more or better research, but to publish more highly cited papers in highly cited journals) while at the same time teaching more students with fewer resources. Like almost every worker in the world, we too in our ivory towers are pressured to do more with less (and to be happy while doing it, and thankful for a job).

    I peer review a dozen or so articles per year, and have been doing so for about 20 years. During this time I have learned that the peer review system has many problems, but no-one has proposed a better alternative that has gained popularity (OK, one field has. See below). The biggest problem is that peer reviewers and journal editors are not paid, so their only motivation to do a good job is some sense of social responsibility (If I submit articles that other people review for free, then I should return the favour.).

    And everyone knows that academic publishers, like other intermediaries from the pre-digital world, are extracting economic rents while trying to protect models based on scarcity, manual labour and other factors that no longer apply in today's world. But who can do anything about that? Our systems of remuneration and promotion are so intimately tied to the outdated commercial publication model (impact factors) that no-one seems willing to upset the status quo. Physics seems to have broken away with arXiv (http://arxiv.org/) but no other field has, to my knowledge, repeated this amazing feat. But the academics' lack of courage in challenging the status quo is not a result of protecting cozy economic rent-seeking; rather it's a reaction to that fact that when all our resources are being stripped away, we become extremely risk-averse (i.e. we want to protect what we've got).

    Bottom line: more trustworthy science can be promoted only by funding researchers to such a level that they have decent job security (as much as anyone can these days) and adequate resources to do the job, so that they are not tempted to cut corners just to keep their job!

    All this discussion, of course, ignores that far bigger cause of untrustworthy science: commercialism. Scientists typically depend on short-term grants, and must show "results" to get more grants (i.e. keep putting food on the table for their family). And funding agencies may have non-scientific motives, and very rarely understand the deep truth behind the aphorism "Fast, cheap, good: pick any two".

    --
    Professional Idiot
  66. Science is the "new" religion. by ToddInSF · · Score: 1

    Most of the crap published is a waste of space and funds.

  67. Re:That sounds a bit like conspiracy theory to me. by s.petry · · Score: 1

    Had they been manipulative they'd change the data and simply report inflated numbers - not use vague, badly worded definitions, prone to misinterpretation, or protocols and methodology prone to bias from both surveyors and surveyed.

    I smell a troll. Manipulation does not require one form, it takes many forms. Similarly dishonesty is not simply a lie, but can also be withholding information or re-ordering information to present a false reality.

    You are describing a conspiracy where "studies use intentionally incorrect information".

    Yup, it's a troll. I never claimed there was a conspiracy, I claimed that people commonly call things "science" in order to manipulate the public and provided examples which are easy to find and validate.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  68. Riiiight... let's hide behind the linguistics by denzacar · · Score: 1

    I never claimed there was a conspiracy, I claimed that people commonly call things "science" in order to manipulate the public and provided examples which are easy to find and validate.

    That "people" lying i.e. "call things science" in order to manipulate - that's a description of a conspiracy by definition. ANY definition.
    If it walks like duck... Meeh... you know the rest.

    As for examples "easy to find"... Go find me a James Bond movie I'm thinking off right now. Here's a hint: he kills a guy in it.
    You provided vague anecdotes you only half remember as "examples" of your conspiracy theories about manipulators of the public calling non-science science - and you expect everyone else to know your thoughts.
    Onus probandi much? No?

    You do realize that the examples I gave (without handwaving "it's out there... find the truth yourself") ARE science?
    Nothing unscientific about them.

    It's just that their methodology and conclusions are (probably) tainted by biases.
    BUT! Because it is science, the proofs and examples where they went wrong are RIGHT THERE, in the studies. Built in.
    No one had to manipulate, lie, hide, conspire...
    They wrote down exactly where they fucked up. That's a feature of the scientific method.
    What you are describing sounds like tabloid "science" and conspiracy theories.

    Manipulation does not require one form, it takes many forms. Similarly dishonesty is not simply a lie, but can also be withholding information or re-ordering information to present a false reality.

    You don't seem to understand the difference between a scientific study and a tabloid article.

    Main feature of science is that it can be taken apart because - it is science.
    And it MUST be taken apart during scientific work because - it is science.
    You can't "re-order" or "withhold" gravity or any other established law of nature or a finding proven previously.
    It is not some secret art. It is all out in the open already. You WILL be called out as a bad scientist and a kook if you try to do that.
    Richard Feynman called out Linus Pauling as a "vitamin C cures cancer" kook in a damn song.

    All you can do is fiddle with numbers and hope no one tries to replicate your results while you live.
    P-hacking is obvious, mislabeling too, using vague survey questions, badly set up controls...
    It is all obvious and it will be right there in the paper. Or it will not be - WHICH WILL MAKE IT EVEN MORE OBVIOUS.

    You are basically tossing ad hominems (though maybe unintentionally... you seem to have a misunderstanding of topics you are arguing), strawmen (again... maybe you don't understand the scientific process) and demanding of people to prove that you are right.
    Which is ironic... cause my original post was supporting yours, though through a more moderate explanation.

    But you seem to be too enamored in your "EVERYONE LIES!!! ALL THE TIME!!!" theory to realize that.
    Then again... you find it "amazing" that 1 in 5 Americans comes out to "about 63 million people" in my guesstimate and in the "BS study you referred to".
    As if dividing about 318 million with about 5 should change significantly depending on who does such basic math.

    I have a feeling that when you say "science" you do not think it means what it actually means.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  69. Editors should so their job. by gmyuriy · · Score: 1

    The situation hete in fact is pretty obvious. It used to be that academic journal editors were experts in their fields. This allowed them to know who can be a reviewer on a paper and meditate the review process. Now there is so many journals and papers, a whole lot of "editors" are not just inexperienced, but are simply morons, not only not experts in paper's field, often not even an academic faculty. That's why they want authors to suppy them reviewers suggestions - really quite an idiotic idea if you come to think about it... Ban reviewer suggestions and have the editors do their jobs, as it used to be, is all that's required to fix this one.

  70. Re:Not a slew. Not even statistically significant. by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    I'm not aware of a car on the market today that hasn't been recalled for something in the past 2-3 years.

    Ah, I see that you're unaware that cars are only a very small part of "industries".

    I was referring to cars as a product of the automotive industry. I asked you to provide an example of an industry so we could discuss its recall rate, and you provided no example. I, however, did live up to that very simple request and provided one.

    And when discussing the automotive industry, it is natural to discuss the automobile as the product of that industry. Sure, you can buy parts or hats or shirts or wallets from Toyota but their ultimate product is the automobile itself. Hence the recall rate for that industry is based on how many of their automobiles are recalled.

    This is really, really, simple.

    Or, you're trying to retroactively limit your former claim of "what industries?" to "what automobiles?". No dice.

    There is no need to get angry, here. You could try reading instead of yelling; you might actually learn something along the way.

    The papers described here are not necessarily completely bogus, however the authors gamed the review system to get them in. Whether the science was crap or not is not clear. Cheating the peer review system suggests there is a chance of the paper being fabricated completely but that does not guarantee it.

    Nice - you act like all recalls should be held accountable, but hold the papers to an entirely different standard.

    Try reading what you are replying to, and you will realize that your comment is your own fabrication, completely disconnected from reality. It appears that you are trying to place some great conspiracy in here when you have no evidence to support its existence.

    Can you say "bias"? I thought you could.

    Can you say "evidence"? Can you do simple math? Can you close out your comment without making yourself look like an angry child with no concept of what he is replying to?

    Kindly fuck off.

    Well, the answer to the last one is clearly no. The two prior, likely no as well. Have a nice day, son.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.