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Science Journals Caught Publishing Fake Research For Cash (vice.com)
Tuesday a Canadian journalist described his newest victory in his war on fake-science journals. An anonymous reader writes:
In 2014, journalist Tom Spears intentionally wrote "the world's worst science research paper...a mess of plagiarism and meaningless garble" -- then got it accepted by eight different journals. ("I copied and pasted one phrase from a geology paper online, and the rest from a medical one, on hematology...and so on. There are a couple of graphs from a paper about Mars...") He did it to expose journals which follow the publish-for-a-fee model, "a fast-growing business that sucks money out of research, undermines genuine scientific knowledge, and provides fake credentials for the desperate."
But earlier this year, one such operation actually purchased two prominent Canadian medical journals, and one critic warns they're "on a buying spree, snatching up legitimate scholarly journals and publishers, incorporating them into its mega-fleet of bogus, exploitative, and low-quality publications.â So this summer, Spears explains to Vice, "I got this request to write for what looked like a fake journal -- of ethics. Something about that attracted me... one morning in late August when I woke up early I made extra coffee and banged out some drivel and sent it to them."
He's now publicizing the fact that this formerly-respectable journal is currently featuring his submission, which was "mostly plagiarized from Aristotle, with every fourth or fifth word changed so that anti-plagiarism software won't catch it. But the result is meaningless. Some sentences don't have verbs..."
But earlier this year, one such operation actually purchased two prominent Canadian medical journals, and one critic warns they're "on a buying spree, snatching up legitimate scholarly journals and publishers, incorporating them into its mega-fleet of bogus, exploitative, and low-quality publications.â So this summer, Spears explains to Vice, "I got this request to write for what looked like a fake journal -- of ethics. Something about that attracted me... one morning in late August when I woke up early I made extra coffee and banged out some drivel and sent it to them."
He's now publicizing the fact that this formerly-respectable journal is currently featuring his submission, which was "mostly plagiarized from Aristotle, with every fourth or fifth word changed so that anti-plagiarism software won't catch it. But the result is meaningless. Some sentences don't have verbs..."
I'd like to see peer reviewed journals go away. They're a relic of the past, for many reasons.
1) The review process isn't transparent. It's too easy for authors to submit fake reviewers or for reviewers to not disclose conflicts of interest.
2) Reviewers generally don't have access to data and tools to actually verify the quality of the research. It's too easy for fabricated results to get published.
3) Many conference presentations are recorded. There's much less need for publications when it's easy to go online and watch a recording of a conference presentation.
4) Is it better to have a paper about a data set or the actual data set? Is it better to have a paper about a research tool or the actual research tool? Judge researchers based on the data and analysis tools they release, which is far more of a contribution to science.
5) Peer review gives researchers incentives to withhold data that might be contradictory to a hypothesis or that they can't explain yet, because it's often more important to get more publications than to do good research. This is as much a fault of the system as it is a criticism of researchers.
Eliminating peer reviewed journals is one of the best things that could happen to science. It would also end a lot of abuses by the journals.
OKay.
Let's begin with some real science, and a major issue: solar input
Rind, D.H., Lean, J.L., Jonas, J. 2014. The Impact of Different Absolute Solar Irradiance Values on Current Climate Model Simulations. Journal of Climate Vol. 27(3)
Bodas-Salcedo A, Williams K, Yokohata T, et al. 2014. Origins of the Solar Radiation Biases over the Southern Ocean in CFMIP2 Models. Journal Of Climate Vol. 27(3)
Solanki, S., Krivova, N., Haigh, J.D. 2013. Solar Irradiance Variability and Climate. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics Vol. 51(1)
Scafetta, N. 2012. Multi-scale harmonic model for solar and climate cyclical variation throughout the Holocene based on Jupiter-Saturn tidal frequencies plus the 11-year solar dynamo cycle. Jurnal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestri al Physics Vol. 80
Dima, M. and Lohman, G. 2009. Conceptual model for millenial climate variability: a possible combined solar-thermohal ine circulation origin for the ~1,500 year cycle. Climate Dynamics Vol. 32(2/3)
Krivova, N., S.K. Solanki, 2004: Solar Variability and Global Warming: A Statistical Comparison Since 1850. Advances in Space Research, Vol. 34(2)
Lean, J., D. Rind, 1998: Climate Forcing by Changing Solar Radiation. Journal of Climate Vol. 11(12)
Rind, D., D. Shindell, J. Perlwitz, J. Lerner, P. Lonergan, 2004: The Relative Importance of Solar and Anthropogenic Forcing of Climate Change Between the Maunder Minimum and the Present. Journal of Climate, Vol. 17(5)
Bard, E. and Frank, M. 2006. Climate change and solar variability: What's new under the sun? Earth & Planetary Science Letters. Vol. 248(1/2)
Stott, Peter A.; Jones, Gareth S.; Mitchell, John F.B. 2003. Do Models Underestimate the Solar Contribution to Recent Climate Change? . Journal of Climate. Vol. 16(24)
It depends on the field a little. We work in material science and about 2-3 times a year we will attempt to replicate work as part of our peer review of other's work. We have all the kit and can usually run a couple of experiments in a few days and have them analysed in house. Again, it depends on the field and the more general approach is as the parent poster outlines.