Hundreds of Researchers From Harvard, Yale and Stanford Were Published in Fake Academic Journals (vice.com)

In the so-called "post-truth era," science seems like one of the last bastions of objective knowledge, but what if science itself were to succumb to fake news? From a report: Over the past year, German journalist Svea Eckert and a small team of journalists went undercover to investigate a massive underground network of fake science journals and conferences. In the course of the investigation, which was chronicled in the documentary "Inside the Fake Science Factory," the team analyzed over 175,000 articles published in predatory journals and found hundreds of papers from academics at leading institutions, as well as substantial amounts of research pushed by pharmaceutical corporations, tobacco companies, and others. Last year, one fake science institution run by a Turkish family was estimated to have earned over $4 million in revenue through conferences and journals.

Eckert's story begins with the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (WASET), an organization based in Turkey. At first glance, WASET seems to be a legitimate organization. Its website lists thousands of conferences around the world in pretty much every conceivable academic discipline, with dates scheduled all the way out to 2031. It has also published over ten thousand papers in an "open science, peer reviewed, interdisciplinary, monthly and fully referred [sic] international research journal" that covers everything from aerospace engineering to nutrition. To any scientist familiar with the peer review process, however, WASET's site has a number of red flags, such as spelling errors and the sheer scope of the disciplines it publishes.

Comments

Re:Journals are tricky

[ArhcAngel]

You mean like when Ancel Keys (a psychologist) took data on diets in regions around the world and hypothesized that heart disease was caused from eating fat? The only problem was he excluded data from his research that disproved his hypothesis. Like France where an extremely high fat diet showed very low instances of heart disease. His hypothesis was never proven but it has influenced our diets for the last 60 years. I switched to a ketogenic diet last year and am the healthiest I have ever been.

Re:Journals are tricky

[Archtech]

Ancel Keys was a physiologist, not a psychologist. There is a difference.

In some ways Keys was an American archetype. His overriding concern seems to have been to build up his reputation, glorify himself, and belittle anyone who dared to disagree with him. The sad thing is that he was extremely clever and capable of conscientious work - until he got carried away by his cholesterol hypothesis. Then, when it was no longer possible to maintain that cholesterol in food was harmful, he switched to attacking saturated fat and red meat.

My favourite Keys episode concerns his "research" into the diets of Mediterranean peoples. His researchers inquired, rather perfunctorily, what people ate and drank in various countries.

They came to the conclusion that the people of Crete owed their good health and long lives to a diet low in meat; this was later developed into the "Mediterranean Diet". Unfortunately, one of the weeks during which the survey was carried out in Crete fell within Lent, when the local people fasted - avoiding meat among other foods.

Similar mistakes were made in countries such as Italy, France and Spain, whose people ate (and still do) far more meat than Keys admitted.

See, for an introductory account, https://www.diabetes.co.uk/in-...