3 ms·

If you publish a paper with fake 'good' data, why would some spurrious animal names even be relevant? 'Zubat'? Epidemiologists probably don't know the English-C

by jariel 6y ago

If you publish a paper with fake 'good' data, why would some spurrious animal names even be relevant? 'Zubat'? Epidemiologists probably don't know the English-Chinese translation for the million species in China. This is not really spoofing, this is just plain fraud, right? When they fill papers full of jargon, data that doesn't make sense, crazy political posturing so that the paper reads as something fantastical - and it gets by - that's a problem. But this seems to be merely a real concern that it's quite a bit of work to reproduce scientific results and that someone doing a quick review of a paper has no material way of validating 'everything'. The paper 'looked promising' because it was promising, assuming those sending it in weren't completely making everything up. You could make a fake passport that might fool a lot of people, that doesn't mean the system is broken. Science maybe has problems but I'm not sure this one strikes at it very well.

Orou 6y ago
Data is not meaningful in and of itself. What matters is what that data signifies, i.e. how it changes the reader's understanding of the world. It doesn't matter if the data is made up if what it signifies is complete nonsense anyway. If their goal was to commit fraud they would obfuscate their deceit, not make it a google search away from clearly being a hoax. Your definition of fraud is so broad that it removes any responsibility of due diligence from the reader, which is the entire point of having a peer review process in the first place.
elihu 6y ago
From the article: > Some would argue that editors cannot recognize Pokémon names, but lines in the text such as “a journal publishing this paper does not practice peer review and must therefore be predatory” or “this invited article is in a predatory journal that likely does not practice peer review” would have tipped off anyone who bothered to read the articles. These papers did not slip in under the radar; they were welcomed in blindly.
zeckalpha 6y ago
Is it the author or the journal that is fraudulent?

by jariel 6y ago

Orou 6y ago

Data is not meaningful in and of itself. What matters is what that data signifies, i.e. how it changes the reader's understanding of the world. It doesn't matter if the data is made up if what it signifies is complete nonsense anyway. If their goal was to commit fraud they would obfuscate their deceit, not make it a google search away from clearly being a hoax. Your definition of fraud is so broad that it removes any responsibility of due diligence from the reader, which is the entire point of having a peer review process in the first place.

elihu 6y ago

From the article: > Some would argue that editors cannot recognize Pokémon names, but lines in the text such as “a journal publishing this paper does not practice peer review and must therefore be predatory” or “this invited article is in a predatory journal that likely does not practice peer review” would have tipped off anyone who bothered to read the articles. These papers did not slip in under the radar; they were welcomed in blindly.

zeckalpha 6y ago

Is it the author or the journal that is fraudulent?