6 ms·

Another scam paper published in a “scientific” journal

vagrantJin 6y ago
"All in all, in this study we present the results of our work with fishy birds (fide Baldassarre [1]). We hypothesize that, (1) despite climate change, it is still cold in Antarctica..." With all the problems of academia, this had me laughing for a good few minutes.
- DanielBMarkham 6y ago
  Using a pizza as a basis for a research paper on fish, birds, fungus, beaks, etc? I thought this was comedy gold. Good hacker read for a Sunday.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 3np 6y ago
    My sides are hurting. And flying fish has higher bird-to-fish-appearance-ratio than barn swallow.
alexfromapex 6y ago
I think scientific journals and other infrastructures that have the potential to greatly impact society need to put defense mechanisms in place for bad actors going forward.
- antibuddy 6y ago
  Or we should stop taking (everything) published by <take your publisher/site of choice> as gospel.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    It is far too common indeed for people to religiously belief any conclusion so long as it is published in a format that makes it seem scientific, or worse, popular news report on such science that doesn't even retain the numbers and proffers even more spectacular claims.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Someone 6y ago
  Why would they? These journals make money from authors paying for a publication. Any review costs cut into their margins. Also, I don’t think this journal has even the potential to greatly impact society. It isn’t intended to be read.
vegannet 6y ago
As a lay-person who reads scientific papers sometimes because they’re referenced on HN, how do I validate the credibility of a journal? Does a directory of journals exist with scoring, or is there a strategy I can use when evaluating a paper or journal to determine credibility?
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  One doesn't validate the credibility of a journal; one validates the credibility of the methodology in the research. And it then turns out that most methodology even in reputable journals are rather wanting with many objections that can be leveled against it. A large amount of scientific research can't even be reproduced, and of much that can, even though the cold data can be reproduced, the conclusions that follow from the data are rather dubious leaps of faith. It doesn't take much for something to be called “science”; it certainly doesn't take reproducibility, despite various claims to the contrary.
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    It absolutely makes sense to simply ignore articles based on the credibility of the journal, it's an effective and cheap first filter (and you absolutely need filters) - there are many predatory journals (like this one) which will publish anything that's paid for, they probably even outnumber "real" journals, and it makes all sense to automatically discard them without reading. There is a lot of noise already in "proper" journals - but in the predatory journals, the signal-to-noise ratio is so extremely low, it's not worth looking into the credibility of the methodology of the paper because that's far more time and effort that the paper deserves. If it was any good, it would have been published in a better venue. If it could pass peer review, it would have been published in a venue that actually does peer review as opposed to these (many) predatory journals who just claim to do so. The authors have strong practical incentives to not publish it there if they can avoid to, and the fact that they chose to do so anyway indicates that no respectable place would publish it. Because of that, if a paper is published in a place like this, is a completely reasonable prior to presume that overwhelmingly likely the paper is very bad, without even looking at the paper itself.
mcguire 6y ago
Ok, so here's what you do next: make a list of all of the authors published in those journals and track their careers. Anyone want to bet the results will be entertaining?
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  Unfortunately, the truth is much more unfunny than you think. In the past, you could get tenure at community or regional colleges just by teaching. If you were interested you might from time to time publish an article in the institution's journal or maybe even in a real journal - as a botanist or astronomer you can do citizen science without much equipment. That's how it ought to be. But nowadays, administration has taken over, and everyone gets to fulfill the publication metric, or there won't be tenure. So you have predatory journals (I prefer the term "journal of convenience") that fulfill a genuine need. The only one who is worse off is the taxpayer or tuition-paying student because they get to pay the page charges. That is a problem, but everyone reacts to incentives. There are certain parallels to zero-tolerance policies at schools - in the past the popular kids got off lightly, consequentely because of real or perceived corruption the popular kids now get away with no punishment at all while everyone else has a 5-ton weight dropped on them, all in the name of fairness.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    I don't understand this claim - because publishing in a 'journal of convenience' won't work for tenure because they don't just count your publications they look at what impact your publications have.
    - HarryHirsch 6y ago
      "College" has a wide range of meanings in the US - Cornell is a college, but so is Yoknapatawpha County Community College in Mississippi, where 20 % of students are functionally illiterate. Of course they'll consider impact factor at Cornell, but at Yoknapatawpha they just count.
    - QuesnayJr 6y ago
peter_retief 6y ago
I would love to read a parody scientific journal, we may even stumble on some hidden truths.
- teraflop 6y ago
  Check out the Journal of Irreproducible Results and its competitor, the Annals of Improbable Research.
  - peter_retief 6y ago
    Thanks I will do so.
- Gh0stRAT 6y ago
  The closest thing I know of is the annual proceedings of Sigbovik. It's a humorous conference traditionally held on April 1st and "was formed in 2007 to celebrate the inestimable and variegated work of Harry Quacksalver Bovik. We especially welcome the three neglected quadrants of research: joke realizations of joke ideas, joke realizations of serious ideas, and serious realizations of joke ideas." In 2020, there was even a paper about improving the peer review process called "State-of-the-art reviewing: A radical proposal to improve scientific publication" http://sigbovik.org/ http://sigbovik.org/
JackPoach 6y ago
It all depends on what you consider 'science'. I choose to believe that science is anything I want it to be, therefore any publication can be scientific. Playbook and Penthouse are the best scientific publications in the field of human sexuality. Done.
yawnxyz 6y ago
this is exactly why peer reviews and editorial decisions need to be publicized, whether you're a tiny publisher or Nature
free0ne 6y ago
"Finally, we would like to acknowledge that this study would not have been possible had it not been for the predatory journal industry. Without it, academia and society would be a better place." Acknowledgement is gold.
- auggierose 6y ago
  Academia fucked that up all on their own.
failuser 6y ago
SCIgen's "Rooter" was accepted in 2005. I think the next step would be submitting an array of bogus articles citing each other to achieve an impressive h-index. Maybe adding AI-generated articles to the batches would be one of the ways to verify the reviewers in more serious journals.
cycomanic 6y ago
While I think it's great that these journals get exposed and it's fun to read how they are being exposed in lots of interesting ways I disagree with the following: >Those who evaluate c.v.s, however, often don’t know which journals are bogus. In fact the expert who evaluate cv's in academia typically know well which journals are bogus (or better they know which journals are not bogus and if there are journals they don't know about they look them up and quickly see if they are bogus). Having published in such a journal will quickly get you removed from potential applicants lists or graded poorly in grants applications. Therefore the only time I have ever seen these been cited were in PhD position applications from developing countries (because the students are told publications are increasing their chances and they want to get ahead, while in fact it disqualifies them). So, like it is so often, these journals predate on the weak.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

"All in all, in this study we present the results of our work with fishy birds (fide Baldassarre [1]). We hypothesize that, (1) despite climate change, it is still cold in Antarctica..." With all the problems of academia, this had me laughing for a good few minutes.

DanielBMarkham 6y ago
Using a pizza as a basis for a research paper on fish, birds, fungus, beaks, etc? I thought this was comedy gold. Good hacker read for a Sunday.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 3np 6y ago
  My sides are hurting. And flying fish has higher bird-to-fish-appearance-ratio than barn swallow.

alexfromapex 6y ago

I think scientific journals and other infrastructures that have the potential to greatly impact society need to put defense mechanisms in place for bad actors going forward.

antibuddy 6y ago
Or we should stop taking (everything) published by <take your publisher/site of choice> as gospel.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  It is far too common indeed for people to religiously belief any conclusion so long as it is published in a format that makes it seem scientific, or worse, popular news report on such science that doesn't even retain the numbers and proffers even more spectacular claims.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Someone 6y ago
Why would they? These journals make money from authors paying for a publication. Any review costs cut into their margins. Also, I don’t think this journal has even the potential to greatly impact society. It isn’t intended to be read.

vegannet 6y ago

As a lay-person who reads scientific papers sometimes because they’re referenced on HN, how do I validate the credibility of a journal? Does a directory of journals exist with scoring, or is there a strategy I can use when evaluating a paper or journal to determine credibility?

Blikkentrekker 6y ago
One doesn't validate the credibility of a journal; one validates the credibility of the methodology in the research. And it then turns out that most methodology even in reputable journals are rather wanting with many objections that can be leveled against it. A large amount of scientific research can't even be reproduced, and of much that can, even though the cold data can be reproduced, the conclusions that follow from the data are rather dubious leaps of faith. It doesn't take much for something to be called “science”; it certainly doesn't take reproducibility, despite various claims to the contrary.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  It absolutely makes sense to simply ignore articles based on the credibility of the journal, it's an effective and cheap first filter (and you absolutely need filters) - there are many predatory journals (like this one) which will publish anything that's paid for, they probably even outnumber "real" journals, and it makes all sense to automatically discard them without reading. There is a lot of noise already in "proper" journals - but in the predatory journals, the signal-to-noise ratio is so extremely low, it's not worth looking into the credibility of the methodology of the paper because that's far more time and effort that the paper deserves. If it was any good, it would have been published in a better venue. If it could pass peer review, it would have been published in a venue that actually does peer review as opposed to these (many) predatory journals who just claim to do so. The authors have strong practical incentives to not publish it there if they can avoid to, and the fact that they chose to do so anyway indicates that no respectable place would publish it. Because of that, if a paper is published in a place like this, is a completely reasonable prior to presume that overwhelmingly likely the paper is very bad, without even looking at the paper itself.

mcguire 6y ago

Ok, so here's what you do next: make a list of all of the authors published in those journals and track their careers. Anyone want to bet the results will be entertaining?

HarryHirsch 6y ago
Unfortunately, the truth is much more unfunny than you think. In the past, you could get tenure at community or regional colleges just by teaching. If you were interested you might from time to time publish an article in the institution's journal or maybe even in a real journal - as a botanist or astronomer you can do citizen science without much equipment. That's how it ought to be. But nowadays, administration has taken over, and everyone gets to fulfill the publication metric, or there won't be tenure. So you have predatory journals (I prefer the term "journal of convenience") that fulfill a genuine need. The only one who is worse off is the taxpayer or tuition-paying student because they get to pay the page charges. That is a problem, but everyone reacts to incentives. There are certain parallels to zero-tolerance policies at schools - in the past the popular kids got off lightly, consequentely because of real or perceived corruption the popular kids now get away with no punishment at all while everyone else has a 5-ton weight dropped on them, all in the name of fairness.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  I don't understand this claim - because publishing in a 'journal of convenience' won't work for tenure because they don't just count your publications they look at what impact your publications have.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    "College" has a wide range of meanings in the US - Cornell is a college, but so is Yoknapatawpha County Community College in Mississippi, where 20 % of students are functionally illiterate. Of course they'll consider impact factor at Cornell, but at Yoknapatawpha they just count.
  - QuesnayJr 6y ago

peter_retief 6y ago

I would love to read a parody scientific journal, we may even stumble on some hidden truths.

teraflop 6y ago
Check out the Journal of Irreproducible Results and its competitor, the Annals of Improbable Research.
- peter_retief 6y ago
  Thanks I will do so.
Gh0stRAT 6y ago
The closest thing I know of is the annual proceedings of Sigbovik. It's a humorous conference traditionally held on April 1st and "was formed in 2007 to celebrate the inestimable and variegated work of Harry Quacksalver Bovik. We especially welcome the three neglected quadrants of research: joke realizations of joke ideas, joke realizations of serious ideas, and serious realizations of joke ideas." In 2020, there was even a paper about improving the peer review process called "State-of-the-art reviewing: A radical proposal to improve scientific publication" http://sigbovik.org/ http://sigbovik.org/

JackPoach 6y ago

It all depends on what you consider 'science'. I choose to believe that science is anything I want it to be, therefore any publication can be scientific. Playbook and Penthouse are the best scientific publications in the field of human sexuality. Done.

yawnxyz 6y ago

this is exactly why peer reviews and editorial decisions need to be publicized, whether you're a tiny publisher or Nature

free0ne 6y ago

"Finally, we would like to acknowledge that this study would not have been possible had it not been for the predatory journal industry. Without it, academia and society would be a better place." Acknowledgement is gold.

auggierose 6y ago
Academia fucked that up all on their own.

failuser 6y ago

SCIgen's "Rooter" was accepted in 2005. I think the next step would be submitting an array of bogus articles citing each other to achieve an impressive h-index. Maybe adding AI-generated articles to the batches would be one of the ways to verify the reviewers in more serious journals.

cycomanic 6y ago

While I think it's great that these journals get exposed and it's fun to read how they are being exposed in lots of interesting ways I disagree with the following: >Those who evaluate c.v.s, however, often don’t know which journals are bogus. In fact the expert who evaluate cv's in academia typically know well which journals are bogus (or better they know which journals are not bogus and if there are journals they don't know about they look them up and quickly see if they are bogus). Having published in such a journal will quickly get you removed from potential applicants lists or graded poorly in grants applications. Therefore the only time I have ever seen these been cited were in PhD position applications from developing countries (because the students are told publications are increasing their chances and they want to get ahead, while in fact it disqualifies them). So, like it is so often, these journals predate on the weak.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]