A bogus scientific paper, with numerous errors, was accepted for publication by more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific journals.
A bogus scientific paper, with numerous errors, was accepted for publication by more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific journals.
The scientist purposely wrote a paper that should have been unacceptable for publication in order to see if peer-review would spot the problems. What he found was that more than half the journals to which he submitted didn’t notice or care, and accepted the paper as is.
The journals in this case were open-access, meaning that they are free to readers but charge authors money for publication. Thus, rejecting papers is against their financial interest. Nonetheless, the number of journals willing to be unethical is quite disturbing, and reveals a rottenness lurking in the heart of the science field that no one wants to talk about.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
A bogus scientific paper, with numerous errors, was accepted for publication by more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific journals.
The scientist purposely wrote a paper that should have been unacceptable for publication in order to see if peer-review would spot the problems. What he found was that more than half the journals to which he submitted didn’t notice or care, and accepted the paper as is.
The journals in this case were open-access, meaning that they are free to readers but charge authors money for publication. Thus, rejecting papers is against their financial interest. Nonetheless, the number of journals willing to be unethical is quite disturbing, and reveals a rottenness lurking in the heart of the science field that no one wants to talk about.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
If the article is true, it does indeed expose a rotten trend in what should be a field beyond reproach. Unfortunately, deceit and dishonesty have also peppered the climate science community for a long time now. As a former science writer, who has seen, first-hand, examples of bias and contempt for contrary points of view, I worry that when the depth of the deception is finally revealed, it could take a generation or more to repair the damage to the discipline’s credibility. Scientists, above all, should be fierce skeptics. When they are not, both the field and the public suffer.
I have been hearing, recently, that psychology papers are also having a lot of trouble with credibility. There have been a couple of scientists whose works have been withdrawn due to falsified papers. Climate science is not the only field that is having trouble, but it does seem to be the only field that continues to rely on models that have demonstrably failed to predict reality.
I certainly hope that fudging does not spread to the physical or space sciences. It is bad enough that we have buildings, bridges, and dams fail due to design or construction problems — it would be even more tragic if people were killed due to fudged science that the engineers relied upon.
I would like to see fudge return to the confectionary and the ice cream parlor, where it belongs.
150 journals? Sounds fishy to me.
Phil, I am very much afraid the time it takes to repair the damage will be longer than that. I have gotten, for years now, people responding in person to a datum I would put into a discussion about spaceflight (like the recent discovery of lavatube cave entrances on the Moon) with the reply, …”yeah, …and how do we know it isn’t another fake set of digits cooked up to keep someone in a job?” Then, they will cite some of the climate science maldiversions of peer review, or the biochemistry frauds, or the recently admitted stem cell frauds, as a reason to not believe in a picture of the skylight found in the Marius Hills region of the Moon.
These sorts of direct problems with belief that science academics actually follow the scientific method are merging, in my experience, into the general distrust of academia spreading faster and faster in society. The brand that is “Science” cannot stand up to being totally identified with a collapsing academic world. We must find a way to get science separated in the minds of the rest of society from association with the betrayals that academia is becoming associated with. These range from financial predictions about the worth of a university degree, to the politics that dominates academia, to the insistence on freedom of speech only for those toeing the line of the majority in the faculty senate. All too many are realizing that universities have whored themselves to those in power regularly *at*least* since the 1530s, when Henry VIII bought the opinions of universities across Europe about his annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
These problems have been brewing since no later than 1970, and taking 50 years to restore confidence in the scientific method *after* we defund the presently perversely performing institutions will be a good performance, ..if we can do it.
So, …what’s fishy about it?
I know of people who submitted to at least 45 different journals before getting a paper published, ..when they weren’t paying for it either through themselves, or their department.