Increasingly the issue of "predatory" scientific journals is becoming problematic in the science world. For a fee they will publish almost any paper submitted, no matter how poor the science. A few in the science world take advantage to boost their scientific credibility for jobs or advancement.
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The problem of faking it in the science world

Can you trust the studies published in some science journals these days?

Well, perhaps not nearly as much as most scientists would like.

Dr Roger Pierson at the University of Saskatchewan has had to deal with fake research papers listed on the Curriculum Vitae (CV) of applicants for jobs, for research grants, advancement, and tenure. He is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, currently seconded to the Vice-president of research and is the university’s outgoing representative to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

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In the science world, the old adage still holds, “publish or perish”.

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Dr Roger Pierson, University of Saskatchewan professor of obstetrics and gynecology and the university’s representative to the CIHR © University of Saskatchewan

It seems that for some research scientists the desire to get ahead, the need to publish- to get your name in print on research papers takes precedence over the quality of the science.

It’s long been accepted that the more published papers an applicant has on the curriculum vitae the more attractive an applicant they are.

Dr Pierson says there are basically two main types of fake published research. First is the type of substandard dreck that Tom created for the purposes of his investigation and used to expose the underworld of predatory publication. The second is by far worse, and involves the completely spurious creation of research data – in essence lying about everything to do with the data, its analysis and conclusions – and selling this to even reputable publication process with the intent to deceive.

Along with that, it seems there are also more and more “science journals” all too willing to publish research papers of any quality -for a fee.

Dr Pierson says, this doesn’t just affect the higher levels of science and medicine. He says doctors or policy makers may read some of this work and base their own decisions which can affect patients or society, based on faulty or substandard published works.

He says this has been a growing concern for many years now. He says. “Scientists are wasting way too much time filtering through crap to find the best articles. Instead of having 60 or 70 that are of good quality, suddenly you’ve got 200, and you’ve got to be the judge”.

In respectable journals, research papers are sent out to other scientists in the field to verify the research and methodology before acceptance for publishing. A process that many take at the very least a month or two, and may take up to several months, depending on the discipline. Prior to the internet, it was a process that could easily take a year or even two.

Dr Pierson notes that with the proliferation of scientists around the world, and the increasing specialization of science fields, there are more specialized science journals. The ease of “publishing” on the internet and low ethical standards of some entreprenurial individuals have created a wasteland for the communication of spurious and/or substandard journals – unfortunately many of them are unreliable and were created for profit only.

Recently, an Ottawa-based journalist submitted a fictitious “research” paper to 18 online science journals. The problem is that the report submitted for consideration was a deliberate mish-mash of two completely different actual research papers, one on geology on soil science, and another on a medical subject haemotology, with footnotes on wine chemistry. He said any real scientist or professional editor would immediately recognize the result as gibberish.

Nevertheless, several “predatory” journals agreed to publish it almost immediately, for a fee of $500 or more..  Only two turned the paper down, for plagiarism.

Another way that the scientific community measures the importance of works in different fields is called the “impact factor”, which is the number of times a paper has been cited in other people’s research. The predatory publishers can also generate false citations from equally false enterprises, again for a fee.

In addition to young or less qualified scientists seeking to artificially boost credentials with publication of papers in these “predatory” journals with less than rigorous research, there’s another feature clouding the waters.

In 2005, a group of MIT graduate students –just for fun- created a program called SCIgen that was capable of producing relatively realistic looking research papers by randomly copying and pasting sections of actual research papers on a particular topic. Thanks to SCIgen, for the last several years, such randomly generated papers have been routinely published in scientific journals and conference proceedings

A computer scientist from France recently showed two major and reliable publishers “Springer” and the IEEE, that between them, they had published some 120 computer-generated papers.  The journals quickly removed them.

Dr Pierson says trust issues have been created and now senior scientists who are reviewing qualifications for hiring or advancement are increasing the rigour of the evaluation process by taking the time to actually read publications of prospective candidates and not just count publications listed on CV’s. In addition, they look up the publications that cite them in turn and review the manner in which the work is mentioned. A additional time-consuming process and therefore costly process.

He also says because of the prevalence of boosted credentials, established researchers might also begin to only take on students who have previously studied under colleagues they personally trust, which may limit opportunities for young researchers who may rightfully deserve a position.

scientific journal NATURE- article on fake science papers HERE

 Feeling scientific? Test your own ability to determine which statements are real science, and which are gibberish   HERE

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