What a cool name: "Bambang". It sounds familiar:
Posted on 06/19/2009 10:31:05 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
The editor-in-chief of an academic journal has resigned after his publication accepted a hoax article.
The Open Information Science Journal failed to spot that the incomprehensible computer-generated paper was a fake. This was despite heavy hints from its authors, who claimed they were from the Centre for Research in Applied Phrenology – which forms the acronym Crap.
The journal, which claims to subject every paper to the scrutiny of other academics, so-called "peer review", accepted the paper.
Philip Davis, a graduate student at Cornell University in New York, who was behind the hoax, said he wanted to test the editorial standards of the journal's publisher, Bentham Science Publishers.
Davis had received unsolicited emails from Bentham asking him to submit papers to some of its 200+ journals that cover a wide range of subject matter from neuroscience to engineering.
If their papers are accepted, academics pay a fee in return for Bentham publishing the papers online. They can then be viewed by other academics for free.
Davis, with the help of Kent Anderson, a member of the publishing team at the New England Journal of Medicine, created the hoax computer science paper. The pair submitted their paper, Deconstructing Access Points, under false names. Four months later, they were told it had been accepted and the fee to have it published was $800 (almost £500).
Davis then withdrew the paper and revealed it as a hoax. Bambang Parmanto has since stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Open Information Science Journal. Parmanto told New Scientist that he never saw the paper.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
And now we know part of the reason why Global Warming is as “accepted” as it is.
This was done several years ago with a sociology magazine, IIRC. The magazine was indignant when they were outed.
Here I was expecting “cold fusion”
The problem with the “peer review” system is that it does nothing to prevent a tiny circle of whack-jobs from “peer reviewing” each other's spewings. Peer review is no guarantee of scientific validity; if your peers are all members of the tin-foil-hat brigade.
Well, that and the fact that Phrenology is a well-known pseudoscience involving the analysis of bumps on the noggin...
This is more embarrasing. Sokal’s targets were pomo social “scientists”, while this journal purports to be a peer-reviewed hard science journal.
You sure it’s not a vanity press for cranks?
That’s the one I was thinking about.
SUch nice English boys....This happens a bunch with the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Which is real and which is phony? Of couse any research institute for phrenology shouldn’t be suspect should it?
I was the editor of a peer reviewed, scholarly journal
And I will tell you this could not have happened at my magazine.
Doesn’t of seem like everything is falling apart?
Looks like the New England Journal of Medicine wanted to highlight the rather poor background of one of its rivals.
True enough. Picking on pomo social “scientists” is tantamount to bullying the handicapped. Still, the hoax did reveal the absurdity of pomo philosophy, better than any legitimate academic debate could have ever done.
You've got to be pretty dumb not to catch this right off the bat. Phrenology has become almost a euphemism for pseudoscience. That alone wouldn't necessarily disqualify it, if not for the term apply. That pretty much tells you it's a joke. I'm guessing these nitwits don't even know what the word means.
The editor-in-chief’s name is Bambang Parmanto? WTF?
ROFLMAO
This is a lie of course. Oh look it's a Muslim name. Other articles mention that payment is to be sent to a P.O. Box in Dubai.
What a cool name: "Bambang". It sounds familiar:
Peer Review, Publication in Top Journals, Scientific Consensus, and So Forth
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1963
Robert Higgs
From the Fall 1991 issue of ScienceWriters:
The Newsletter of the National Association of Science Writers
http://www.aaskolnick.com/naswmav.htm
The Maharishi Caper: Or How to Hoodwink Top Medical Journals
by Andrew A. Skolnick
[Algore] began his rise to fame and great fortune in the 1960s .... Today the guru ..has many thousands of devoted followers, some of whom are prominent in science, medicine, education, and the news, information, and entertainment media.
The TM movement widely uses deception to promote its $3000 courses in TM-Sidhi or “yogic flying.” TM promoters claim that, by mastering this technique, people can develop the ability to walk through walls, make themselves invisible, develop the “strength of an elephant,” reverse the aging process, and fly through the air without the benefit of machines.
In addition, TM promoters claim that by yogic flying in large groups they can prevent bad weather, traffic fatalities, and even war.
Former members of the movement say that the practice of TM- Sidhi involves repeating a series of Hindu mantras during meditation followed by several minutes of hopping up and down in the crossed-legged “lotus” position. Adherents claim that they are not hopping but levitating and that they have hundreds of scientific studies to prove it.
I called Stephen Barrett, MD, and William Jarvis, PhD, of the National Council Against Health Fraud and asked what information they had about Maharishi Ayur-Veda. What they told me made it clear that JAMA had been duped. After poring through the promotional TM materials they sent and talking with several former TMers, I reported my findings to George Lundberg, MD, editor of JAMA and suggested that we expose the authors and the movement they represent in a JAMA Medical News & Perspectives story. I was given the assignment, which took me almost 3 months to complete. The resulting article, “Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Guru’s Marketing Scheme Promises World Eternal `Perfect Health’,” was published on October 2.
Unusually long for Medical News & Perspectives, the expose on the marketing of Maharishi Ayur-Veda documents a widespread pattern of misinformation, deception, and manipulation of lay and scientific news media. This campaign appears to be aimed at earning at least the look of scientific respectability for the TM movement, while boosting the sales of their extremely lucrative products and services. (One example is the herbal elixir known as Maharishi Amrish Kalash, which costs $1000 for a year’s supply.
Chopra says everyone should take the cure/prevent-all twice a day. Chopra claims their health care is far more cost-effective than conventional medicine. However, the annual cost of just this one Maharishi Ayur-Veda product is equivalent to 40% of the average per-capita expenditure on all health care in the United States in 1989. The other products and services he recommends just to maintain health would cost thousands of dollars more each year. However, this pales compared with the cost of Maharishi Ayur-Veda treatments in case of actual illness, which can exceed $10,000 for the performance of a ceremony to appease the gods or or for the purchase of Jyotish gems to restore their health.
Upon discovering the deception, JAMA requested from the authors a full account of their connections to TM organizations. The confusing statement they provided was published as a financial disclosure correction on August 14 and represents only what the authors admitted. While it appears to hold the record in terms of length for a financial disclosure correction in the journal, the account is still incomplete. Among other things, Chopra did not acknowledge that he collects hundreds of thousands of dollars from his seminars on Maharishi Ayur-Veda and by providing Maharishi Ayur-Veda treatments. (According to David Perlman’s October 2 San Francisco Chronicle article, Chopra claims he gives 50% to 70% of his fees to the movement.) He also did not report that he had been the sole stock holder, president, treasurer, and clerk of Maharishi Ayur-Veda Products International, Inc (MAPI), the sole distributor of Maharishi Ayur-Veda products. Although he no longer holds these titles, Chopra still has the same office address and phone number as MAPI.
Peer Review Not Foolproof
JAMA’s publication of the Maharishi Ayur-Veda article brought a hail of angry letters from readers (also published in the October 2 issue) along with some snickers from other publications. In its November 11 issue, Physician’s Weekly published an account of JAMA getting “flimflammed by a swami.” The October 11 issue of Science knocked JAMA for publishing “shoddy science” and getting itself into an “Indian herbal jam.”
Science writers know that the peer-review system of scientific publications is not foolproof. Drummond Rennie, MD, deputy editor (West) of JAMA has written: “There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.” Peer review determines where rather than whether a paper should be published, Rennie says. However, from time to time, “shoddy science” ends up in the most prestigious of journals.
It may be hard to understand how a system so effective in sifting out errors in experimental design, statistical analyses, and faulty conclusions could fail to catch blatant deceit.
However, errors are usually easier to spot than outright deceit. Journals do not have the staff and resources to investigate contributing authors and must rely in large part on trust. Obviously, failure to disclose their conflicts of interest is a serious betrayal of that trust.
The editors who handled the Maharishi Ayur-Veda manuscript did not know about the history of deception associated with the TM movement, but they did know that two of the three authors had excellent medical and academic credentials. In addition, the authors were able to cite studies that were published in peer- review journals to support their claims. (One study listed in their references was published in the prestigious Yale University publication, The Journal of Conflict Resolution [December 1988]. This study purported to show that a group of yogic fliers in Israel was able to reduce the level of violence in war-torn Lebanon.) They also could point to the National Cancer Institute research grants awarded Sharma and others to study the herbal elixir, Maharishi Amrit Kalash.
Few people are aware of how far the TM movement has been able to penetrate into the halls of medicine and academia. According to the letterhead for the American Association of Ayurvedic Medicine, its research council and advisory council include physicians at many prestigious medical schools and institutions. Sharma is professor of pathology and director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Natural Products Research at Ohio State University College of Medicine. Others associated with Chopra include Steele Belok, MD, and Amy Silver, MD, both clinical instructors at Harvard Medical School; Agnes Lattimer, MD, medical director of Cook County Hospital in Chicago; Kelvin O. Lim, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, Stanford University School of Medicine; Barry Marmorstein, MD, associate professor, University of Washington School of Medicine; S.M. Siram, MD, director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit and Trauma at Howard University School of Medicine.
With the help of such well-placed physicians and academicians, the TM movement has been able to project a respectable front in its scheme to market Maharishi Ayur-Veda. In June, the American College of Preventive Medicine accredited Maharishi Ayur-Veda courses for Continuing Medical Education for physicians, for the second time. The National Cancer Institute is currently funding 11 studies testing the anti-cancer potential of the concoction of herbs and minerals called Maharishi Amrit Kalash — even though its exact composition has not been revealed. The National Institutes of Health allows its facilities to be used for monthly introductory seminars on Maharishi Ayur-Veda. And for years, U.S colleges and universities have allowed their facilities to be used by the TM movement to teach yogic flying.
JAMA’S Goof Not Unique
The TM movement has an extremely aggressive p.r. operation with a remarkable record in getting favorable reports in newspapers, magazines, and the broadcast media. Like mushrooms after a spring rain, articles on Chopra, TM, and the Maharishi’s medicines keep popping up in places like The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and even American Medical News (also published by the American Medical Association). Favorable reviews of Chopra’s books on Maharishi Ayur-Veda have appeared in many leading medical journals. Joanne Silberner, medical reporter for U.S. News and World Report, says that Dean Draznin, former director of public affairs for Maharishi Ayur-Veda, used to call her about twice a month with another angle to pitch.
In August, Johns Hopkins Magazine published an uncritical profile on Nancy Lonsdorf, MD, medical director of the Maharishi Ayur-Veda Medical Center in Washington, DC. Lonsdorf is the physician who, in a fund-raising letter distributed to members of the TM community, is described as having recommended a $11,500 yagya for a patient with a serious health problem. The Maharishi’s yagyas are Hindu ceremonies to appease the gods and beseech their help for ailing followers.
Despite the extraordinary costs of these ceremonies, patients do not take part or even get to see them performed. (Chopra and Lonsdorf both deny that they recommend yagyas. Chopra insists that yagyas are not part of the Maharishi Ayur-Veda program. Nevertheless, I have a copy of another patient’s health analysis from Chopra’s center in Lancaster, Mass. that recommends the performance of not one but two different yagyas.)
In its 1989 September/October issue, Harvard Magazine published a cover story on Chopra by associate editor Craig Lambert that touted the Maharishi’s wares. Reprints of this article were widely circulated by the TM movement. The magazine’s readers were not informed that the author practices yogic flying.
[N.B.: After this article had been written for ScienceWriters Lambert informed me that, at the time he wrote his article for Harvard Magazine he had not yet started yogic flying although he was a TM practitioner. He also said that Harvard Magazine’s managing editor had misinformed me about the movement’s ordering/circulating reprints of his article. — AAS]
Lambert wrote JAMA a letter protesting my investigation and accusing me of “sleazy” and “deceptive” behavior. This letter was one of many sent to protest my inquiries. Among them were repeated requests from Chopra and his attorney that they be allowed to preview my article before publication, along with warnings that they may sue if defamed.
In the February 1984 NASW Newsletter, Patrick Young wrote, “Reporting any story that might prove embarrassing to a publication is filled with delightful irony. Editors, writers and others who believe in and argue the public’s right to know, suddenly react as any good group of company executives, government bureaucrats, or union officials would in a similar situation. They draw up the wagons in a tight circle.”
When I reported my findings to my editors, I feared that they too might choose to circle the wagons. Instead, they asked me to recount how the journal had been deceived and backed me against a stream of protests and threats from Maharishi’s followers and attorneys.
Andrew Skolnick is associate editor for the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Medical News & Perspectives Department.
[N.B.: In the summer of 1992, Deepak Chopra and two TM associations filed a $194 million libel suit against the AMA, JAMA’s editor, and me. The suit was dismissed without prejudice in March 1993. -AAS]
Go to National Association of Science Writers Home Page?
I wonder if he knows Chief Editor Korir?
-PJ
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Too funny.Bambang Parmanto has since stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Open Information Science Journal. Parmanto told New Scientist that he never saw the paper.Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution.I must reiterate my feeling that experimentalists always welcome the suggestions of the theorists. But the present situation is ridiculous... In my considered opinion the peer review system, in which proposals rather than proposers are reviewed, is the greatest disaster to be visited upon the scientific community in this century. No group of peers would have approved my building the 72-inch bubble chamber. Even Ernest Lawrence told me that he thought I was making a big mistake. He supported me because my track record was good. I believe U.S. science could recover from the stultifying effects of decades of misguided peer reviewing if we returned to the tried-and-true method of evaluating experimenters rather than experimental proposals. Many people will say that my ideas are elitist, and I certainly agree. The alternative is the egalitarianism that we now practice and that I've seen nearly kill basic science in the USSR and in the People's Republic of China. -- Alvarez by Luis Alvarez (pp 200-201)To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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Sounds expensive:
Awards and Honors
Distinguished Poster Award, American Medical Informatics Association 2006 Spring Congress, MyHealthBits: Advanced Personal Health Records.
Best paper award, World Wide Web Conference, Web for Accessibility. Chiba, Japan, May, 2005
Jan 2006–Dec 2006; MyHealthBits: Advanced Personal Health Record, Microsoft Research, $50,000 + software + equipment. Role: Principal Investigator.
Dec 2004–Nov 2008: Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Telerehabilitaton; National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) # , $4.3 Million. Roles: Task Principal Investigator for one of the six tasks, and Co-investigator in another task.
Jan 2003–Dec 2007: Information Technology for Independence, National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) # H133A021916, $1.5 Million. Role: Principal Investigator.
Sept 2002–Sept 2006; Transcoding Gateway to the Internet for Visually Impaired and Mobile Users, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) #42-60-02013, $490.000. Role: Principal Investigator.
External Service and Assignments
Appointed as Faculty Associate to the Pennsylvania House of Representative’s Legislative Office for Research Liaison, 2005–present.
http://www.shrs.pitt.edu/parmanto/
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