Flood of fake science forces multiple journal closures

Slashdot ^ | May 15, 2024 | msmash

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Fake studies have flooded the publishers of top scientific journals, leading to thousands of retractions and millions of dollars in lost revenue. The biggest hit has come to Wiley, a 217-year-old publisher based in Hoboken, N.J., which Tuesday announced that it was closing 19 journals, some of which were infected by large-scale research fraud. In the past two years, Wiley has retracted more than 11,300 papers that appeared compromised, according to a spokesperson, and closed four journals. It isn't alone: At least two other publishers have retracted hundreds of suspect papers each. Several others have pulled smaller clusters of bad papers.

Although this large-scale fraud represents a small percentage of submissions to journals, it threatens the legitimacy of the nearly $30 billion academic publishing industry and the credibility of science as a whole. The discovery of nearly 900 fraudulent papers in 2022 at IOP Publishing, a physical sciences publisher, was a turning point for the nonprofit. "That really crystallized for us, everybody internally, everybody involved with the business," said Kim Eggleton, head of peer review and research integrity at the publisher. "This is a real threat." The sources of the fake science are "paper mills" -- businesses or individuals that, for a price, will list a scientist as an author of a wholly or partially fabricated paper. The mill then submits the work, generally avoiding the most prestigious journals in favor of publications such as one-off special editions that might not undergo as thorough a review and where they have a better chance of getting bogus work published.

[ClarityGuy]

Published and perished.

Who says you can't have it all?

[Impala64ssa]

On a related note the Baseball Hall of Fame has an excellent exhibit on the history of the Negro Leagues. One artifact I remember was an excerpt from a medical journal published at the end of WW2 arguing against integrating the Major Leagues on the grounds that Blacks are athletically INFERIOR to Whites. This is what modern settled science told us less than 80yrs ago. Nevermind Joe Louis, Jesse Owens,Wilma Rudolph,Satchell Paige and many others already blew that myth to smithereens. Jackie Robinson,Willie Mays,Ernie Banks etc never received that memo.
Goes to show then as now most science is agenda driven. Whether it was the ugly spectacle of prejudice in the not always good old days or the need to push a narrative for political and financial gain.

[Bob Wills is still the king]

If you’re a fraud, your “peer review” will be by others who are also frauds, or who are too stupid to catch your fraud.

[healy61]

I have noticed of late, that several animals, which were declared extinct 100 years ago or so, are being sighted throughout the world. Same thing. People are lying to promote their careers.

[freeandfreezing]

But, Trust the Science.....

[Ancesthntr]

But we should “trust the science.”