Monday, June 15, 2009

The Peer Review Hoax



The journals are once again demonstrating that scientists have much in common with the worlds oldest profession, the only difference is scientists are less honest: Editor will quit over hoax paper. (Via Physics and Physicists)

The editor-in-chief of a journal is to resign after claiming that the publisher, Bentham Science Publishing, accepted a hoax article for publication without his knowledge.

The fake, computer-generated manuscript was submitted to The Open Information Science Journal by Philip Davis, a graduate student in communication sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Kent Anderson, executive director of international business and product development at The New England Journal of Medicine. They produced the paper using software that generates grammatically correct but nonsensical text, and submitted the manuscript under pseudonyms in late January.

Davis says he decided to submit the fake manuscript after receiving several unsolicited invitations by e-mail to submit papers to open-access journals published by Bentham under the author-pays-for-publication model. He wanted to test if the publisher would "accept a completely nonsensical manuscript if the authors were willing to pay".

Davis was informed by Bentham on 3 June that his manuscript was accepted for publication. The publisher requested that Davis pay US$800 to its subscriptions department, based in the United Arab Emirates, before the article was published. At this point, Davis retracted the article.

15 comments:

Jeffery Keown said...

It's a good thing, then that you do not use actual science around these parts...

OilIsMastery said...

I'm starting to realize that science is just a code word for Eurocentric racism.

Jeffery Keown said...

Wow.

OilIsMastery said...

Yeah it's been a real shock to realize that the reason why Newtonians and uniformitarians don't believe in Native American, Chinese, and Egyptian history is the same reason why Nazis didn't believe in Hebrew history.

Jeffery Keown said...

Pulling a Godwin? Holy shit. You constantly conflate nonsensical mythological crap out of any dark cranny and quote it like it was the Origin of Species. It's not... it's myth. Primitive goofballs who believed in awful little gods, animistic spirits and other shovelfuls of ideological dung in such blissfully ignorant quantities that some of it was bound to be close to the truth. I admit, they had their hats on straight a lot of the time, but they did not understand the universe the way even a high school kid does in today's world.

You just called me a Nazi. Do you realize that? Those were inhuman butchers. Vile, inhuman, Christian butchers who were only doing what Gott and Martin Luther told them to do.

Chalk one up for mythology, eh?

Honestly, my shock and awe stems from your racist quote. I don't know what happened, who did it or when it occurred, but you really need some time on a couch with a qualified therapist.

OilIsMastery said...

Jeffery Keown,

"Primitive goofballs"

If that's your opinion of anyone with darker skin then I feel sorry for you.

Anaconda said...

Guys,

Woe nellie!

Both guys might of been too strong with their comments.

Myth, the more Science learns about geophysical history, the more, at least some parts of it, seems to have a basis in fact, and at least constitutes evidence.

But, folks who don't subscribe to "myth" aren't necessarily racist and shouldn't be compared to Nazi.

On the other hand, calling the Nazi "Christian butchers who were only doing what Gott and Martin Luther told them to do", isn't much better.

Chill out (maybe I'm not the best one to advise it), but that kind of talk isn't...ahem...productive.

The point of the post is somewhat over broad. This was one fraudulent publisher, and this insident seems too specific to generalize with a broad tarred brush.

Although, I do agree that the peer-reviewed system isn't working very well right now for the reasons Tommy Gold cited.

Fungus the Photo! said...

The Nazi structure was not christian, it was pre-christian or pagan. The dissatisfaction with the Ashkenazim was that they had apparently conspired to financially ruin Germany. They were scapegoated for failures in the past. It strengthened their structure and hold upon the wider German populace. The Nazis were not inhuman. They were very human. Nor were they supermen.
We could all do with introspection on a couch, but not mediated by a Freudian psychotherapist! Racism is not an indicator of insanity. It is natural but often unfortunate. Being PC is a reason for recourse to the couch! It suggests that the PC is a programmable, see MKUltra.
It is possible that science has harboured and fostered racists and cultists of all types. These all are paranoid and organize themselves accordingly. Ever heard of Alchemists? Forging gold was a speciality. Secrecy essential, they had a material interest in metallurgy, chemistry and electricity.
I find that those who accuse others generally reveal their plane of thought in the charges made.......
But these are not actually scientists, just bureaucrats controlling scientific direction by funding and publicizing as they see fit. They like to gag actual scientists when it suits. Tommy Gold was correct.
Peer review is a misnomer. It is a process designed to enshrine older theory at the expense of new. Too conservative as science can easily prove itself by showing the falsity of the old science. But it is capital intensive to actually engineer the scientific proofs. Some science threatens vested interests and must be suppressed. The structure seems to be designed with that in mind. I also consider the report in a still respectable newspaper that NASA was religiously bound not to find life on Mars in the absence of authority in the Book.
Racism can be enshrined in religion, but christianity does not do this officially. When money conflicts with religion, it generally wins. So Eurocentric greed is appropriate?
The problem is not that they do not believe in electricity, it is that they do believe in it but do not want that belief propagated. It is to be controlled, see the use of electricity and magnetism in medicine. They have almost eliminated it. It is science but it is forbidden for undeclared reasons.
Pulling a Godwin? That is a new one! What is?
Anaconda as peace maker! I always knew you had it in ya, boyo!

Jeffery Keown said...

I'll make one thing clear. The "primitive goofballs" I referenced were every bit as intelligent as modern humans (you have to go back at least 50,000 years to find lower mental faculties on a species level) but they did not have our level of understanding.

As for Nazis not being Christians, they followed Martin Luther to the letter, and Hitler wrote several times that he was doing God's work. They weren't scientists by any measure... they were theological based. To the rejoinder that they weren't "real Christians;" that phrase means nothing.

Quantum_Flux said...

We all know that the Jews and the Native Americans smoke hallucinagenics out of their peace pipes before they do any research, that is why they don't pass peer review, unless money is involved....right?

OilIsMastery said...

QF,

"... more than any man can understand, the pipe is holy." -- Black Elk, medicine man, August 1930

"Now my friend, let us smoke together so that there may be only good between us." -- Black Elk, medicine man, August 1930

So I guess pipe smokers only have credibility if they are white western Europeans.

Quantum_Flux said...

Whoever has the most technology has the most credibility.

OilIsMastery said...

QF,

"Whoever has the most technology has the most credibility."

I guess that means Newton and Lyell had no more credibility than a naked savage.

Jeffery Keown said...

Why is everything so black and white around here? Newton has some credibility, so does Sitting Bull. I just wouldn't go to Sitting Bull for calculus tutoring. Similarly, if I want advice on dealing with invading white folks, Newton is not an authority.

OilIsMastery said...

Jeffery,

"Newton has some credibility"

Not much imo.

"Newton is not an authority."

Amen.