Comments on: How computer-generated fake papers are flooding academia

By: Jim Self

Jim Self — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 13:38:48 +0000

“Both organisations have now taken steps to remove the papers.”

Sounds like a bureaucratic answer to me. Have they begun taking steps to remove the papers, or are they still initializing the process of beginning the steps needed to remove the papers?

I always wondered where all of the junk science was coming from. Now I know. Papers are being dumped out there with little or no rigor, and folks are jumping on every one that proposes to have discovered the newest nutrition fad or environmental trend or psychological problem.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 10:00:49 +0000

Exactly. Nothing really new here. It makes those of us who do science day-to-day shake our heads. And in the end it hurts the credibility of all the sciences, not just the medical community – which seems to be the worst (note – that is just a relatively uninformed opinion and not a statement of fact). It’s a real problem.

In Germany over the past couple of years, at least four politicians have had to resign because of alleged plagiarism in their dissertations. And one of them just got a cushy diplomat job as a reward for stepping down. Sheesh.

By: Daleo

Daleo — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:34:48 +0000

Often, a research project will find a significant result that a replication doesn’t find. It happens a lot in multivariate observational studies, especially in nutrition. People should use a Bonferroni correction, but that’s often not done. It does produce a lot of spurious results.

By: Alan Drabke

Alan Drabke — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 22:16:57 +0000

What about software to identify instances of plagiarism? Would the Passive Voice care to comment?

By: Greg Strandberg

Greg Strandberg — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 21:49:04 +0000

If you delegate a task to someone in university it’s called cheating. If you do that on the job it’s called good management. What are we teaching these kids?

By: M.A.

M.A. — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 19:40:24 +0000

Often that is the spin that comes from the reporter and not the scientific paper itself.

By: William Ockham

William Ockham — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 17:16:02 +0000

Wake me up when someone manages to generate a salable romance novel. Those are way harder to fake than a scientific paper. And way more valuable.

By: Edward M. Grant

Edward M. Grant — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:41:10 +0000

Are these any worse than the human-generated fake papers?

Seems pretty much every month there’s a paper showing doing X is going to kill you, followed a few months later by another paper showing doing X will make you live forever.

By: PD Singer

PD Singer — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:13:31 +0000

So, more nonsense to wade through while actually trying to do, you know, science.

By: Felix Torres

Felix Torres — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 15:11:22 +0000

Gatekeepers are soooo diligent!