Major publisher retracts 64 scientific papers; (link fixed)
Made-up identities assigned to fake e-mail addresses. Real identities stolen for fraudulent reviews. Study authors who write glowing reviews of their own research, then pass them off as an independent report.
These are the tactics of peer review manipulators, an apparently growing problem in the world of academic publishing.
Peer review is supposed to be the pride of the rigorous academic publishing process. Journals get every paper reviewed and approved by experts in the field, ensuring that problematic research doesn’t make it to print.
But increasingly journals are finding out that those supposedly authoritative checks are being rigged.
h/t meatriarchy
Just a heads up: at the moment, there’s a problem with the link – you need to remove a bracketed section to get to the news story.
As to the story – well, this is what happens when you put politics and science in bed together, add a sh*tload of money and stir. It’s given us such gems as the ozone layer scare, the secondhand smoke nonsense, AGW, and many many more.
Peer review stopped working after cultural marxism took over academia and individual accountability, ethics and objective reasoning took a back seat to activism and enforced political correctness.
Unfortunately, except for the real hard sciences, like astronomy, astrophysics, maybe mining, fossil fuel finding, there is NO peer review. Pal review, or your favorite fake e-mail. “Peer review” is now like asking your running partner in politics who and how can we screw them for more money, and what’s the best scare spin we can put on it. Oh well. The Romans and Greeks had the same problem, and the same outcome.
The site is nearly unresponsive today. Probably caught the same flu I have.
First you need honest people.
This story isn’t about how peer review doesn’t work, it’s a story about the corruption of peer review.
I’m shocked!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMIyDf3gBoY
I don’t disagree with you, but I think the problem is a bit more profound; proper peer review could weed out the most egregious of errors and fraud, but the near-deification of the peer review process – even properly implemented – is absurd.
Somewhere along the way they stopped selling the peer review process as a ‘vetting’, and instead began to push the idea that anything peer reviewed was beyond criticism or question. That’s not science, that’s politics.
It’s neither new nor unusual, even in science; Galileo and Ignaz Semmelweis are two common examples in a long list of people who suffered at the hands of the palace guard of academia. (Galileo, despite what they love to teach in schools, was persecuted by the faculty of the universities whose theories he was upending. The Catholic Church was reluctant to get involved, it was the academics that pushed for action). Semmelweis, of course, was the man who discovered that washing hands between surgeries (and before delivering babies) decreased mortality. For this he was thrown in an insane asylum and beaten to death.
In the 1980s, J. Robin Warren and Barry Marshall discovered that most ulcers were caused by bacteria and could be cured with a round of standard antibiotics. Of course, their discovery was dismissed by much of the medical establishment, so Marshall deliberately infected himself with the bacteria, then cured himself with antibiotics. It still took almost two decades for widespread acceptance from the medical community, and much of the population are still unaware of the discovery – too many people would have to admit they were wrong. The two doctors were awarded a Nobel Prize in 2005 for their 1983 discovery.
What we’re seeing with the peer review process is a reversion to the standard behavior of any group in power – see the recent Hugo awards for another example. It is only the temptation to view the scientist as someone above such behavior that makes it surprising for so many.
This story isn’t about how peer review doesn’t work, it’s a story about the corruption of peer review.
Yeah, like if only communism/socialism were done right, it would work.
Maybe try reproducibility…
I’m shocked!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMIyDf3gBoY
Somewhere along the way they stopped selling the peer review process as a ‘vetting’, and instead began to push the idea that anything peer reviewed was beyond criticism or question.
I both publish research and do peer review, and have never met anyone who claimed that “peer reviewed” is equivalent to “beyond question”. You’re using a sledge hammer to kill a fly here.
Yeah, like if only communism/socialism were done right, it would work.
Scientific and technological research has been, generally speaking, fantastically successful. Your comparison sucks.
[…] an apparently growing problem in the world of academic publishing.
What a cop-out. The problem isn’t growing; people’s awareness of the extent of the malfeasance is.
Sean and rabbit have it right. Much of science, and as we have seen in particular climate science, has been corrupted by the lure of government grants and political ideology.
The sad part is that many people have become skeptical of all research claims.
Suddenly ‘peer review’ has become science…who knew?
Of course, the ‘fantastic success’ has been in reproducibility and real world application. Not because of PAL review.
You tried to claim that peer review, like socialism, can not be made to work in practice. Unfortunately for you, the evidence is that it can.
It would be interesting to know what you think should replace peer review. Or do you think journals should just publish whatever is sent to them?
“Or do you think journals should just publish whatever is sent to them?”
Why not? If it has even the trace of cAGW related to it, it is published by so-called “science” journals. Peer review has been corrupted back to the time of Ptolemy, and further. Peer review should be sorta like school used to be. You know. Show your work and reproducibility.
Einstein’s papers (mostly) were not peer-reviewed.
Peer review makes it easy for bureaucrats to keep score for grant-giving purposes.
You tried to claim that peer review, like socialism, can not be made to work in practice. Unfortunately for you, the evidence is that it can.
Yeah, the incestuous relationship works really well for climate ‘science’. Costing us billions, but what’s a few billion here and there…
Somehow I doubt it’s the existence of journals and peer review which are responsible for scientific advancement. The most important advancements are commercialized and used in the real world, no ‘peer reviewed journal’ necessary.
“Einstein’s papers (mostly) were not peer-reviewed.”
That may be because Einstein (mostly) didn’t have any peers, especially in the horndog division.
?
Im confused.
isnt this practice just a variance of capitalism?
doing ANYTHING to maximize personal gain?
bribery, catering to the influence peddlers, back scratchers syndrome, etc etc
In Canada, the authorities should be investigating the alleged peer review of papers about (1) drug injection sites, (2) universal government-run health care, (3) universal government-run child care.
Einstein’s papers (mostly) were not peer-reviewed.
Yes, if all researchers were of Einstein’s caliber, peer review would not be needed much.
And your point is what?
The only people who are opposed to peer review are those who don’t do research. Those who do research appreciate the feedback. It’s a rare paper that is not improved by peer review.