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Penultimate Amazing
Incentives matter.
‘The situation has become appalling’: fake scientific papers push research credibility to crisis point
Paid according to the number, not the quality of the papers they publish. Is it any wonder that such an incentive system would result in a tsunami of garbage? Ten garbage papers are worth more than one quality paper, so why bother trying to do high-quality research?
Maybe such journals should just be ignored entirely? A large majority of it seems to be coming from one publishing group, according to the article.
‘The situation has become appalling’: fake scientific papers push research credibility to crisis point
Last year, 10,000 sham papers had to be retracted by academic journals, but experts think this is just the tip of the iceberg
“The situation has become appalling,” said Professor Dorothy Bishop of Oxford University. “The level of publishing of fraudulent papers is creating serious problems for science. In many fields it is becoming difficult to build up a cumulative approach to a subject, because we lack a solid foundation of trustworthy findings. And it’s getting worse and worse.”
The startling rise in the publication of sham science papers has its roots in China, where young doctors and scientists seeking promotion were required to have published scientific papers. Shadow organisations – known as “paper mills” – began to supply fabricated work for publication in journals there.
The practice has since spread to India, Iran, Russia, former Soviet Union states and eastern Europe, with paper mills supplying fabricated studies to more and more journals as increasing numbers of young scientists try to boost their careers by claiming false research experience. In some cases, journal editors have been bribed to accept articles, while paper mills have managed to establish their own agents as guest editors who then allow reams of falsified work to be published.
The problem is that in many countries, academics are paid according to the number of papers they have published.
“If you have growing numbers of researchers who are being strongly incentivised to publish just for the sake of publishing, while we have a growing number of journals making money from publishing the resulting articles, you have a perfect storm,” said Professor Marcus Munafo of Bristol University. “That is exactly what we have now.”
Paid according to the number, not the quality of the papers they publish. Is it any wonder that such an incentive system would result in a tsunami of garbage? Ten garbage papers are worth more than one quality paper, so why bother trying to do high-quality research?
Maybe such journals should just be ignored entirely? A large majority of it seems to be coming from one publishing group, according to the article.