Science Publisher Retracts 44 Papers for Being Utter Nonsense

https://gizmodo.com/science-publisher-retracts-44-papers-for-being-utter-no-1848004690

by civilized • 5 years ago

19 11 5 years ago

civilized3• 5 years ago

Highlights:

Some titles of the farkakte research: “Simulation of sea surface temperature based on non-sampling error and psychological intervention of music education”; “Distribution of earthquake activity in mountain area based on embedded system and physical fitness detection of basketball”; “The stability of rainfall conditions based on sensor networks and the effect of psychological intervention for patients with urban anxiety disorder.”
As highlighted by the Chronicle of Higher Education in August, when the 400-odd papers in the geosciences journal got expressions of concern attached to them, many suspicious papers appear to have been written by scholars affiliated with Chinese institutions, where researchers are incentivized (sometimes financially) to publish in notable journals and where many doctoral students must publish a paper before graduation. The founder and editor-in-chief of the Arabian Journal of Geosciences told the Chronicle at the time that he reads every paper published in the journal each month (which would mean about 10 papers per day, including weekends), and that he thinks the fabricated research got into the journal through hacking.

h2odragon• 5 years ago

"farkakte" might need to be a new word for the output of poorly prompted AI drivel production engines.

politelemon2• 5 years ago

I had to look it up. I found the best explanation on Urban Dictionary:

An alternative spelling of the Yiddish word verkakte that can mean either goddamn or crappy - the literal translation is "becrapped".

civilized3• 5 years ago

Yiddish has many blessings yet to be bestowed on English.

politelemon2• 5 years ago

Could someone with more familiarity in this area explain, what do the 'perpetrators' (for lack of better word) gain out of generating and publishing nonsensical (farkaktical?) papers?

civilized3• 5 years ago

It's about juicing the publication metrics by which academics are evaluated these days, especially in developing countries with less mature research cultures and heavy publish-or-perish pressures. It's especially effective if you have co-conspirators who will cite your nonsense papers. So long as you publish and get cited, the metrics don't care about the content of your papers.

ahartmetz2• 5 years ago

This idiotic superficiality in disciplines that are supposed to be about deep thinking would be funny if it wasn't so destructive...

webmaven• 5 years ago

Could someone with more familiarity in this area explain, what do the 'perpetrators' (for lack of better word) gain out of generating and publishing nonsensical (farkaktical?) papers?

There are circumstances where getting a paper published is a prerequisite for something else (graduating, getting hired, receiving a bonus or promotion, etc.). The general shape of the issue is similar to how and why nonsensical or trivial patents are conceived, submitted, and granted, except that the attack surface is ginormous by comparison.

Science Publisher Retracts 44 Papers for Being Utter Nonsense

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