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Stings, Hoaxes and Irony Breach the Trust Inherent in Scientific Publishing

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Publishing Research Quarterly Aims and scope

Abstract

Trust has traditionally been a cornerstone of traditional science publishing. However, events over the past few years, an increase in the number of retractions and the fortification of the vigilant science movement, coupled with better tools to detect and report or publicize misconduct and/or errors in the literature, has revealed that this pillar of trust has in fact not always been present, or has been severely abused or compromised. Further disintegration in the integrity of academic publishing by no or almost non-existent peer review in so-called “predatory” open access publishers has given reason to increasingly distrust the accuracy of the published academic record. Finally, a topic that tends to invoke mixed reactions, but which we feel adds to the overall level of mistrust and erosion of ethical values in science publishing, is the use of stings, hoaxes and irony academic journals. We focus on six such cases, providing a rationale why such studies undermine trust and integrity and why such bogus publications are best left to blogs or non-academic forms of publishing science-related topics.

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Notes

  1. An editorial, no author listed. Can peer review police fraud? Nat Neurosci. 2006;9(2):149. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0206-149.

  2. A retraction notice appears in International archives of medicine. Available online http://imed.pub/ojs/index.php/iam/article/view/1087/728. Last accessed: 22 July. 2016. The study can be found at http://www.scribd.com/doc/266969860/Chocolate-causes-weight-loss (Last accessed: 22 July 2016).

  3. See an archived copy of this retracted hoax on http://www.scribd.com/doc/167706815 (last accessed: 22 July 2016).

  4. The Study of Maternal and Child Kissing (SMACK) Working Group. The SMACK working group appears fictitious.

  5. See http://www.hait.tu-dresden.de/td/artikel.asp?art=636&nr=24&m=2, where the editors of the Dresden-based publication Totalitarianism and Democracy admit having fallen victims to the spoof paper (No longer found).

  6. Bohannon described what he did by stating “I created a database of molecules, lichens, and cancer cell lines and wrote a computer program to generate hundreds of unique papers”. In other words, no actual lichen species or cancer lines were ever used.

  7. See the press release; International press release: slim by diet. http://instituteofdiet.com/2015/03/29/international-press-release-Slim-by-chocolate/ (last accessed: 22 July 2016).

  8. See Society of Professional Journalists codes of ethics which state that “Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough”. And that journalists should “Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information unless traditional, open methods will not yield information vital to the public.” http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp (Last accessed: 22 July, 2016).

  9. See how Bohannon described the manuscripts he created for sting I: “The goal was to create a credible but mundane scientific paper, one with such grave errors that a competent peer reviewer should easily identify it as flawed and unpublishable. Submitting identical papers to hundreds of journals would be asking for trouble.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Dentistry, Jordan University of Science and Technology, P. O. Box 3030, Irbid, 22110, Jordan

    Aceil Al-Khatib

  2. Post Office Box 7, Miki-cho Post Office, Ikenobe 3011-2, Miki-cho, Kagawa-ken, 761-0799, Japan

    Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva

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  1. Aceil Al-Khatib
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Correspondence to Aceil Al-Khatib or Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva.

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Al-Khatib, A., Teixeira da Silva, J.A. Stings, Hoaxes and Irony Breach the Trust Inherent in Scientific Publishing. Pub Res Q 32, 208–219 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-016-9473-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-016-9473-4

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