Mastodawn

Carl T. Bergstrom May 12, 2023

This week, Science published a stunningly irresponsible news story entitled "Fake scientific papers are alarmingly common" and claiming that upward of 30% of the scientific literature is fake.

https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-scientific-papers-are-alarmingly-common

Below, the first two paragraphs of the story.

Headline and intro notwithstanding, the story itself later notes that the detector doesn't actually work and flags nearly half of real papers as fake. Does the reporter just not understand that?

h/t @Hoch

Fake scientific papers are alarmingly common

But new tools show promise in tackling growing symptom of academia’s “publish or perish” culture

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jack the nonabrasive May 12, 2023

@ct_bergstrom @Hoch "Sabel’s tool relies on just two indicators—authors who use private, noninstitutional email addresses, and those who list an affiliation with a hospital. It isn’t a perfect solution, because of a high false-positive rate. Other developers of fake-paper detectors, who often reveal little about how their tools work, contend with similar issues."

WTF?

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CZEdwards

@karabaic @ct_bergstrom @Hoch … I suspect Sabel’s tool is bullshit?
Technically, my professional email address is private and non-institutional, because it’s through my coop’s domain. And as a psychologist, I don’t have admitting privileges and never will, and don’t want them. (If for no other reason than privileges come with a requirement to admit more clients per year than I keep on my rolls.)

Doesn’t mean I’m not doing real research!