
For Sale: “Your Name Here” in a Prestigious Science Journal - jsnell
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/for-sale-your-name-here-in-a-prestigious-science-journal/
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nl
It's kind of bizarre that this article focuses on the plagiarism issue, but
seems to miss the even bigger problem: It doesn't appear at all clear if these
published studies are actually done!

If they aren't done and yet are published in fairly high impact journals,
presumably people are relying on their conclusions. Even worse, increasingly
automated systems are relying on journal articles for automated diagnosis.

OTOH, if the studies actually are done... I guess it's a new avenue for
funding science!

~~~
jwmerrill
> Even worse, increasingly automated systems are relying on journal articles
> for automated diagnosis.

Where can I learn more about this? Without hearing more, it sounds like a
terrible idea.

As a scientist, if my beliefs were based on an unweighted sample of claims
made in journal articles, I can tell you, I would believe a lot of nonsense. I
hope no one is practicing medicine that way.

~~~
nl
On mobile ATM, but IBM Watson does it. It is generally more accurate than
humans, and able to keep up with latest research much better.

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rosspackard
This article actually frustrates me. I rarely comment but for some reason this
stirred me to comment. The fact is: the research is important not the wording.
Many academics 'plagiarize' wording but change it to fit the experiments that
they actually ran. Especially foreign ESL researchers who want to convey
similar information. Ex/ Performing the exact same experiments just with
different chemicals. The papers could be almost exactly the same wording but
the data and graphs would be different. This doesn't make the research or
experiments fake or any less meaningful. I do understand that this could be
used as an indication that the research is not novel but by no means is it
definitive proof.

~~~
notahacker
The linked original research into textual similarity[1] offers more compelling
examples than those in the Scientific American article (which could plausibly
be the innocent consequence of researchers diligently following a Chinese
language "how to structure a publishable meta analysis study" guide and
incorporating a few turns of phrase from the example papers)

Especially, the use of a definition copied verbatim from Wikipedia...

[1][http://blog.thegrandlocus.com/2014/10/a-flurry-of-
copycats-o...](http://blog.thegrandlocus.com/2014/10/a-flurry-of-copycats-on-
pubmed)

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jcr
> _" Sometimes there are minor variations in the wording but in more than a
> dozen articles we found almost identical language with different genes and
> diseases seemingly plunked into the paragraph, like an esoteric version of
> Mad Libs, the parlor game in which participants fill in missing words in a
> passage."_

Though programs to auto-generate academic papers have existed for quite a
while, and the garbage output papers have even been published in journals, I
think a Mad Libs based program to generate "human-guided" academic papers
would be a whole lot of fun at parties.

> _" Now that a number of companies have figured out how to make money off of
> scientific misconduct, that presumption of honesty is in danger of becoming
> an anachronism."_

Just wait until a rowdy game of Academic Mad Libs at a party or pub is more
fun than quarters or beer pong as a drinking game. It would mean everyone
could be Alchodemic and Sloshfisticated.

(All joking aside, the frightening thought is it would be fairly easy to
automate human-guided plagiarism/fraud paper creation. It's already a solved
problem in the automated "news" webspam regurgitation space.)

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arca_vorago
"Scientists, for whom published articles are the route to promotion or tenure
or support via grants"

This is the problem. It's not about the quality of the science being produced,
it's about how many times your name shows up.

I'll tell you how one of my former bosses did it. He would do his work at a
discounted rate in exchange for them adding him onto their paper. He did good
work, but many of the papers he was added on were of a questionable scientific
nature. He didn't care though, because he could claim to be published in over
1,000 papers!

The other issue besides quality of science, is the blocking of information. I
hate hearing about new research paper on X, only to find it hidden behind a
paywall. For the journals it has become very much about the almighty dollar
and restricting access is part of that. Papers should be free to read in my
opinion.

~~~
rflrob
The idea that quantity strictly beats quality is not uncontroversial, however.
There is plenty of evidence of people doing great work (usually also coming
from a small-ish set of "superstar" labs), and still doing just fine. See, for
instance, this list: [http://www.thespectroscope.com/read/its-not-publish-or-
peris...](http://www.thespectroscope.com/read/its-not-publish-or-perish-but-
rather-do-great-science-by-lenny-teytelman-258)

I think the fact that all the paper mill instances cited in the OP are from
Chinese groups suggests that this is a problem driven by a few broken systems
(primarily in the developing world), and not the modern scientific enterprise
as a whole.

~~~
kghose
I am sympathetic to your argument, but I would say that the quality dimension
is also heavily corrupted, especially in basic science where people rarely
retrace experiments, and there is no requirement for a "working product".

The word "superstar" labs is itself loaded. Scientific discovery has always
been heavily influenced by chance, and the fact that certain labs regularly
publish in high profile journals has more to do with political connections
rather than the intrinsic quality or impact of their work.

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ilamont
I know a section editor of a top medical journal. I sent him this article, and
he was absolutely shocked. He knew about plagiarised content (although I had
to explain "Mad Libs" to him) but he had utterly no idea about authorship
being sold.

I asked him if changes to authorship are common, and he said it sometimes
happens for legitimate reasons -- for instance, the journal may send back the
paper to the original authors and say "you need to perform additional analysis
on XYZ before we can publish." If someone else needs to be consulted for this
to happen, it's not unusual to add that person's name on the paper at a later
date.

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Kiro
I only skimmed the article but does that mean that the research itself is fake
as well?

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kephra
The "Your Name Here" is a requirement for medical doctors. Medical doctors are
highly skilled craftsmen, but not scientists. Still the need to write a doctor
paper, and this causes authoring services that had been common in the first
universities ages ago. The other evil side is, that the research is sponsored
by big pharma, who has vital interest that their snake oil performs well on
paper.

~~~
dragonwriter
M.D. programs don't _in general_ have a thesis/dissertation requirements (its
a professional rather than research degree), though there are M.D. programs
with thesis requirements, and they tend to have more prestige (either more
research-oriented options at some institutions, and all M.D.s at certain
institutions.)

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etimberg
Sounds like journal editors should run everything through TurnItIn (or other
similar service).

~~~
gbrown
Is that not already done?

