
What are some of the worst academic papers ever published? - kumaranvpl
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-worst-academic-papers-ever-published/answer/Tijmen-Herdink?share=1
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hatmatrix
There is also this paper (which I may have gotten from a Hacker News post in
the past):

Tsai, A Mathematical Model for the Determination of Total Area Under Glucose
Tolerance and Other Metabolic Curves, Diabetes Care 1994 Feb; 17(2): 152-154.
[1]

Related blog post: "Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75
citations" [2]

[1]
[http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/2/152.abstract](http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/2/152.abstract)

[2] [https://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/medical-
research...](https://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/medical-researcher-
discovers-integration-gets-75-citations/)

~~~
kasperni
Here is the actual paper:
[https://math.berkeley.edu/~ehallman/math1B/TaisMethod.pdf](https://math.berkeley.edu/~ehallman/math1B/TaisMethod.pdf)

It even thanks a Professor of Electrical Engineering for his expert review.

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codeulike
Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum
Gravity - Alan Sokal 1994, published in Social Text #46/47, pp. 217-252
(spring/summer 1996).

[https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_si...](https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html)

~~~
qazpot
Background for this artcile -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair)

~~~
muthdra
> ...rise of deconstructionist thought, which eventually led to a
> deconstructionist critique of science.[citation needed]

Just perfect.

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soVeryTired
The economist Gary Becker's paper "Crime and punishment: an economic approach"
[0] is up there for me.

He argued that prior to committing a crime, the perpetrator weighs the
potential benefits of the crime against the probability of being caught and
the ensuing severity of punishment. If the benefits exceed the costs, the
criminal commits the crime. It is then noted that enforcement costs money.
Becker concludes that the maximally efficient way to deter crime is to do
relatively little enforcement, but to hand out severe penalties to criminals
who are caught.

Becker was a respected economist at the time of publishing this paper. One can
always defend a publication like this with the claim that 'it's just a model'
but there is some evidence that the theory was used to justify crime policy
from the 70's onward.

[0]
[https://www.nber.org/chapters/c3625.pdf](https://www.nber.org/chapters/c3625.pdf)

~~~
notahacker
The ethics arguments against the conclusions drawn by that paper are stronger
than the plausibility ones.

But if you think Becker's theoretical model itself is dubious, it's got
nothing on Kopczuk and Slemrod's "Dying to Save Estate Taxes" paper...
[http://www.columbia.edu/~wk2110/bin/dying-
final.pdf](http://www.columbia.edu/~wk2110/bin/dying-final.pdf)

------
weberc2
Here’s another popular (and thorough!) answer about a paper that claims gender
bias causes more deaths from female-named hurricanes than male ones:
[https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-worst-academic-
pa...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-worst-academic-papers-ever-
published/answer/Henry-Brice/)

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btgeekboy
And here my answer was going to be that discredited one which triggered the
anti-vaxxer movement.

~~~
ranko
That's the top answer ([https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-worst-
academic-pa...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-worst-academic-
papers-ever-published/answer/Jennifer-Edeburn)) - and deservedly so!

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0XAFFE
Paper Generator was also a nice experiment, in this context:

[https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/archive/scigen/](https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/archive/scigen/)

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bibyte
Maybe link to all the answers instead of just this one ? IMO the other answers
are much better. It's crazy what journals will publish without even looking at
it.

~~~
hadrien01
How do you see all the answers? When I click on the question, the page
displays the text "20 Answers" and only one answer...

~~~
bibyte
Click on the question. I had to use an incognito tab to bypass the login
screen.

~~~
hadrien01
That's what I did. Still, only one answer (the one about the false research on
autism and vaccines)

~~~
asaddhamani
Click this link in incognito mode: [https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-
the-worst-academic-pa...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-the-worst-
academic-papers-ever-published)

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ksynwa
Related: The Ig Nobel Prize
[https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/](https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/)

