/sci/ - Science & Math

Fake Publications in Biomedical Science: Red-flagging Method Indicates Mass Production

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101
/2023.05.06.23289563v1

ABSTRACT

Background Integrity of academic publishing is increasingly undermined by fake science publications massively produced by commercial “editing services” (so-called “paper mills”). They use AI-supported, automated production techniques at scale and sell fake publications to students, scientists, and physicians under pressure to advance their careers. Because the scale of fake publications in biomedicine is unknown, we developed a simple method to red-flag them and estimate their number.

Methods To identify indicators able to red-flagged fake publications (RFPs), we sent questionnaires to authors. Based on author responses, three indicators were identified: “author’s private email”, “international co-author” and “hospital affiliation”. These were used to analyze 15,120 PubMed®-listed publications regarding date, journal, impact factor, and country of author and validated in a sample of 400 known fakes and 400 matched presumed non-fakes using classification (tallying) rules to red-flag potential fakes. For a subsample of 80 papers we used an additional indicator related to the percentage of RFP citations.

Results The classification rules using two (three) indicators had sensitivities of 86% (90%) and false alarm rates of 44% (37%). From 2010 to 2020 the RFP rate increased from 16% to 28%. Given the 1.3 million biomedical Scimago-listed publications in 2020, we estimate the scope of >300,000 RFPs annually. Countries with the highest RFP proportion are Russia, Turkey, China, Egypt, and India (39%-48%), with China, in absolute terms, as the largest contributor of all RFPs (55%).

Conclusions Potential fake publications can be red-flagged using simple-to-use, validated classification rules to earmark them for subsequent scrutiny. RFP rates are increasing, suggesting higher actual fake rates than previously reported. The scale and proliferation of fake publications in biomedicine can damage trust in science, endanger public health, and impact economic spending and security. Easy-to-apply fake detection methods, as proposed here, or more complex automated methods can help prevent further damage to the permanent scientific record and enable the retraction of fake publications at scale.

>>15440373
Give it few decades, almost all scoyentific research will be abandoned because of unreliability and lack of capable people.

umm excuse me, who gives them the authority to call others fake?! If they were Peer Reviewed™ that means it's set in stone!

>studied hard
>Had a shit office job but make good money
>Have a son with wife
>He is sever autist
>He is 9yo
>Can't talk only makes weird noises
>Only play with baby toys
>He have to wear diapers because somedays he refuses to go to the bath
>Some days he becomes agresive amd destroys the house
>He only sleeps 3-4h
>No sex with wife (sex drive goes to 0 when you don't sleep a full night for years)
>Only fun thing of my life is playing some vidya in the bus to work
>Regret not being a comfy happy neet.

>>15440373
>implying the papers that haven't been identified as frauds aren't also frauds
It's probably already 50%+ frauds at this point.

>>15440447
From the abstract that I messed up and word wrapped the link on
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.06.23289563v1
>This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

>>15440470
>This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.
That only means that the article isn't grouped with the peer reviewed articles, which are 25%-35% fake
Once it get the peers' stamp of approval it will become less trustworthy

>>15440442
If anything it will get so bad that they'll make the punishments for doing it really strict and then people will have to stop. Or AI will catch the bad science as soon as it's published or something. It doesn't make sense to stop science because there is no alternative

>>15440449
Send him to the woods with a spear and tell him to only return with a bear’s head

>>15441269
The titled classes have never been punished in that way and they never will be. They just have their papers quietly retracted and go on with life as if nothing had happened

>>15440449
totally relates to the topic of plagiarism

biology is not a science
sciences and technologies are stagnating. The big bet of the atheists is that the golden age of biology is still ahead of them, hoping it will be like the golden age of physics. It wont because biology is even more based on statistics than physics, and this will harder intellectually and in practice there will be way more side effects to whatever they invent, and since those will be applied directly to humans, there will be more upheavals.
There is not determinism in biology, ergo biology is not a science.

>>15440373
>will
Bro I have bad news for you.
Fraud reported vs. Fraud reported and disclosed vs. Fraud unreported.

Scientlific publication are not obligeted to BE scientific.
They just have to sound scientific.
Buzzword Bingo and Bending numbers to fit the premise or hypothesis.
>the world is burning since it is turning

>>15440449
Have you tried giving him memantine?

>>15440449
God I hope he is vaccinated.

>>15444048

Bros I love science as the major religion arc.
I'm glad I don't actually give a shit and I'm just here to enjoy the ride and watch everything burn in the dark flames of Kali Yuga.
Time to honor the Ancients and masturbate to furry anal vore.
Amen.

>>15440449
what does this have to do with anything in this thread?

>>15441269
>the punishments for doing it
there are none

>>15444064
>Buzzword Bingo
AKA schizophasia

>>15447393
glossolalia too

>>15440373
>25% of all medical research is fraudulent
so reading any of it is little more than gambling
also that 25% is just the known frauds
and there also research that is just honestly wrong to worry about to
medical research is pretty much worthless, but it sure is expensive

>>15442342
Yep, I read retractionwatch an all they ever say is "haha, this loser got a paper retracted" never says anything about them paying back wasted grant money, nothing about losing their job or having their science license suspended, they never go to jail. In the real world outside academia, people go to jail for misusing resources and for fraud, but the academics get treated with kid gloves like they're special princesses.

>>15440425
>Because the scale of fake publications in biomedicine is unknown
Its easy to infer from the results in biomedicine that nobody is publishing anything worth reading. Discoveries like John Trump's invention of radiation therapy for cancer just don't happen anymore

>>15440373
>fraud in science publications increased by 300% over the past decade
wtf

>>15452366
there's no consequence for publishing falsehoods in journals, what do you expect the results of that to be?

>>15440373
if is was 13% in 2010 and 34% in 2020 then its over 40% by now

>>15440447
The fake papers are being published by paper mills. They're not being genuinely peer reviewed.

And when someone brings up "peer review,” it's usually to discredit a paper that has a high likelihood of being from a paper mill

Identifying something is fake and proving that something is fake are two different things. They haven't proven these are fake

The usual suspects
Actually expected China to be #1

>>15452736
You forgot: there's also significant consequences to not publishing, including to delay publication so that you can make sure your results are good.
Let's not even forget how corrupt the whole publishing thing even is on the journal side of things.

>>15454979
Meh, local publications are never taken seriously by anyone. What's the rate for international publications only?

>>15440449
This demoralization copypasta was on /pol/ a couple of days ago

>>15454289
>the sºyentist are innocent!!
>dey dindu nuffin!!

>>15444064
>Scientlific publication are not obligeted to BE scientific.
Yeah, thats part of the Big Lie of so-called science. They teach kids about the scientific method in school in order to trick the kids into believing that scientists follow those rules, it makes the scientists lies more effective, very sneaky form of brainwashing the schools pull off, they do the same thing with The Hippocratic Oath, doctors never abide it even though everyone presumes they do.

>>15454262
universities spend fortunes publishing paper mill fodder, the people who work in those places can't do real science, they can only fake it

>>15458343
Real science comes from people like The Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison and Clyde Tombaugh, who were never poisoned by the inevitably unscientific environment of the educational institution

>>15441269
people who question the frauds get punished or kicked out you retard it's always been like that and not going to change because they threaten the whole grift and threaten individual careers and policies and technologies (commercial investments) by calling into question what they based on

>>15459655
>science is just a grift
yep, we are living in another dark age

>>15440425
>Background Integrity of academic publishing is increasingly undermined by fake science publications massively produced by commercial “editing services” (so-called “paper mills”)
paper mills are just a convenient scapegoat they invented to blame for their own lies and lack of rigor

>>15440373
>Why is neuroscience publishing in particular so overwhelmed with fraudulence?
Maybe tied to sales of psychiatric medications?

>>15440373
I don't know what counts as 'fake' but there is a lot of incentive to get results and a lot of psychological outs to convince oneself and others that bad procedure is meaningful. This is magnified by the ethical problems of experimentation on humans, and so there's always a certain level of wishful thinking built in. We can see this going back to Freud where he writes about complete nonsense regarding scientific mechanisms. But because he appealed to the hopes and dreams of scientists there weren't any real consequences for obviously false claims and psychology to this day has plenty of hardcore Freudians.

>>15463919
>Freud
plagiarized most of his work from non-jewish predecessors, used the power of the jewish media to claim their ideas as his own

>>15464719
Just like any other jew in academia.

>>15464787
>just like any other jew
>just like any jew
>just like jew
>like jew
shabbos goy.

>>15440373
How much of that is down to third worlders being dishonest, opportunistic fucks?

>>15465357
>third worlders are responsible for science

>>15440449
This reeks of not smacking the little retard when he is being retarded

>>15440449
>/x/
>/adv/
>/biz/
cringe and rope yourself

>>15440373
>At the current rate of growth, fraud in neuroscience will have grown to the point that more than half of all publications are frauds by sometime in 2025.
And if you extrapolate further, eventually there will be more fraudulent neuroscience papers than total neuroscience papers!

>>15460869
This is unfortunately the case. The elimination of the Christian concept of truth from science has made the concept of science cease functioning.

>>15440373
Why would ((((they)))) target neuroscience?
It's a mistery...

>>15465357
All of it.

>>15440373
Biomedical research is the least likely to be verified by other labs due to high cost and time. Even if a group does take the effort to try to replicate your results, you can always explain it away by saying their technique sucks, they used different suppliers for reagents, etc.

>>15440373
science is fake as f
the peer reviewers rubber stamp the other guy's lies and in return the other guy later rubber stamps their lies, both rubber stampers "earn" their paychecks by parasitizing the university students and the taxpayers

>>15469259
classic gay circlejerk

>>15461687
paper mills couldn't exist without the "scientists" who produce material for them

>>15459377
people who devote their lives to publishing "papers" never accomplish anything meaningful or worthwhile

>>15471037
This, its not like fraudulent science articles write themselves, its the scientists that are doing it. They invent inanimate scapegoats like "paper mills" as a means of trying to avoid responsibility for their lying

>>15472777
They also call their incessant publishing of outright fraud "the replication crisis" as a PC way of avoiding calling it what it is, just plain old dishonesty

>>15440373
long covid is neurological.

a lot of other illnesses are neurological too.

that fraud is costing us.

>>15473465
>covid
doesn't exist and never did

>>15440373
>lookup author of paper on google scholar
>"holy fuck, 50+ h-index?!"
>skim papers by year
>researcher is first author on less than one paper per year
>first two authors are random students who probably did 95% of work
>other six authors are all from the same department
There are entire departments where only graduate students publish, but every faculty member is listed as a coauthor.

>>15473671
those grad students must be getting a great education from the faculty that can't produce and research worth publishing

>>15473671
>>15474623
At least they let the grad students take credit for their own work. The rest are just listing themselves as first author on work they had their RA do.

>>15440373
>Why is neuroscience publishing in particular so overwhelmed with fraudulence?
Most $$$$ in the sphere of the Internet of Bodies with an aim towards "responsible" guidance (control) of society (everyone below a certain net worth).

>>15474632
>At least they let the grad students take credit for their own work
grad students are doubtlessly coercing undergrads into doing all the work for them

>>15475288
That happened to me when I was an undergrad, I did a ton of work for no pay just get listed as 4th author

>>15476318
are undergrads secretly doing all published scientific research? i got paid minimum wage as an undergrad researcher and i was so far down on the list of authors that et al came before me

>>15476318
>>15477280
lol

>>15467697
whats the asterisk referring to?

>>15457158
They teach high school kids about "journalistic ethics" too, to trick them into believing the blatant lies in the MSM

>>15440373
Its amazing so much effort can be put into publishing fraud, but nobody is willing to lift a finger to combat fraud

>>15480772
Thats science in the present era, dominated by liars. Anyone who is against fraud has long since been excommunicated from the sciences via abuse of the peer review system

>>15457158
if there was a journal similar to nature which insisted on replicability and obedience to the scientific method then it would rapidly become the gold standard for scientific publication

>>15482652
It would be destroyed by cancel culture. Anyone who published in it would have their career ruined

>>15467697
>western scientists would never lie
lol

>>15484624
they lie about the fake viral epidemic, they lie about the vaxxxx, they lie about global warming, they lie about peak oil, they lie about dark matter, the lie about a million other things and they lie about how they always need more gibes and that the money is really a research investment thats going to end up benefiting everyone, but they never deliver on their end of that bargain.

>>15479027
>*This graphic is is fake af

>>15465832
import the 3rd world, become the 3rd world

>>15452063
unfortunate, but definitely true. science was on the march 100 years ago, valuable discoveries were practically a daily occurrence.
thats no longer the case, instead discoveries of fraud are now what happens regularly

how are they making money off all the fake science articles?

>>15489848
They fake articles are probably advertising pharmaceuticals and the authors get paid by the manufacturer

>>15489848
They steal your tax money through grants approved by people who get a cut from them under the table.

>>15440373
>Neuro
>Science
Choose one fag

>>15440373
Ban all Chinese papers, delete all Chinese papers from all data bases

>>15488846
yep, science has been perverted from a positive which helps improve civilization to a negative force that harms civilization

>>15492443
Science is just a propaganda tool these days, a bunch of lies crafted to fit ZOG's narrative. USSR tier

>>15493717
>USSR tier
excommunication for contradicting dogma is common, amazing that such a feature of science existed in an atheist empire like the ussr

>>15492045
Nice spacegoating, but its not the Chinese publishing all the fraudulent papers, its Americans and Europeans.

>>15495383
>spacegoating
scapegoating

>>15440373
Because all the meds students that need publication for their shot at neurosurgery

>>15496129
what happens to their neurosurgery practice when their publication is retracted?

>>15488846
Peer review kicked in during the late 1960s and its all been downhill since then

>>15498361
as it currently stands scientific publication is no different from the monkeys at typewriters trying to reproduce hamlet experiment. theres millions of sleazy midwit liars publishing "scientific" journal articles and one in a million of them accidentally maybe gets something right

>>15496123
No, I'm sure it's spacegoating

>>15499543
is dark matter made of spacegoats?

>>15440373
because it's impossible for neuroscience to be objective right now as that would be racist and sexist. so people can get away with saying whatever they want more easily.

>>15497350
They passed the boards don’t matter they are making a cool 1.5 million a year

>>15500942
so they have a lot of money and they have dirty secrets to hide

>>15440373
Most of the studies done are bullshit when it comes to proving something.
They're all about little correlation tested on the handful of subject and that's all.

I'm sure that real scientists here will agree

>>15501694
I'm equally certain that the "trust the soience" crowd will disagree

>>15501688
>blackmailing rich doctors using their fraudulent science publications as leverage
could this be a profitable pastime?

>>15488846
Scientists were mainly Christian 100 years ago, they believed in things like "thou shalt not lie".
Contemporary atheists don't have the self control restrict their baser instincts like that, so they tell every lie in the book. Fortunately they're so low IQ that its easy to tell when they're lying

>>15440373
Are there studies like this for other fields of publishing? I bet climate science has a worse proportion of fraudulent or outright fake research than medicine does

>>15504213
>Fortunately they're so low IQ that its easy to tell when they're lying
thats also why they're incapable of restricting their baser instincts

>>15467709
wonderful system we got here.

>>15485449
redpill me on dark matter.