Editor quits after journal accepts bogus science article

The Guardian ^ | 18 June 2009 | Jessica Shepherd

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Big Science needs to start cleaning up its act.

[Slapshot68]

And now we know part of the reason why Global Warming is as “accepted” as it is.

[randog]

This was done several years ago with a sociology magazine, IIRC. The magazine was indignant when they were outed.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Exactly! The need for a cleanup is most apparent in the field of climate studies.

The problem with the “peer review” system is that it does nothing to prevent a tiny circle of whack-jobs from “peer reviewing” each other's spewings. Peer review is no guarantee of scientific validity; if your peers are all members of the tin-foil-hat brigade.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

The “Sokal affair”. Read about it here (good for laughs):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

[Billthedrill]

This was despite heavy hints from its authors, who claimed they were from the Centre for Research in Applied Phrenology – which forms the acronym Crap.

Well, that and the fact that Phrenology is a well-known pseudoscience involving the analysis of bumps on the noggin...

[oblomov]

This is more embarrasing. Sokal’s targets were pomo social “scientists”, while this journal purports to be a peer-reviewed hard science journal.

[ccmay]

You sure it’s not a vanity press for cranks?

[randog]

That’s the one I was thinking about.

[the long march]

SUch nice English boys....This happens a bunch with the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Which is real and which is phony? Of couse any research institute for phrenology shouldn’t be suspect should it?

[Hildy]

I was the editor of a peer reviewed, scholarly journal
And I will tell you this could not have happened at my magazine.
Doesn’t of seem like everything is falling apart?

[ArtyFO]

Looks like the New England Journal of Medicine wanted to highlight the rather poor background of one of its rivals.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

True enough. Picking on pomo social “scientists” is tantamount to bullying the handicapped. Still, the hoax did reveal the absurdity of pomo philosophy, better than any legitimate academic debate could have ever done.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Why most published research results are false.

[csense]

Centre for Research in Applied Phrenology

You've got to be pretty dumb not to catch this right off the bat. Phrenology has become almost a euphemism for pseudoscience. That alone wouldn't necessarily disqualify it, if not for the term apply. That pretty much tells you it's a joke. I'm guessing these nitwits don't even know what the word means.

[SolidRedState]

The editor-in-chief’s name is Bambang Parmanto? WTF?

ROFLMAO

[jiggyboy]

Mahmood Alam, Bentham's director of publications, told New Scientist: "In this particular case, we were aware that the article submitted was a hoax and we tried to find out the identity of the individual by pretending the article had been accepted for publication when in fact it was not."

This is a lie of course. Oh look it's a Muslim name. Other articles mention that payment is to be sent to a P.O. Box in Dubai.

[capt. norm]

Bambang Parmanto has since stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Open Information Science Journal.

What a cool name: "Bambang". It sounds familiar:

[Matchett-PI]

Peer Review, Publication in Top Journals, Scientific Consensus, and So Forth
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1963
Robert Higgs