In The News Today...

Forty eight scientific journals accepted Anna Olga Szust to their editorial boards despite the non-existant Polish scientists name translating into English as Anna The Fraud. This indicates the level of scrutiny they give to the articles they publish. Some time ago a certain Hoss Cartwright achieved a similar honor which I'm sure he considered to be a bonanza.

Ain't medicine a grand and noble profession?

There's more to the story. As the most of the journals in question were never reputable to begin with. To me it's like finding out there are diploma mills in any profession. Which has been going on for years/decades.

Quote:

For many years, academia was dominated by a reasonably sane number of established journals; these made money through advertising and by selling subscriptions to libraries, often at breathtaking prices. The rise of the Internet introduced the open-access model—journals such as Public Library of Science, or PLoS, which are free and widely available. Some of these publications, including PLoS, charge the author a fee for the privilege of having her work peer-reviewed and published.

The shift was largely welcomed, but as the number of O.A. journals grew, the potential for abuse became evident. By midway through the decade, researchers were assaulted by spam from journals of questionable legitimacy asking them to submit a paper or to be an editor, even in areas of research where they had no expertise. In exchange for a hefty fee, these journals—with names such as Journal of Clinical Toxicology and Enzyme Engineering—offered quick peer review, which often meant no review whatsoever. “They were journals I’d never heard of,” Jeffrey Beall, an associate professor and librarian at the University of Colorado, Denver, said. “Often they were based in West Africa or South Asia, with titles close to existing ones, and filled with grammatical errors. Basically, they were just pay-to-publish operations.” The barrier to entry couldn’t be lower, he said. “You just need a Web site and a journal title, and you can be in business in a day.”

Quote:

A Finnish study found that, between 2010 and 2014, the number of articles published by predatory journals grew from fifty-three thousand to almost half a million. Many predatory publishers also now run bogus conferences, often with names similar to existing ones, to dupe researchers into submitting papers for a nonrefundable fee. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission filed suit against the

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/paging-dr-fraud-the-fake-publishers-that-are-ruining-science

Even when I was a teen, you were taught that diploma on the walls doesn't mean someone went to a real school. Fraud has been with us forever/

Yes, there have always been diploma mills and 'matchbook' schools. Also 'pulp' versus 'slick' publications and the physical appearance was a dead giveaway to the quality or lack of quality that you were dealing with.

Now anyone can be a published scientist and much of the 'published' stuff is at best pablum and at worst utter gibberish. Indeed some papers that are nothing but computer generated gibberish have actually made it through peer review all the way to publication. Some peer reviewers have downgraded the submission but stolen its contents for publication under their own name. Publishing is fraught with frauds and pitfalls. Journals want to have a good reputation but also want to have purchasers. Artwork can be so expensive to print that it really is cheaper to have it online.

Instead of peer review some places have gone to public review.

And just as there are similarly named 'charities' (American Cancer Society versus National Cancer Society) there are similarly named scientific journals. Even the really top notch journals have from time to time withdrawn articles from publication.

I believe in curation but sometimes it is valuable to hear a dissenting voice even if there is a tremendous background babble. And it should be remembered that several major scientific discoveries were unpublishable in notable journals of the day. I think the Krebs cycle had to be published in a journal about chickens because all other journals rejected it.

Well some hoofs have appeared. April the Giraffe 09:24 Eastern time



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz_errIBq3Y

The real tragedy is this guy will never
get over this if lives to be 100. I can't
even imagine it.

Tragedy: Former NFL Star Todd Heap Accidentally Kills 3-Year-Old Daughter While Moving Truck

http://www.breitbart.com/sports/2017/04/16/tragedy-former-nfl-star-todd-heap-accidentally-kills-3-year-old-daughter-moving-truck/

Quote: Evenbob

The real tragedy is this guy will never
get over this if lives to be 100. I can't
even imagine it.

Tragedy: Former NFL Star Todd Heap Accidentally Kills 3-Year-Old Daughter While Moving Truck

http://www.breitbart.com/sports/2017/04/16/tragedy-former-nfl-star-todd-heap-accidentally-kills-3-year-old-daughter-moving-truck/

Although it's not funny in this context, I remember a comedian saying taking care of toddler is like trying to take care of a small drunk. They just stagger randomly from place to place. So true when they are awake and active.

You have to keep track of them all the time.

Quote: rxwine

You have to keep track of them all the time.

It's 100% his fault, there's no way around
it. He will feel guilty till he dies. You have
to know where your kids are at all times
when they're too little to know better.
She depended on him not to accidentally
kill her and he let her down.

The British PM Theresa May has called for a General Election in the UK for June.

The conservatives will probably win, and use the increased mandate to enable them to get Brexit (Britains exit from the EU) through more effectively.

Questions will be:

Does the SNP get an increased vote share (they already control all but two of the seats in Scotland) so they have their own Scotxit poll, already being mooted.

Does Labour lose even more seats under the socialist leadership of Jeremy Corbyn?

Do the Liberal-Democrats pick back up from 8 seats to 20-30, based on lose of love for Labour and their pro-EI stance, attractive to some of the more centrist Tory voters?

Does UKIP disappear? More importantly, does Farage finally disappear from the media like a fart in a thunderstorm?

How does Northern Ireland shake out? Especially critical, as Brexit does cause all sorts of issues with the cross border agreement.

I'm pretty sure the Conservatives win this one, with an increased majority.

I don't expect anyone to really care too much. It hardly effects the US or Canada (in fact, I believe the triggering of Brexit makes the UK much less important in the world in general).

Quote: TheCesspit

I believe the triggering of Brexit makes the UK much less important in the world in general).

Both the USA and the UK have been punching above their weight for decades.