[open-science] Fake Cancer study published in 157 Open Access Journals

Tue Oct 8 16:13:05 UTC 2013

Klaus. I now believe you are just trolling. Thanks for reminding me that 
the best way to deal with internet trolls is to not engage them.

> But it would be wonderful to see an alliance of reputable institutions 
> like OKF putting together a concise, well-formulated rebuttal, and 
> broadcasting it well beyond the confines of the OA community. Starting 
> with the Letters column of The Economist.
I completely agree. The Economist is widely read. But more importantly, 
the letter section is widely read and respected as well (MHO). A letter 
there from people with a bigger reputation than me would be the first 
step. Or perhaps a letter signed by the open knowledge foundation 
itself? (I have the feeling they would not accept a letter not signed by 
an individual).

Quick survey says letters are ~300 words or less. Not sure what their 
criteria is, but 300 seems to be about the longest letter (maybe 350) 
based on a brief (non-scientific!) survey of a 
<http://www.economist.com/news/letters/21586511-our-capital-freeze-index-utah-chinese-banks-montessori-schools-biofuels-brazilian-foreign> 
few 
<http://www.economist.com/news/letters/21587182-biodiversity-software-jobs-unemployment> 
issues 
<http://www.economist.com/news/letters/21586273-syria-chemical-weapons-high-speed-rail-azerbaijan-italy-burials>.

I think it would be important to get it in by yesterday. The economist 
is weekly and they often run criticisms of the past issue in the very 
next issue. Best to get it in while it is fresh on people's minds.

What's next? Think Science would accept some sort of follow-up? Any 
other journals or major outlets?

-Luke

On 2013-10-08 10:15, Klaus Graf wrote:
> The same nonsense you have written before.
>
> If I write an article on Tibet I do not have the duty to take the rest 
> of the world as control group. "Really bad" is only what OA advocates 
> do when ignoring uncomfortable truths.
>
> Klaus Graf
>
>
> 2013/10/8 Mike Taylor <mike at indexdata.com <mailto:mike at indexdata.com>>
>
>     There were indeed VERY serious flaws, and I'm a bit surprised that
>     anyone would claim not to be able to see them. I enumerated some of
>     them here:
>     http://svpow.com/2013/10/07/anti-tutorial-how-to-design-and-execute-a-really-bad-study/
>
>     On 8 October 2013 15:12, Graham Triggs <grahamtriggs at gmail.com
>     <mailto:grahamtriggs at gmail.com>> wrote:
>     > On 7 October 2013 19:33, Klaus Graf <klausgraf at googlemail.com
>     <mailto:klausgraf at googlemail.com>> wrote:
>     >>
>     >> See also
>     >> http://archivalia.tumblr.com/tagged/openaccess
>     >>
>     >> I still cannot see serious flaws
>     >
>     >
>     > I'm not going to claim serious flaws in the methodology, or even
>     in what the
>     > article itself states. However, to accept it as an expose of OA
>     alone is a
>     > serious flaw.
>     >
>     > a) There is no comparative data for submissions to closed access
>     journals
>     > b) No attempt was made (or at least documented to have been
>     made) to obtain
>     > waivers for the APCs
>     >
>     > On that second point, the article was submitted with African
>     affiliations,
>     > which would have been cause to grant a waiver for any of the OA
>     publishers
>     > that operate such policies for lower income countries.
>     >
>     > Either, and preferably both, of these would have given
>     indication as to
>     > whether the acceptances were driven by predatory desires to reap
>     the APCs.
>     > As it is, the Bohannon article is missing (at least) two
>     critical pieces of
>     > evidence, which means it is only telling half a story, at best.
>     >
>     > Besides, this is ultimately a largely self-correcting problem.
>     Open science
>     > can be discredited, journals will get reputations for being
>     routinely
>     > discredited (Negative Impact Factors, if you will) and no
>     serious author
>     > with real results is going to want to publish in journals with a bad
>     > reputation. (And for any new authors that are not so well
>     informed, there
>     > should be appropriate support structures from their funders,
>     colleagues and
>     > institutions to avoid the problems).
>     >
>     > If predatory publishers remain, and a small number of authors
>     can afford to
>     > pay them to publish what they know to be crap, so be it. The
>     only danger of
>     > that is bogus studies being published in order to sell useless
>     products as
>     > being scientifically proven - but that's a consumer issue, not a
>     > research/science one.
>     >
>     > This would be a much more serious issue if credible journals
>     that command a
>     > good reputation were accepting nonsense to harvest APCs. But
>     this study
>     > actually showed that they did not. And whilst anyone could make
>     a mistake,
>     > the respected journals aren't going to wave through poor
>     articles - because
>     > they would very quickly lose their reputation (and hence value, and
>     > revenue).
>     >
>     > G
>     >
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