From the Washington Post:
Every now and then a scholarly journal retracts an article because of errors or outright fraud. In academic circles, and sometimes beyond, each retraction is a big deal.
Now comes word of a journal retracting 60 articles at once.
The reason for the mass retraction is mind-blowing: A “peer review and citation ring” was apparently rigging the review process to get articles published.
You’ve heard of prostitution rings, gambling rings and extortion rings. Now there’s a “peer review ring.”
…
After a 14-month investigation, JVC determined the ring involved “aliases” and fake e-mail addresses of reviewers — up to 130 of them — in an apparently successful effort to get friendly reviews of submissions and as many articles published as possible by Chen and his friends. “On at least one occasion, the author Peter Chen reviewed his own paper under one of the aliases he created,” according to the SAGE announcement.
The statement does not explain how something like this happens. Did the ring invent names and say they were scholars? Did they use real names and pretend to be other scholars? Doesn’t anyone check on these things by, say, picking up the phone and calling the reviewer?
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/10/scholarly-journal-retracts-60-articles-smashes-peer-review-ring/
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More also at retraction watch, the source of the WaPo story:
SAGE Publications busts “peer review and citation ring,” 60 papers retracted
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I wonder if any of them were about Global Warming?
I was wondering if you’d pick up this news story. While there is a peer review ring of sorts in climate science or maybe ‘pal’ review is the better term, it does not be of the sort of fraud as this ‘ring’ was doing.
Very interesting correlation in any case. Certainly there is corruption of the peer review process in climate science as many of the papers I see published are mind-boggling non-scientific in any strict sense.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Didn’t the world get a good idea of what was going on in Climategate? I hope the editorial staff have got good top cover. There is every possibility that certain habitual peer reviewers will attempt to make their lives a misery for blowing the whistle on established practice.
Evidently in the Information Age the concept of even the most cursory background checks represents too much of an inconvenience to bother with. That is how the Nobel Peace Prize came to be awarded a few years ago to a man with no remarkable accomplishments, but high expectations.
It’s all done by email and web form submissions. I have only ever had one phone call by an editor, which was to apologize for some misunderstanding. So, yes, it would be quite easy to game the system as seems to have been done here.
It’s the ‘Journal of Vibration and Control’,
you could be on shaky ground linking it to Global Warming
The “peer review ring.” = extortion ring and prostitution ring so there’s not much difference.
Any time you set up a game, clever people will find a way to win it.
elmer said:
July 10, 2014 at 11:37 am
I wonder if any of them were about Global Warming?
————
If there were, we wouldn’t be reading about it.
ha ha John “shaky ground” I like it
Chen was associated in creating climate models…
We’re just a small step away from clandestine Peer Review sweatshops: Thousands of papers per day rubberstamped by low-paid workers on an assembly line in a third world country. 😉
Welcome to the murky world of peer review. I can’t think of a single field where there isn’t some form of de facto peer review ring where the key opinion leaders are the gate keepers for the entire field…..
I’ve lost track of the number of warmistas who have declared that if an article has been “peer reviewed” than it can’t be questioned.
“But it was peer reviewed” will be the new “I was only following orders”.
Looking at the titles of the papers leads you to wonder who has been referencing Chen? He has a customer.
Peter Chen
Computer Scientist
Peter Pin-Shan Chen is an American computer scientist. He is a Distinguished Career Scientist and faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University, who is known for the development of the entity-relationship model in 1976. Wik
“Carnegie Mellon University’s Drew Davidson is among the players heading the Higher Education Video Game Alliance announced earlier this month. The Alliance will provide a platform for leading academics to showcase the critical role video game programs are playing in educating and preparing students for the 21st century workforce.”
One possibility is that he is linked to support for Common Core nationalized education standards, which we knew was working on using video games in learning.
I do not understand how the editors could allow this to happen.
In a narrow field like this, everyone knows everyone else, at least by reputation. And if you don’t know a reviewer, you would check their publication record to gauge their expertise. The only thing I can imagine here is that an editor was in on the scam.
Heh. Just last week I was responding to a story in the Toronto Star concerning a stem cell paper being retracted. I merely said “but I thought the science was settled. Or is that just for climate science?”.
I won’t bore you with the replies, most people here are familiar with the “thousands of scientists’ and “oil interests”, etc. The standard reply was basically, yes, all the science that has ever been invented, or will be invented, will continue to evolve through even a flawed and deteriorating peer review process (that’s how science works), but we know all we’ll ever know about climate change is carved in stone and perfect.
The clamour did die down though when I pointed them to a retraction watch website. I guess they are still reading…
Once again, this isn’t “peer review”; it’s “PAL review”.
The world needs to demand serious punishment for science fraud, especially when it results in costly policy changes. Firing is not enough — I’m talking about prosecution and/or suit under the same laws that cover financial fraud.
It would be a real silver lining if this case led to a strong precedent that can be brought to bear against Dr. Mann and his friends. There is no statute of limitations on financial fraud in the US.
I’m no expert on this, but at least two of those retracted paper do look to be climate modeling related.
I think the editor needs to check his privilege.
elmer said at 11:37 am
I wonder if any of them were about Global Warming?
Mark and two Cats said at 11:47 am
If there were, we wouldn’t be reading about it.
B I N G O !
The journal in question is the “Journal of Vibration and Control”
Sounds like they cover R&D for sex toys.