There follows a guest post by Daily Sceptic contributing editor Mike Hearn about the ongoing problem of apparently respectable scientific journals publishing computer-generated ‘research’ papers that are complete gibberish.
The publisher Springer Nature has released an “expression of concern” for more than four hundred papers they published in the Arabian Journal of Geosciences. All these papers supposedly passed through both peer review and editorial control, yet no expertise in geoscience is required to notice the problem:
The paper can’t decide if it’s about organic pollutants or the beauty of Latin dancing, and switches instantly from one to the other half way through the abstract.
The publisher claims this went through about two months of review, during which time the editors proved their value by assigning it helpful keywords:
If you’re intrigued by this fusion of environmental science and fun hobbies, you’ll be overjoyed to learn that the full article will only cost you about £30 and there are many more available if that one doesn’t take your fancy, e.g.
- Distribution of earthquake activity in mountain area based on embedded system and physical fitness detection of basketball
- Detection of rare earth elements in groundwater based on SAR imaging algorithm and fatigue intervention of dance training
- Detection of PM2.5 in mountain air based on fuzzy multi-attribute and construction of folk sports activities
- Characteristics of heavy metal pollutants in groundwater based on fuzzy decision making and the effect of aerobic exercise on teenagers
Background
Peer-reviewed science is the type of evidence policymakers respect most. Nonetheless, a frequent topic on this site is scientific reports containing errors so basic that any layman can spot them immediately, leading to the question of whether anyone actually read the papers before publication. An example is the recent article by Imperial College London, published in Nature Scientific Reports, in which the first sentence was a factually false claim about public statistics.
Evidence is now accruing that it’s indeed possible for “peer reviewed” scientific papers to be published which have not only never been reviewed by anybody at all, but might not have even been written by anybody, and that these papers can be published by well known firms like Springer Nature and Elsevier. In August we wrote about the phenomenon of nonsensical “tortured phrases” that indicate the usage of thesaurus-driven paper rewriting programs, probably the work of professional science forging operations called “paper mills”. Thousands of papers have been spotted using this technique; the true extent of the problem is unknown. In July, I reported on the prevalence of Photoshopped images and Chinese paper-forging efforts in the medical literature. Papers are often found that are entirely unintelligible, for example this paper, or this one whose abstract ends by saying, “Clean the information for the preparation set for finding valuable highlights to speak to the information by relying upon the objective of the undertaking.” – a random stream of words that means nothing.
Where does this kind of text come from?
The most plausible explanation is that these papers are being auto-generated using something called a context-free grammar. The goal is probably to create the appearance of interest in the authors they cite. In academia promotions are linked to publications and citations, creating a financial incentive to engage in this sort of metric gaming. The signs are all there: inexplicable topic switches half way through sentences or paragraphs, rampant grammatical errors, the repetitive title structure, citations of real papers and so on. Another sign is the explanation the journal supplied for how it occurred: the editor claims that his email address was hacked.
In this case, something probably went wrong during the production process that caused different databases of pre-canned phrases to be mixed together incorrectly. The people generating these papers are doing it on an industrial scale, so they didn’t notice because they don’t bother reading their own output. The buyers didn’t notice – perhaps they can’t actually read English, or don’t exist. Then the journal didn’t notice because, apparently, it’s enough for just one person to get “hacked” for the journal to publish entire editions filled with nonsense. And finally none of the journal’s readers noticed either, leading to the suspicion that maybe there aren’t any.
The volunteers spotting these papers are uncovering an entire science-laundering ecosystem, hiding in plain sight.
We know randomly generated papers can get published because it’s happened hundreds of times before. Perhaps the most famous example is SCIgen, “a program that generates random Computer Science research papers, including graphs, figures, and citations” using context-free grammars. It was created in 2005 by MIT grad students as a joke, with the aim to “maximize amusement, rather than coherence“. SCIgen papers are buzzword salads that might be convincing to someone unfamiliar with computer science, albeit only if they aren’t paying attention.
Despite this origin, in 2014 over 120 SCIgen papers were withdrawn by leading publishers like the IEEE after outsiders noticed them. In 2020 two professors of computer science observed that the problem was still occurring and wrote an automatic SCIgen detector. Although it’s only about 80% reliable, it nonetheless spotted hundreds more. Their detector is now being run across a subset of new publications and finds new papers on a regular basis.
Root cause analysis
On its face, this phenomenon is extraordinary. Why can’t journals stop themselves publishing machine-generated gibberish? It’s impossible to imagine any normal newspaper or magazine publishing thousands of pages of literally random text and then blaming IT problems for it, yet this is happening repeatedly in the world of academic publishing.
The surface level problem is that many scientific journals appear to be almost or entirely automated, including journals that have been around for decades. Once papers are submitted, the reviewing, editorial and publishing process becomes handled by computers. If the system stops working properly editors can seem oblivious – they routinely discover they published nonsense only because people who don’t even subscribe to their journal complained about it.
Strong evidence for this comes from the “fixes” journals present when put under pressure. As an explanation for why the 436 “expressions of concern” wouldn’t be repeated the publisher said:
The dedicated Research Integrity team at Springer Nature is constantly searching for any irregularities in the publication process, supported by a range of tools, including an in-house-developed detection tool.
The same firm also proudly trumpeted in a press release that:
Springer announces the release of SciDetect, a new software program that automatically checks for fake scientific papers. The open source software discovers text that has been generated with the SCIgen computer program and other fake-paper generators like Mathgen and Physgen. Springer uses the software in its production workflow to provide additional, fail-safe checking.
A different journal proposed an even more ridiculous solution: ban people from submitting papers from webmail accounts. The more obvious solution of paying people to read the articles before they get published is apparently unthinkable – the problem of fake auto-generated papers is so prevalent, and the scientific peer review process so useless, that they are resorting to these feeble attempts to automate the editing process.
Diving below the surface, the problem may be that journals face functional irrelevance in the era of search engines. Clearly nobody can be reading the Arabian Journal of Geosciences, including its own editors, yet according to an interesting essay by Prof Igor Pak “publisher’s contracts with [university] libraries require them to deliver a certain number of pages each year“. What’s in those pages? The editors don’t care because the libraries pay regardless. The librarians don’t care because the universities pay. The universities don’t care because the students and granting bodies pay. The students and granting bodies don’t care because the government pays. The government doesn’t care because the citizens pay, and the citizens DO care – when they find out about this stuff – but generally can’t do anything about it because they’re forced to pay through taxes, student loan laws and a (socially engineered) culture in which people are told they must have a degree or else they won’t be able to get a professional job.
This seems to be zombie-fying scientific publishing. Non-top tier journals live on as third party proof that some work was done, which in a centrally planned economy has value for justifying funding requests to committees. But in any sort of actual market-based economy many of them would have disappeared a long time ago.
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I’m not “vaccinated” and they’ll have to hold me down before I have it. But as I’ve never had the app and have blocked the NHS numbers how are they going to enforce this on me, if shock horror I come into contact with this not so deadly virus?
Of course all this is unnecessary
Dr. Peter McCullough – 5 Things About COVID That They Don’t Want You To Hear BY RED VOICE MEDIA
Dr. Peter McCullough – Ends The Pandemic With 5 COVID Facts?
https://www.redvoicemedia.com/video/2021/08/dr-peter-mccullough-5-things-about-covid-that-they-dont-want-you-to-hear/?utm_source=daily-email&utm_medium=email
1. The virus does not spread asymptomatically.
2. We should never test asymptomatic people.
3. Natural immunity is robust, complete, and durable.
4. COVID-19 is easily treatable at home.
5. The current vaccines are obsolete, unsafe, and unfit for human use.
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Everyone should have access to Dr Peter McCullough’s recommendations, findings and treatments. It really is that simple.
I doubt there are that many unvaccinated people daft enough to install and use the app lol.
Eight years ago I made my apple smartphone a note engine and its has no chip. I have an old Nokia stupidphone and never open a call or message from unidentifiable origin. Simple and plain.
What sort of idiot does what an ‘app’ tells them to do?
Same ones who got themselves hooked on Pokémon Go (which included too many “adults”).
Most of the Human Race with access to one tragically.
This unvaccinated Brit wont be self isolating under any circumstances.
Just back from holiday.. unvaxxed so supposed to isolate for ten days. Out and about as usual. Not a chance I will be imprisoned for no reason
What will you say when the Mitie marshall calls and finds you not at home?
set the dogs on them for trespassing
“Sorry, we couldn’t come to the door as we were all recuperating in bed, just in case!”
Mitie Marshall, now that really is frightening.
I guess he won’t say anything cos no ones answering the door.
Are you sure you are not self isolating within Britain? Have you been abroad recently?
Ditto!
Good to see “cases” in inverted commas, as it is a meaningless propaganda term. Could we please also have “fully vaccinated” in inverted commas for the same reason?
“getting two doses of vaccine has tipped the odds” in favour of hospitalisation and death according to the latest Public Health England technical briefing.
Two friends ages 70 and 62 suffering serious heart and lung issues. One a fib, finally diagnosed dr recommends ablation. The other rapid heart rate 180, shortness of breath, cough, ct scan of lungs abnormal, cannot get into see a pulmonologist for months. Both people active healthy pre double jabbed. In USA all family that were jabbed, now getting colds, one after the other.
But according to Jeremy Vine at the BBC, as the Yellow Card system is only self reporting, it isn’t verified, so the vaccines are 100% safe and no one ever has been harmed by them. “Just tell me Jeremy, how do those who were otherwise fit and healthy but died after receiving the vaccine ‘self report’ their deaths?”
Of course all this is unnecessary
Dr. Peter McCullough – 5 Things About COVID That They Don’t Want You To Hear BY RED VOICE MEDIA
Dr. Peter McCullough – Ends The Pandemic With 5 COVID Facts?
https://www.redvoicemedia.com/video/2021/08/dr-peter-mccullough-5-things-about-covid-that-they-dont-want-you-to-hear/?utm_source=daily-email&utm_medium=email
1. The virus does not spread asymptomatically.
2. We should never test asymptomatic people.
3. Natural immunity is robust, complete, and durable.
4. COVID-19 is easily treatable at home.
5. The current vaccines are obsolete, unsafe, and unfit for human use.
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
So UK has took its first step into the communist social credit system. First reward is that you don’t need to imprison yourself after being in the vicinity of someone who had a false positive test. Doesn’t matter that the fake vaccine does nothing to stop transmission/reinfection either – you were a good citizen for following the UK Regime’s orders.
Also no 10-day quarantine on return to the UK from abroad if you have been ‘fully stabbed’.
That’s if you make it back home.
Went to Chicago end of May. Attended a wedding, church full, reception 225 people. Went on to Las Vegas with 39 family. Plane and airport packed. Hotel in Vegas sold out, 4.000 rooms. Surrounded by thousands of people. Came home without a scratch, just a lighter bank account after paying just over $400 for swab tests. 😂😂😂😂😂
Today’s ‘cases’ and ‘deaths’ distorted by addition of two days of Welsh data.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/whats-new/record/467fbf31-0162-4bc6-920c-caa33039386f
So today I know of 3 people all young who have just completed their covid injections and now have full blown covid, but they get a free pass because they are good boys and girls. Nothing to do with stopping a virus everything to do with repression and obedience
I was speaking to a colleague yesterday who’s been ill for a couple weeks. He said he’d had both jabs and has taken covid tests repeatedly to see if he’d caught the phantom menace. Every time he took a test it came back negative so he phoned the doctor who did a “telephone analysis” and declared he was ill with covid (surprise surprise!).
A prime example of this complete and utter clusterfuck. He probably wasn’t ill with covid, though if he was, why did it get past his x2 super-deluxe artificial immune system we keep hearing about? Why did the all-important tests not detect it? How did the doctor know it was covid and not a flu? Was it an adverse reaction to the double jabs?
He had Covid cos the stabs don’t work, lucky him, now naturally immune. So long as the stabs don’t f that up – which some think possible, I pray not.
More than possible, let’s say highly likely.
USA just approved a third shot. WTF. So because the first two didn’t kill or maim you, we are going to have one more go😂😂😂😂
Flu has disappeared, so it must be Covid.
Of course it is, all colds & flus have been rebranded…
Three people at our bowls club got Covid. All double jabbed, oops.
Deep, deep, somewhere hidden in the nonsense, will be the ability to ‘exempt’ yourself from all of this; just as one can exempt oneself from all the ‘covidpass’ drivel, and just as one could/can (where required, eg in ‘health’ situations) exempt oneself from the mask codswallop.
at the moment, yes.
Until the stabs are fully authorised – ie, tomorrow.
Israel, with a nearly entirely vaccinated adult population, now expects this coronavirus wave to be the worst yet – up to 2,500 serious cases compared to 1,200 in January. Note: the article doesn’t mention vaccines once. It’s like they never even happened.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/health-officials-predict-thousands-of-seriously-ill-covid-patients-within-month/
Israel only ‘vaccinated’ Israeli Jews; no Israeli Arabs.
Bit of a double edged sword….do Palestine want to be vaccinated?
Oddly they have very similar covid death stats…. Israel 9 million population and about 7,000 covid deaths. Very vaccinated..
Palestine 4,500 population and around 3,500 covid deaths…not very vaccinated!
Palestine 4.5 million population, sorry.
The Palestinian population is much younger on average.
But also have worse health overall
Japan has the highest percentage of elderly people in the world, had no serious lockdowns, includes Tokyo with a metro population of nearly 40 million people, has widespread use of public transport and currently has a fully vaxxed rate of just 36%.
“Covid” deaths per million? About 6 times less than Israel and 16 times less than the UK.
V high vit D, and maybe also much thinner than the UK.
Plus Asia is the land of origin for the coronavirus family. Cross resistance from others coronaviruses likely higher.
You’ve been watching too much BBC. I bet you take the Guardian as well. No hope for you.
Obesity top and Center on the list of risks for Covid. What a shame not one health authority advised people to lose weight.
Covid deaths?
Always their words, not mine!
Trying to eliminate their own people?why?
As suggested by many world renowned scientists…giving an experimental biological during a pandemic will certainly cause mutations of the virus, otherwise known as scariants. Happening now in front of our eyes.
The government replace a stupid thing for another less stupid: money will be more subtly robbed from people.
As ever a deafening silence re the 99.75% recovered from this deadly pandemic and who as a result do not need the “vaccine”. Recovery offers sterilising immunity, virus
finds it difficult to replicate meaning unlikely to transmit to others and/or “mutate”.
I wonder why the MSM in general make no mention of this.
I tried to point this out in the Guardian (I know) but my comment was traduced and now I’m pre- moderated ie banned.
For entertainment in these times I recommend you have a go and try educating them. They’ll be on you in a flash!
Heresy, you’re a heretic – fires coming soon.
The Guardian cannot allow anything which would imperil the gazillions that Bill Gates pumps into it.
As others say below this hardly applies to people who don’t have the app, and that will be most of us here I would say. No one has ever contacted me as I have never signed in as myself ever and won’t be doing so. So as before for most of us.
Well, I have a feeling that they are now all but ready to move on to control as a result of the climate ‘crisis’. Bears with as little brain as Bozo and the cabinet find it too demanding to deal with more than one thing at a time!
The CDC in the US has withdrawn the current PCR tests – because they are shite and don’t work. Yet our government/PHE obviously didn’t get the memo. The other troubling thing with this is – it’s the jabbed who are making the cases but because I’m not jabbed, I would have to isolate for 10 days (not that I would as I don’t have the app and have blocked all NHS numbers. Even if they got through, they could whistle as far as I’m concerned). Nazi bastards.
The CDC in the US has withdrawn the current PCR tests – because they are shite and don’t work.
That’s a misunderstanding. The CDC has announced that it will withdraw the specific PCR test it uses at the moment at the end of the year because better PCR tests have become available. The UK does not use the PCR test that is being withdrawn.
https://fullfact.org/health/the-cdc-has-not-said-pcr-tests-dont-work/
So unlike the US, the UK uses a PCR test that works! Come on now, try and be serious.
Please read the link I provided. They both work. The only reason the US is going to stop using the current PCR test is that there others that work more quickly and efficiently including some that can test for Covid and Flu simultaneously.
Reading between the lines they are following what we have been saying on this site from very early on. When PCR testing was handed over to any old company instead of being overseen in a proper lab, there was horrendous contamination, false readings etc. This is really admitting that they were wrong to do that. The PCR in essence won’t change, it’s about quality control, new assays, new reagents, new protocols…basically to try to limit the damage done and try to regain some semblance of test quality.
I suspect the majority of the unvaccinated are sensible enough not to have the app or sign in anywhere so won’t be notified anyway.
I had a sentence ready then I just thought, why would I give a shit? I don’t know anyone with the app, none of us care and I can’t even think this is news except to a few idiots who like getting themselves tested…for fun! ‘Nine million calls since the pandemic began’, which will be much less now….so probably sixty million of us won’t give a monkeys!!
I actually know one person who has been pinged twice and he took it seriously both times. I told him that he reminded me of a turkey voting for an early Christmas and he was not amused. I should perhaps have been more kind, with him being double jabbed and consequently living on borrowed time.
Batshit crazy!
Patients admitted to hospital with a Delta infection after double inoculation are being found carrying a high viral load, something that is the hallmark of ADE.
Only if the intention is to achieve herd immunity by infecting as many as possibly could this course of action be considered not batshit crazy.
Can anyone give another explanation?
Ohhh this would make sense as to why the ct counts are different? I knew there was more to this graph from the other day.
I’ve cut the key off but the lines with ct count ~20 are Delta and the lines with ct count ~30 were Alpha(?) sorry can’t remember what scariant came before.
Yeah.
We’ve been fooled – two jabs won’t buy you holiday freedom after all
No surprise there, proper vaccines work by reducing or hopefully zeroing the effects of being infected. They neither stop one becoming infected nor stop one spreading the disease. This is vaccine fact, however I’d be prepared to accept they may reduce the transmission rate as the infected vaccinated person may be infectious for less time.
Piss off, lying by nature Toad.
In a word, what a mess.
Why they are still treating unvaccinated differently from vaccinated beats me, as it must surely now be clear to them that the vaccine doesn’t prevent transmissibility or susceptibility. My only guess is that they’re ‘saving face’ having so definitively claimed the vaccine was our “passport out of the restrictions”, so cannot be seen to be wrong.
“Fully vaccinated” implies protection. If only the “vaccines” prevented infection or transmission, or hopefully both. Now even the mainstream realise that these cocktails do neither. But the push/ nudge to a fully vaccinated population grinds on relentlessly. Why? Because the pr*cks in charge are doubling down and using this great “opportunity” to terrorise the masses, to muzzle us and keep us in our place. Clearly this situation has nothing to do with public health. I seem to be surrounded by spineless sheep, unthinking clowns too afraid of their own shadows to challenge anything , prepared to do anything to be able to go on holiday. I despair for our future.
From now on sentence must read, fully vaccinated today…who knows about tomorrow?