Search Results for: sokal

Punked 2.0: Indian engineer uses “My Cousin Vinny” to publish fake paper, expose “science” conference

A technology entrepreneur from Pune named Navin Kabra has pulled back the sheets on a local conference, the International Conference on Recent Innovations in Engineering, Science & Technology, by submitting two bogus manuscripts for presentation — both of which were accepted. Although the conference organizers were charging 6,000 rupees — about $100 — apiece for … Continue reading Punked 2.0: Indian engineer uses “My Cousin Vinny” to publish fake paper, expose “science” conference

Science reporter spoofs hundreds of open access journals with fake papers

Alan Sokal’s influence has certainly been felt strongly recently. Last month, a critique by Sokal — who in 1996 got a fake paper published in Social Text — and two colleagues forced a correction of a much-ballyhooed psychology paper.  A few days after that, we reported on a Serbian Sokal hoax-like paper whose authors cited the scholarly … Continue reading Science reporter spoofs hundreds of open access journals with fake papers

Journal withdraws diabetes paper written by apparently bogus authors

Talk about a Trojan Horse. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications has withdrawn a paper it published earlier this year on metabolic proteins linked to diabetes, not because the article was bogus but because the authors appear to have been. The work itself is accurate — indeed, it likely belongs to a Harvard scientist, Bruce Spiegelman, … Continue reading Journal withdraws diabetes paper written by apparently bogus authors

Fredrickson-Losada “positivity ratio” paper partially withdrawn

In 2005, Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada published a paper in American Psychologist making a bold and specific claim: …the authors predict that a ratio of positive to negative affect at or above 2.9 will characterize individuals in flourishing mental health. The paper made quite a splash. It has been cited 360 times, according to … Continue reading Fredrickson-Losada “positivity ratio” paper partially withdrawn

“Way out there” paper claiming to merge physics and biology retracted

A German professor who claims to have developed “a self-consistent field theory which is used to derive at all known interactions of the potential vortex” will have at least two papers retracted, thanks to the scrutiny of a concerned economist. The first retraction has already appeared, in DNA and Cell Biology, for a paper by … Continue reading “Way out there” paper claiming to merge physics and biology retracted