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In an effort to show how politically correct nonsense and evil (but I repeat myself) can get through academic peer review and be published, some academics did just that with seven papers. More are partly through the process.
A particularly funny and horrifying case is the Gender Studies journal Affilia. Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf only needed to be translated with wording in the typical style of intersectionality theory, and it passed muster.
Another published paper, considered exemplary scholarship by the journal that published it, contains this whopper: "Dog parks are microcosms where hegemonic masculinist norms governing queering behavior and compulsory heterosexuality can be observed in a cross-species environment."
The Grievance Studies Scandal: Five Academics Respond
Now, three academics have submitted twenty spoof manuscripts to journals chosen for respectability in their various disciplines. Seven papers were accepted before the experiment stopped; more are surviving peer review. This new raid on screamingly barmy pseudo-scholarship is the Alan Sokal Opening, weaponised. Like dedicated traceurs in a Parkour-fest, the trio scrambled over the terrain of what they call Grievance Studies. And they dropped fire-crackers. One published paper proposed that dog parks are "rape-condoning spaces." Another, entitled "Our Struggle is My Struggle: Solidarity Feminism as an Intersectional Reply to Neoliberal and Choice Feminism" reworked, and substantially altered, part of Mein Kampf. The most shocking, (not published, its status is "revise and resubmit") is a "Feminist Approach to Pedagogy." It proposes "experiential reparations" as a corrective for privileged students. These include sitting on the floor, wearing chains, or being purposely spoken over. Reviewers have commented that the authors risk exploiting underprivileged students by burdening them with an expectation to teach about privilege.
Also at WSJ.
Related: Publishing Stings Find Shoddy Peer Review
Absurd Paper Accepted by Open-Access Computer Science Journal
Media World Fooled with Bogus Chocolate Diet Story
(Score: 2) by hellcat on Thursday October 04 2018, @02:31PM (5 children)
Don't get sidetracked talking about crazy guys wielding power indiscriminately.
The subject at hand is how easy it is to fool "academic" journals with garbage.
Check out this link. Some academics are already trying to address the problem, though I think they are still too soft. Pun intended.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/generous-approach-replication-confirms-many-high-profile-social-science-findings [sciencemag.org]
Imagine if all our soft academics could agree (including Economics and Law please) on things like fiscal policy and judicial ethics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @02:50PM (1 child)
Since the null hypothesis is going to be wrong there is 50-50 chance a "significant effect" will be seen in the same direction (with sufficient sample size).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0399-z [nature.com]
So the question is whether a 62% replication rate is meaningfully better than a 50% replication rate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:58PM
According to the binomial distribution: Flip a fair coin 21 times, repeat this 1 million times, and about 20% (200k) sets will contain 13 or more heads. So we fail to reject the null hypothesis that psychology research is any better than having people just come up with ideas and flip a coin to test it.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Thexalon on Thursday October 04 2018, @05:47PM (2 children)
And the open-access pay-to-publish journal standards are of course even lower, to the point where the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology published one of my favorite academic papers of all time: Get me off Your F***ing Mailing List [stanford.edu] I have to admit I've occasionally wanted to reference it when dealing with some of the political and non-profit groups I've encountered over the years.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bootsy on Friday October 05 2018, @10:43AM (1 child)
I love that the references are actually vaid and useful. Pure genius.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday October 05 2018, @03:33PM
Actually, my favorite features of the paper are the flow diagram and scatter plot, but yes, the references are a nice touch.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.