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Paper blaming COVID-19 on 5G technology withdrawn:
A paper which argued that 5G cellphone technology could lead to infection with the novel coronavirus has been retracted, but not before scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik wondered whether it was the "worst paper of 2020."
The article, "5G Technology and induction of coronavirus in skin cells," came from a group from Italy, the United States and Russia, and appeared in theJournal of Biological Regulators and Homeostatic Agents. The journal is published by Biolife, which asserts that it's peer reviewed but has not responded to a request for comment.
The abstract is now marked "WITHDRAWN" on PubMed and the paper has disappeared from the journal's website. The abstract has been preserved here.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday July 27 2020, @11:58PM (25 children)
And don't go in thinking that this is just one bad apple, or one spoonful of shit, depenmding on which metaphor you prefer, or that the problem of crap passing nominal peer review is new:
From elsewhere:
"""
Robert Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet, one of the most respected professional peer reviewed publications in the world dealing with biomedical research had this to say in an editorial published by The Lancet in April of 2015:
"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."
"""
and:
"""
And this, published in 2009, by Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, another world leading publication in medical research:"
"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine."
"""
And those are the well-respected journals.
Which is why Bik and her rag-tag unofficial band of volunteer junk busters are so useful and so necessary, and so valvuable. Large swathes of science publishing need some clorox.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday July 28 2020, @12:01AM (7 children)
Read the abstract. FFS, the Starfleet technical manuals make more sense.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @12:07AM (6 children)
OMG... that abstract is idiotic. Were the authors trolling the journal, or the peer reviewers trolling the scientific community?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by driverless on Tuesday July 28 2020, @01:06AM (5 children)
It was awesome. I skimmed through it and assumed it was a randomly-generated hoax like the Sokal hoax, but a quick bit of googling revealed that the first two authors are well-known cranks with a pile of crazy publications behind them. The Russian author doesn't seem to exist, and the final author is a legit research whose name seems to have been borrowed to attach to the paper.
So it's sort of like the Sokal hoax but the two cranks who wrote it were serious.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 28 2020, @12:21PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday July 28 2020, @12:29PM
Ah, OK. Thanks for the update.
(Score: 3, Funny) by edIII on Tuesday July 28 2020, @06:07PM (2 children)
My favorite part is when they go from parts of DNA produced through apparently platonic holes to the creation of viruses. Including Cornaviruses. It's automagical assembly of dangerous viruses from parts.
They didn't even take the time to explain their "Heisenberg compensator". At the very least, they could of implied that modulation of the 5G carrier waves induces automatic assembly of microogranism, up to, and including Ebola, and the Peruvian Zombie Disease. Who controls such modulations? The Committee of 300, run by the Rothschilds, the Queen, and the Colonel before he went tits up!
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:58PM
OMG! Zombie Roasted Guinea Pigs? Or is this the virus that took out Che Guervara?
(Note: Nothing says "science" like Zombie guinea pigs!)
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday July 29 2020, @01:29AM
Do you think it could be used for Bitcoin mining? Maybe the impinging 5G death rays could be manipulated to cause endless BTC to sprout from people's DNA. That's probably the real reason why the paper was widthdrawn, once people realise this it'll crash the price of Bitcoin so the Illuminati arranged to have it pulled to prevent this.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:53AM (12 children)
No links were found. Next time try an <a href="...">link_text_here</a> markup (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Troll) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 28 2020, @12:16PM (11 children)
Being a derptard for lulz is very tedious, please desist.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 28 2020, @12:41PM (8 children)
Because I hate your formatting
I'm sorry, nothing personal, but I can't. It's ingrained.
Besides, letting aside my derp-lulzing and your atrocious formatting, your restricted selection of "Dr Bik's blog, it's excellent (not just the one post)" with no link to the "not just one post" is... anti-informative, don't you think? (if you don't, you should try it some times - grin).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:49PM (6 children)
And also irrelevant.
You couldn't see the links in the summary because I copy-pasted text in my post?!?
You are out-derping even yourself.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 29 2020, @12:02AM (4 children)
A bit past Beer-o'clock for our slimness challenged Phil, I see. Leave c0lo alone!!!!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 29 2020, @12:30AM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 29 2020, @03:08AM (2 children)
Hmm, seems fine now. . . You OK, FatPhil?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 29 2020, @09:04AM (1 child)
textbox extends outside the formfield, and is clipped. Notice the complete lack of horizontal scrollbars at the bbottom of the window or forrmfield element.
http://fatphil.org/tmp/SNclipping.png
And now consider that my phone is even narrower (800px) than this half of my monitor (960px)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 29 2020, @09:10AM
But anyway, I'm fine, thanks for asking. A little bit annoyed at the level of idiocy that seems to have swept across the planet in the last week, but I guess I'd better have to start getting used to more of that as time progresses and entropy advances.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 29 2020, @12:04AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:57PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 28 2020, @02:20PM (1 child)
Don't bother, I finally got it
(wishing for 7 more ASCII characters in the title of your comment, like "Follow the links in TFS")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:43PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 28 2020, @03:16PM (3 children)
I guess this is the result of the publish or perish model.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 28 2020, @09:07PM (1 child)
It's more the result of using a bad metric. If you judge an academic's output by the number of papers published, a crank who published 15 nonsense papers in a no-name journal looks like a better hire than Albert Einstein was just after his "miracle year" of 5 breakthrough papers at the beginning of 1906. Combine that with all sorts of organizations with crackpot agendas funding scientists who push their agenda even if it's wrong, and you have a recipe for making nutjobs look like respectable scientists and vice versa.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 29 2020, @03:09PM
You just described the publish or perish model. Except you pointed out the flaw that is ingrained in the system. It takes a lot more effort to read and understand all of the papers produced by someone. Than it does to just look at 50 published papers and say, hmm. must be good.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 29 2020, @08:50AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves