Journal ‘pollution’ contributes to mistrust of science, GMOs

The scientific community is facing a ‘pollution problem’ in academic publishing, one that poses a serious threat to the “trustworthiness, utility, and value of science and medicine,” according to Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., director of the Division of Medical Ethics in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Medical Center.

That is a maturity issue. While open access – freeing publicly-funded research from copyright corporations and allowing the public to read the results they paid for with taxes – was hailed as a good thing, early on there were concerns that once it became popular, separating the good from the bad would be difficult. When open access publishers became corporate juggernauts in their own right, generating tens of millions in dollars in revenue by publishing hundreds of articles each day with little more than editorial review, it was easy to see that some journals would become predatory and just publish anything for money. Fraud and plagiarism were always concerns in traditional publishing as well. Along with PLOS and BioMed Central, Nature Publishing Group, Wiley, Sage and more have been caught publishing obviously plagiarized articles.

It can be little surprise that the public does not trust science when it comes to vaccines, GMOs or global warming. If it’s easy to dupe peer-reviewed journals, and difficult to know which journals are peer-reviewed or just have editorial checkboxes or no review at all, the public will be wary.

Read full, original article: Journals and Publication Pollution Denialism

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