The Scientist - USA (2020-11)

someone, using their real name or a fake
name (or your name!), from publishing
a paper claiming that kale juice prevents
AIDS, that vaccines cause transsexualism,
that certain races are inferior, or any other

equally eroneous drivel, and then publicly

citing that paper as evidence? The answer

is nothing. It’s been done, with quacks pro-

moting the thoroughly debunked, fraudu-

lent, fake diagnosis of “chronic Lyme” in

predatory and post-publication review

journals (which accept and publish all

manuscripts under the assumption that

readers will review them later). One should

not automatically trust all documents for-

matted as a scientific paper.

Don’t real journals publish fraud

and nonsense too? Yes, but once the

fraud is discovered, they can retract the

paper (though far too many do not). So

far, more than 30 articles on COVID-

19 have been retracted. My paper and

the one citing it have not, and never

will. Silver lining: they can be used in

science ethics classes to educate others

about predatory publishing, and have

inspired some researchers, such as Car-

thage College’s Adam Larson, to write

Pokémon papers themselves.

How, then, to catch a predator, besides

checking Beall’s List? First, assume all

journals or conferences that email you

unsolicited submission invitations are

predatory, especially if they are outside

your field, cover overly broad subjects,

promise rapid review, or flatter you with

compliments such as “eminent researcher.”

Any journal with multiple email domains

is predatory, as are absolutely all journals

that list the worthless “Index Copernicus”

number on their website.

There are no shortcuts in science. If

you want to be taken seriously as an aca-

demic, do not give predatory journals

your business, especially as institutes

wise up to the problem and stop accept-

ing such articles on CVs or applications.

Although, if any institute wants to grant

me an honorary degree in Pokémon

Studies for my eminence in the field, I

would cheerfully accept. g

Matan Shelomi, who writes fake articles

under the pseudonym Mattan Schlomi,

is an assistant professor of entomology

at National Taiwan University. Trade-

marks here are for the purposes of educa-

tion and parody under fair use.

Adapted from a figure that appeared in another
paper, “Expression of the Pokemon gene and
pikachurin protein in the pokémon Pikachu,”
that Shelomi got published in the Academia
Journal of Scientific Research this July.

A. Pikachurin

C. Pikachu the Pokémon

Did you know that

more than 2 million

people follow

The Scientist on

Facebook? Like

our page to see the

latest news, videos,

infographics, and

more, right in your

news feed.

facebook.com/

TheScientistMagazine

LIKE US ON

FACEBOOK

B. Pokemon