When science influencers polarize our politics + How many fake papers?

[C C]

How big is science’s fake-paper problem?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03464-x

EXCERPT: An unpublished analysis suggests that there are hundreds of thousands of bogus ‘paper-mill’ articles lurking in the literature. [...] Without individual investigations, it is impossible to know whether all of these papers are in fact products of paper mills. But the proportion — a few per cent — is a reasonable conservative estimate, says Adam Day, director of scholarly data-services company Clear Skies in London, who conducted the analysis using machine-learning software he developed called the Papermill Alarm... (MORE - details)

---

When science influencers polarize our politics
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/whe...s-polarize

EXCERPT: . . . [Climate scientist] Michael E. Mann is also a fierce political partisan who is quite vocal in his utter disdain for Republicans and unwavering endorsement of Democrats. He has also not been shy in his effort to police scientific discourse. In short, Mann is without a doubt the most influential and powerful climate science influencer on the planet. He is the Taylor Swift of climate science.

Does Mann’s style of “science communication” offer a template for how scientists ought to engage with their peers and broader society?

Some think so — in climate science, many have followed Mann’s lead and adopted a pugilistic and partisan approach to public engagement. Climate science is not unique. The popular medical researcher Peter Hotez of Baylor University associates “anti-science” with Republicans and “science” with Democrats. Similarly, scientists who have rejected the notion of a research-related incident as the origin of COVID-19 have chosen to characterize that theory in explicitly partisan terms. It is not just in the United States either — last month Nature chose to weigh in on the Argentinean presidential election.

Scientists are players in big time politics! That’s great, right? (MORE - missing details)

[Yazata]

How big is science’s fake-paper problem?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03464-x

EXCERPT: An unpublished analysis suggests that there are hundreds of thousands of bogus ‘paper-mill’ articles lurking in the literature.

I'm more inclined to think that it's a crappy-paper problem than a fake-paper problem.

And I'm less inclined to think that the problem is "paper-mills" (what are those exactly?) than it is the 'publish or perish' subculture of academia.

What profit would there be in operating a "mill" to produce "fake papers"?

But it's easy to perceive the profit in actual professors and their students producing crappy papers. When academics are judged on the number of papers they have published, and when academic careers are in part functions of that number, then it's obvious what the motivation is in churning out as many papers as possible, no matter how worthless they might ultimately be.

[Syne]

EXCERPT: . . . Michael E. Mann is also a fierce political partisan who is quite vocal in his utter disdain for Republicans and unwavering endorsement of Democrats. ...

I immediately thought of Dr. Mann from Interstellar.

[stryder]

I'm more inclined to think that it's a crappy-paper problem than a fake-paper problem.

And I'm  less inclined to think that the problem is "paper-mills" (what are those exactly?) than it is the 'publish or perish' subculture of academia.

What profit would there be in operating a "mill" to produce "fake papers"?

But it's easy to perceive the profit in actual professors and their students producing crappy papers. When academics are judged on the number of papers they have published, and when academic careers are in part functions of that number, then it's obvious what the motivation is in churning out as many papers as possible, no matter how worthless they might ultimately be.

Paper-mills can be used to create credence for criminal networks and state operators. Creating a persons professional backstory can allow them access to places to commit acts of corporate/state espionage or gain access to materials and equipment used for criminal or terrorist operations. So it might look petty one the suface but it can have a long term deep impact globally.