Have you heard of Fake Science Journals?  How about predatory conferences?  In generations past, if a student found an article published in a science journal you could make the safe assumption that it was peer reviewed, vetted and legit.  However, today this is not the case.  Many “Science Journals” with legitimate sounding names like “The American Journal of Medical and Biological Research” have sprung up whose only goal is to separate scientists and their money.  You can publish your papers in this “journal” (usually open access and online) for a small fee.  It turns out that the journal is a total scam, there is no peer review at all, and they just collect your money.

To highlight the cracks in our scientific publication system, the writer of a blog called Neuroskeptic wrote a “paper” called “Mitochondria: Structure, Function and Clinical Relevance“… sounds interesting, right?  However, if you look more closely, this paper falls apart.  In the text of the paper, mitochondria are referred to as “midichlorians” (the endosymbiotic alien life form that gives Jedis their Force sensitivity, as per Star Wars canon).  You can even find such gems as these, hidden in the paper:  “The key functions of midichlorians are force sensitivity, to fabricate ATP, the cell’s energy currency via respiration, and to control cell metabolism”  and the even cuter… “Nuclear genetic mutations can also lead to dysfunctions of midichlorial proteins.  This is the case in Yoda’s ataxia, hereditaryspastic paraplegia, and Wookiee’s disease.”  Or you could just have looked a the two authors of the paper:  Lucas McGeorge and Annette Kin.  Really want to laugh?  Read the references section…. its hysterical!

This is all funny, right?  Well, then it takes a dark turn.  The “paper” was submitted to 9 journals, 4 of which accepted the paper.  1 never published because the author didn’t pay the $360 publishing fee…. but the other 3 journals published the “paper” about midichlorians for free.  Obviously, not only was there no peer review at all… no one even bothered to read past the title of the paper before publishing it as “real science”.   The author blooged about this escapade here.

So, what is a student to do?  How would someone know if a Journal is legit or a scam?  How can a student trust any paper that they read on the internet?  Unfortunately, it now takes a little leg work.  Is this a well known and well respected journal?  You’ll have to look at the journal’s history and impact factor. 

Who wrote the paper?  Do some research on the authors… a quick Google search should pull up many other papers in the same field.  If you use academic search engines like Pubmed or Medline, that should weed out the fake papers.

The internet is a double edged sword… it has the power to bring us all of the world’s knowledge in seconds.  It also brings with it all the dross and crap (and the financial scams) that the world has to offer as well.  Its on the student and scientist to be able to sort the good from the bad.  Good luck out there.

Also – The Phantom Menace sucked.