List of scholarly publishing stings
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This is a list of scholarly publishing "
sting operation In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person attempting to commit a crime. A typical sting will have an undercover law enforcement officer, detective, or co-operative member of the public play a role a ...
s" such as the
Sokal affair The Sokal affair, also called the Sokal hoax, was a demonstrative scholarly publishing sting, scholarly hoax performed by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University and University College London. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article t ...
. These are nonsense papers that were accepted by an
academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
or
academic conference An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic or scientific journals an ...
; the list does not include cases of
scientific misconduct Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. A '' Lancet'' review on ''Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countrie ...
. The intent of such publications is typically to expose shortcomings in a journal's
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
process or to criticize the standards of pay-to-publish journals. The ethics of academic stings are disputed, with some arguing that it is morally equivalent to other forms of fraud.


Notable examples


Chemistry

* "
Who's Afraid of Peer Review? "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?" is an article written by ''Science'' correspondent John Bohannon that describes his investigation of peer review among fee-charging open-access journals. Between January and August 2013, Bohannon submitted fake sc ...
": In 2013
John Bohannon John Bohannon is an American science journalist and scientist who is Director of Science at Primer, an artificial intelligence company headquartered in San Francisco, California. He is known for his career prior to Primer as a science journalist a ...
wrote in ''
Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
'' about a "
sting operation In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person attempting to commit a crime. A typical sting will have an undercover law enforcement officer, detective, or co-operative member of the public play a role a ...
" he conducted in which he submitted "a credible but mundane scientific paper, one with such grave errors that a competent peer reviewer should easily identify it as flawed and unpublishable", to 304 open-access publishers. 157 journals accepted the paper. There have been some objections to the sting's methodology and about what conclusions can be drawn from it.


Computer science

* A paper randomly generated by the
SCIgen SCIgen is a paper generator that uses context-free grammar to randomly generate nonsense in the form of computer science research papers. Its original data source was a collection of computer science papers downloaded from CiteSeer. All elements ...
program was accepted without peer-review for presentation at the 2005
World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics WMSCI, the World Multi-conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, is a conference that has occurred annually since 1995, which emphasizes the systemic relationships that exist or might exist among different disciplines in the fields of ...
(WMSCI). The conference accepted the article as a non-
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
ed submission, despite none of the three assigned peer-reviewers having submitted an opinion about its fidelity, veracity, or accuracy to its subject. The three
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
graduate students who wrote the hoax article said they were unaware of the
Sokal Affair The Sokal affair, also called the Sokal hoax, was a demonstrative scholarly publishing sting, scholarly hoax performed by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University and University College London. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article t ...
until after submitting their article. Subsequently, numerous other papers generated by SCIgen have been published in scientific journals or accepted for presentation at scientific conferences. * In December 2013, a
Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...
-based software professional submitted a bogus paper titled "use of cloud-computing and social media to determine box office performance", which was accepted by the
Bhubaneswar Bhubaneswar (; ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Odisha. The region, especially the old town, was historically often depicted as ''Ekamra Kshetra'' (area (''kshetra'') adorned with mango trees (''ekamra'')). Bhubaneswar is ...
-based Research Forum for their ICRIEST-AICEEMCS International Conference. The paper's introductory section itself cautioned that it contained some "gibberish" that was auto-generated by software. One section of the paper also includes 19 lines about the 1970s Bollywood film ''
Sholay ''Sholay'' (, ) is a 1975 Indian Hindi-language action-adventure film directed by Ramesh Sippy, produced by his father G. P. Sippy, and written by Salim–Javed. The film is about two criminals, Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan), ...
'', and 19 lines from ''
My Cousin Vinny ''My Cousin Vinny'' is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Jonathan Lynn, and written by Dale Launer, who also produced with Paul Schiff. The film stars Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei, Mitchell Whitfield, Lane Smith, Bruce McGill, and ...
'', a 1992 Hollywood film. The incident highlighted a practice where "poor quality papers are accepted from students who are then asked to pay a few thousand rupees to participate in the conferences". After that the management of the event retracted the paper and apologized publicly. The Secretary in an interview described the acceptance as a human error of the coordinators. * In 2014, Australian computer scientist Peter Vamplew submitted a paper to the
International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology The ''International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology'' is a publication which has been described as a predatory open access journal—a publication which has some of the surface attributes of a benign open access journal but is actually an ...
(IJACT) after being angered that the journal would not take his email off its mailing list. The article, titled "Get me off your fucking mailing list", consisted of the phrase "Get me off your fucking mailing list" being repeated for the entirety of the article body. The journal requested the researcher to "add some more recent references and do a bit of reformatting" saying that the article's "suitability for the journal was excellent". Despite this however, he was never taken off the mailing list.


Education

* In 2020, Bradley Allf, a researcher at
North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universit ...
, was invited to submit a paper to the journal ''US-China Education Reviews A&B'', one of many journals run by David Publishing Company. Suspecting the journal was
predatory Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...
, Allf submitted a nonsense paper espousing the educational benefits of high school students manufacturing drugs in the
New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
desert, loosely following the plot of the television series ''
Breaking Bad ''Breaking Bad'' is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited hig ...
''. The paper was authored by Allf as well as fictional ''Breaking Bad'' characters
Walter White Walter White most often refers to: * Walter White (''Breaking Bad''), character in the television series ''Breaking Bad'' * Walter Francis White (1893–1955), American leader of the NAACP Walter White may also refer to: Fictional characters ...
and
Jesse Pinkman Jesse Bruce Pinkman is a main character in the American television series '' Breaking Bad'', played by Aaron Paul. He is a crystal meth cook and dealer and works with his former high school chemistry teacher, Walter White (Bryan Cranston). Jess ...
. In it, Allf claims to have demonstrated that "at-risk" high school students in a chemistry course can benefit from field trips into the desert to make methamphetamine. The paper makes a number of obviously untrue claims, including that
Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...
is part of the
Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...
, that
craniotomy A craniotomy is a surgical operation in which a bone flap is temporarily removed from the skull to access the brain. Craniotomies are often critical operations, performed on patients who are suffering from brain lesions, such as tumors, blood clots ...
is an effective means of assessing student learning, and that humans did not appear in the New Mexico "fossil record" until 108 years ago. Additionally, the paper's methodology utilizes invented statistical techniques named after
Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...
and, according to the paper, its figures were created in
Microsoft Paint Microsoft Paint is a simple raster graphics editor that has been included with all versions of Microsoft Windows. The program opens and saves files in Windows bitmap (BMP), JPEG, GIF, PNG, and single-page TIFF formats. The program can be in ...
. Despite the obvious issues with the paper, Allf's submission was accepted by the journal two weeks after undergoing a supposedly "rigorous" two-person peer review. Allf later wrote an article for ''
Undark Magazine ''Undark Magazine'' is a non-profit, editorially independent online publication Electronic publishing (also referred to as publishing, digital publishing, or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, digital magazines, and ...
'' and delivered a
TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...
talk about the fake paper and how predatory publishing can be used to sow disinformation.


Mathematics

* In 2012, the
open-access journal Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
''Advances in Pure Mathematics'' accepted a nonsense paper produced by the computer program Mathgen. Although the paper was accepted, the "author" declined to pay the journal's $500 publishing fee.


Medicine

* John McLachlan, a professor of medical education, hoaxed the Jerusalem Conference on Integrative Medicine in 2010 with invented nonsense. * Elaine Murphy hoaxed the ''
British Medical Journal ''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...
'' in 1974 with a case report on the fictional medical condition
cello scrotum Cello scrotum is a hoax medical condition originally published as a brief case report in the '' British Medical Journal'' in 1974. As its name suggests, it was purportedly an affliction of the scrotum affecting male players of the cello. History ...
. * In March 2012, Salvo Di Grazia, a gynecologist and a science communicator in the medical field, submitted a hoax to the World Cancer Congress 2012 organized by the China-based
BIT Life Sciences BIT Life Sciences (or BIT Congress Inc., BIT Group Global Ltd) is a for profit Meetings, incentives, conferencing, exhibitions, meetings, incentives, conferencing, exhibitions (MICE) company based in Dalian, China, that specializes in arranging mu ...
predatory company. Di Grazia created a fictional character, doctor Massimo Della Serietà (which in italian reads as "maximum seriousness"), Corporate Refectory Chief,
Rocco Siffredi Rocco Siffredi (born Rocco Antonio Tano; 4 May 1964) is an Italian Pornographic film actor, pornographic actor, director and producer. He took his stage name from the character Roch Siffredi played by Alain Delon in the French gangster film '' ...
Foundation, Department of Women Health, Venice, Italy, to show how predatory companies works to people without knowledge about scientific publishing. The work, written in a scientific language but filled with nonsensical methods and statistics, suggested that "endovaginal use of gherkin is an effective and safe therapy for women premenstrual syndrome". The work was accepted despite the fact that all of the authors and their institution were nonexistent. The following year the company proposed to the fictional doctor Della Serietà to apply for the session chair position. This time Di Grazia submitted the work "The 'Sbudella method:' a new, effective way to treat people with hole on the stomach", which was nothing but the recipe for
carbonara Carbonara () is an Italian pasta dish from Rome made with eggs, hard cheese, cured pork and black pepper. The dish arrived at its modern form, with its current name, in the middle of the 20th century. The cheese is usually Pecorino Romano, Par ...
, which again was promptly accepted. * In February 2014, Hatixhe Latifi Pupovci, a professor from the
University of Prishtina The University of Pristina ( sq, Universiteti i Prishtinës) is a public university located in Pristina, Kosovo. It is the institution that emerged after the disestablishment of the University of Pristina (1969–99) as a result of the K ...
, submitted a flawed paper to Medical Archives, a journal published in
Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
. On 14 April 2014 she received a reminder to pay the publication fee of 250 EUR, which she never did, whereas the paper was already published in the journal four days earlier. In July 2014, the editor of the journal, Izet Masic, published an editorial titled “A New Example of Unethical Behaviour in the Academic Journal ‘Medical Archives,” calling out Latifi-Pupovci’s actions and declaring that paper would be retracted. * In December 2014, Mark Shrime, then a graduate student at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and now the chair of global surgery at the
Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) is a medical professional and educational institution, which is also known as RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ireland's first private university. It was established in 1784 ...
, used a random text generator to create a gibberish paper entitled "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs." He submitted this paper, whose authors were listed as Pinkerton LeBrain and
Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
, to 37 medical journals. It was accepted into 17 of them. * In August 2020, graduate student Mathieu Rebeaud, general practitioner Michaël Rochoy, nuclear medicine intern Valentin Ruggeri and professor of philosophy Florian Cova hoaxed the predatory ''Asian Journal of Medicine and Health'' with an article titled ''SARS-CoV-2 was Unexpectedly Deadlier than Push-scooters: Could Hydroxychloroquine be the Unique Solution?''. The authors list include none other than the then French president's dog,
Nemo Nemo may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Games * ''Nemo'' (arcade game), a 1990 arcade game by Capcom based on ''Little Nemo'' * NEMO (video game console), an unreleased console Music * Nemo (American band), an indie rock band * Nemo ...
. * In March 2020, Matan Shelomi published a paper to ''American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research'', published by the
predatory publisher Predatory publishing, also write-only publishing or deceptive publishing, is an exploitative academic publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without checking articles for quality and legitimacy, and withou ...
Sciencedomain International, claiming that eating the
Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...
''Zubat'' sparked the spread of COVID-19.


Philosophy

* In April 2015, philosophers Philippe Huneman and Anouk Barberousse published a hoax article entitled “Ontology, Neutrality and the Strive for (non-)Being-Queer" in the journal ''Badiou Studies''. The paper was submitted under the
pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...
Benedetta Tripodi and was subsequently retracted. The parody was designed to undermine the foundation of
Alain Badiou Alain Badiou (; ; born 17 January 1937) is a French philosopher, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École normale supérieure (ENS) and founder of the faculty of Philosophy of the Université de Paris VIII with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucau ...
's thought. The hoax was exposed in the French newspaper ''
Libération ''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...
'' with the support of
Alan Sokal Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...
, among others. Answering critics who denounced Huneman and Barberousse's strategy as one of avoidance rather than criticism, the authors of the ''
Libération ''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...
'' article pointed to
Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...
's ''
A Modest Proposal ''A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick'', commonly referred to as ''A Modest Proposal'', is a Juvenalian satirical essay wr ...
'' to show that publishing satire is sometimes a good way to voice criticism. The difference between satire and a hoax is ultimately subjective, after all.


Physics

* Christoph Bartneck, an
associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...
in
Information Technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
at New Zealand's
University of Canterbury The University of Canterbury ( mi, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was ...
, was invited to submit a paper to the 2016 International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics organised by ConferenceSeries. With little knowledge of nuclear physics, he used
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
's auto-complete function to write the paper, choosing randomly from its suggestions after starting each sentence, and submitted it under the name Iris Pear (a reference to
Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questio ...
and
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
). A sample sentence from the abstract for the resulting manuscript was: "The atoms of a better universe will have the right for the same as you are the way we shall have to be a great place for a great time to enjoy the day you are a wonderful person to your great time to take the fun and take a great time and enjoy the great day you will be a wonderful time for your parents and kids". The 516-word abstract contained the words "good" and "great" a combined total of 28 times (and is available online). Despite making no sense, the work was accepted within three hours of submission and a conference registration fee of US$1,099 requested. ConferenceSeries is associated with the
OMICS Publishing Group OMICS Publishing Group is a predatory publisher of open access academic journals. It started publishing its first journal in 2008. By 2015, it claimed over 700 journals, although about half of them were defunct. Its subsidiaries and brands in ...
, which produces
open access journals Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
widely regarded as
predatory Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...
, and has been accused of moving into "predatory meetings". Bartneck said he was "reasonably certain that this is a money-making conference with little to no commitment to science," given the poor quality of the review process and the high cost of attendance.


Political science

* In 2017, geographer Reuben Rose-Redwood sent a pitch to 13 editors of academic journals who supported the publication of
Bruce Gilley Bruce Gilley (born July 21, 1966) is a Canadian–American professor of political science and director of the PhD program in Public Affairs and Policy at the ''Mark O. Hatfield School of Government'' at ''Portland State University''. He is the fo ...
's paper "The Case for Colonialism". Rose-Redwood proposed a special issue on "The Costs and Benefits of
Genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
: Towards a Balanced Debate". Only one editor raised ethical concerns about the proposal.


Psychology

* In 2007,
Tomasz Witkowski Tomasz Witkowski (; born 1963) is a Polish psychologist, skeptic and science writer. He is known for his unconventional campaigns against pseudoscience. He specializes in debunking pseudoscience, particularly in the fields of psychology, psychothe ...
published a fake article in the psychology journal ''
Charaktery ''Charaktery'' (, ''Personalities'') is a monthly magazine published in Poland and covering psychology-related topics, such as relationships, mental health, the functioning of the brain, neuropsychology, emotions, overcoming addictions, depression ...
'', which described a psychotherapeutic method based on a
pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...
theory of
Rupert Sheldrake Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher who proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture which lacks mainstream acceptance and has been criticized as pseudoscience. He has worke ...
. According to Witkowski, the editorial board assisted in adding plagiarized content about Sheldrake to the submission.


Social studies

* The
Sokal affair The Sokal affair, also called the Sokal hoax, was a demonstrative scholarly publishing sting, scholarly hoax performed by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University and University College London. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article t ...
:
Alan Sokal Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...
, a
physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
professor at
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
and
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...
, wrote a paper titled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", which proposed that
quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...
is a social and linguistic construct. The paper was published in the ''Social Text'' spring/summer 1996 "
Science Wars The science wars were a series of scholarly and public discussions in the 1990s over the social place of science in making authoritative claims about the world. HighBeam Encyclopedia defines the science wars as the discussions about the "way the sc ...
" issue. At that time, the journal did not practice
academic peer review Scholarly peer review or academic peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed (usually anonymously) by experts (or "peers") in the same field. Peer review is ...
and it did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist. On the day of its publication in May 1996, Sokal revealed in ''
Lingua Franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' that the article was a hoax. * The ''Sociétés'' hoax: Using a false identity, Manuel Quinon and Arnaud Saint-Martin submitted an intentionally inept and absurd article on the "
Autolib' Autolib' was an electric car sharing service which was inaugurated in Paris, France, in December 2011. It closed on 31 July 2018. It was operated by the Bolloré industry and complemented the city's bike sharing system, Velib', which was set up ...
", a small rentable car in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, to
Michel Maffesoli Michel Maffesoli (born 14 November 1944) is a French sociologist. He is a former pupil of Gilbert Durand and Julien Freund, and an emeritus professor at Paris Descartes University. His work touches upon the issue of community links and the pr ...
's ''Sociétés'' journal. The article was deliberately incoherent and plastered with liberal quotes and references to Maffesoli and other postmodern thinkers. The article was duly "reviewed" by two people, before being accepted and published in ''Sociétés'' without any substantial editing. * In May 2017,
Peter Boghossian Peter Gregory Boghossian (; born July 25, 1966) is an American philosopher and pedagogist. Born in Boston, he was a non-tenure track assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University for ten years, and his areas of academic focus inc ...
and James Lindsay published an absurd paper in the
open access journal Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
''Cogent Social Sciences'' which argued that the penis is best understood not as a biological organ but rather as a social construct. The paper came to an absurd conclusion that the conceptual penis is a "driver behind much of climate change". The authors' goal was to expose bias towards extreme ideologies in social science and gender studies. Critics of the sting operation argue that it did not demonstrate the existence of such biases, despite the authors' goals of doing so. Émile P. Torres of ''Salon'', for example, argued that the sting shows only that academic journals that require authors to pay for papers to be published have a financial inclination "to accept papers regardless of quality." He also noted that none of the editorial board members of ''Cogent Social Sciences'' have expertise in gender studies. James E. McWilliams criticized the authors' motives, writing that "Boghossian and Lindsay are white men working in the most male-dominated academic fields (philosophy and math) attempting to humiliate through bullying one of the few academic fields dominated by women. In our current political climate—thriving as it does on shamelessness and humiliation—this scenario, as the motives become increasingly transparent, only calls for kind of scrutiny and understanding that gender studies can provide." * The "Grievance Studies" affair (also referred to as the "Sokal Squared" Hoax by the news media): During 2017–2018
Helen Pluckrose Helen Pluckrose is a British author and cultural writer known for critiques of Critical Social Justice and promotion of liberal ethics, most notably in the grievance studies affair. Education Pluckrose completed a degree in English literature a ...
, James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian wrote 20 hoax articles; at the time the hoax stopped, four papers had been published, three had been accepted but not yet published, seven were under review, and six had been rejected. The papers all focused on what the authors called "grievance studies" related to race, gender, sexuality and other forms of identity. The hoax was revealed and halted after one of the papers in the
feminist geography Feminist geography is a sub-discipline of human geography that applies the theories, methods, and critiques of feminism to the study of the human environment, society, and geographical space. Feminist geography emerged in the 1970s, when members ...
journal '' Gender, Place and Culture'' was criticized on social media, and then on ''
Campus Reform ''Campus Reform'' is an American conservative news website focused on higher education. It is operated by the Leadership Institute. It uses students as reporters. The news site is known for conservative journalism, where it reports incidents of l ...
'', which led a ''Wall Street Journal'' editorial writer to investigate and report on it. The paper, which was in the process of being retracted when the ''Wall Street Journal'' story broke, referred to dog parks as "petri dishes for canine
rape culture Rape culture is a setting, studied by several sociological theories, in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-s ...
". The report also described a paper published in '' Affilia'' which contained a reworded excerpt from ''
Mein Kampf (; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germ ...
''.


Theology

*
Maarten Boudry Maarten Boudry (born 15 August 1984) is a Dutch-speaking Belgian philosopher and skeptic. He has been a researcher and teaching member of the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at Ghent University since 2006. To date, he has published o ...
, a
philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
, in 2012 persuaded two
theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
conferences to accept abstracts composed of meaningless word salads as a paper.


See also

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List of animals with fraudulent diplomas This list of animals awarded human credentials includes nonhuman animals who have been submitted as applicants to suspected diploma mills, and have been awarded a diploma. On occasion, they have been admitted and granted a degree, as reported in r ...
*
List of hoaxes The following is a list of hoaxes: Proven hoaxes These are some claims that have been revealed or proven definitively to be deliberate public hoaxes. This list does not include hoax articles published on or around April 1, a long list of which c ...
* List of religious hoaxes *
Predatory open-access publishing Predatory publishing, also write-only publishing or deceptive publishing, is an exploitative academic publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without checking articles for quality and legitimacy, and withou ...
*
Parody science Parody science, sometimes called spoof science, is the act of mocking science in a satirical way. Science can be parodied for a purpose, ranging from social commentary and making political points, to humor for its own sake. Parody science is diffe ...
/ spoof science


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scholarly publishing stings Academic scandals Academic publishing Literature lists Deception operations Research-related lists Lists of publications in science Ethically disputed research practices