Allow Myself to Review ... Myself
When scientists publish work in peer-reviewed journals, it means that other scientists have reviewed the work. Or does it? Sometimes, the “scientists” who reviewed a paper aren’t other scientists at all. Instead, in what appeared to be the trend this year, sometimes the reviews are provided by the paper’s authors or friends.
In February, journal publisher Elsevier retracted a paper by Guang-Zhi He of the Guiyang College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China after learning that he had offered up false e-mail addresses and impersonated his paper’s reviewers. As Ivan Oransky at Retraction Watch describes, Elsevier became suspicious after observing that many of the reviewers’ e-mails were directing to web domains in China — though some of the supposed reviewers weren’t in China.
In August, the same thing happened again. But this time, it led to more than 30 retractions. Korean researcher Hyung-In Moon, who studies plant compounds, had also submitted false reviewer e-mails, and then he or his colleagues wrote the favorable reviews. Too quickly, it seems. Retraction Watch reports that the scheme was revealed when a journal editor noticed that most of the reviews were coming back within 24 hours — way too fast. When asked, Moon admitted to his fabrications.
In September, more false reviews were discovered, this time of mathematics papers, though it isn’t clear who submitted the fraudulent contact information.
Image: Give yourself the thumbs up. (.reid./Flickr)