Major Scientific Publisher Retracts More Than 500 Papers

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Major Scientific Publisher Retracts More Than 500 Papers​

Published on October 5, 2022

Written by Zachary Streiber




One of the world’s largest open-access journal publishers is retracting more than 500 papers, based on the discovery of unethical actions.

London-based Hindawi, which publishes more than 200 peer-reviewed journals across multiple disciplines, stated that its research team identified in June “irregularities” in the peer review process in some of the journals.

Liz Ferguson, a senior vice president for John Wiley & Sons, Hindawi’s U.S.-based parent company, said in a Sept. 28 statement:

“All Hindawi journals employ a series of substantial integrity checks before articles are accepted for publication.
Following thorough investigation, we identified that these irregularities in the peer review process were the result of suspicious and unethical activities.
Since identifying this unethical activity and breach of our processes, we began proactively adding further checks and improving our processes and continue to do so,”

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As a result of the investigation, 511 papers will be retracted.

The papers have all been published since August 2020.

Sixteen journals published the papers that are being retracted.

Some of the authors and editors who contributed to the articles may have been “unwitting participants” in the unethical scheme, according to Ferguson.

She said the scheme involved “manipulation of the peer review process and the infrastructure that supports it.”

Richard Bennett, vice president of researcher and publishing services for Hindawi, told the Retraction Watch blog that the review uncovered “coordinated peer review rings,” which featured reviewers and editors coordinating to get papers through peer review.

Neither Ferguson nor Bennett identified any of the suspects.

Bennett said the investigation started after an editor flagged some suspicious papers.

He also said the individuals identified by the review as “compromised” will be banned from Hindawi journals.

Other people were described as “potentially compromised.”

“These efforts, and the individuals who participate in them, impede scientific discovery and impact the validity of scholarly research and will not be tolerated,” Ferguson said.

She also said the company has been in touch with other publishers and industry bodies.

Further retractions are expected as the investigation proceeds.

Hindawi journals include Advances in Agriculture, the Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology, and the Journal of Nanotechnology.

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Must trust the science

The church used to be to leading advocate for science applied to the masses. Now big government statists have substituted for the church with their own ideology used to control the masses under the guise of science.

BTW, and I probably should have posted this in the book suggestion thread, but there is a really fascinating book on the subject of the scientific community that I read many, many years ago:

A lot of times “peer review” is just groupthink.

Viking said:

A lot of times “peer review” is just groupthink.

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But it's 'educated' groupthink and sometimes they're educated beyond their intelligence!

Goldhedge said:

But it's 'educated' groupthink and sometimes they're educated beyond their intelligence!

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“To think two or three scientists determine what truth is in science for everyone else is total stupidity with no concept of what science is. No one arbitrates truth in science. Truth and knowledge can only evolve, they cannot be arbitrated. Peer review as a test of truth would be like setting up a truth board to screen social media for truth.

Truth cannot be dictated in science or anywhere else. It can only evolve. Frauds want to dictate truth, so they use the term peer review for that purpose.”

peer review...

modern science = fact checkers = (media) = rife with fraud

no trust w/out doing your own research and drawing your own conclusions

only prudent in the 'everything is rigged' situation we live in today

how many times have the globalist warmers been caught in lies? it's what (they) do

offcourse2 said:

Must trust the science

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The Science changed its mind.

History must be reconfigured.

Peer reviewing...doesn't count. Except for those who do not accept the orders of The Science, and refuse to comply.

cheka said:

modern science = fact checkers = (media) = rife with fraud

no trust w/out doing your own research and drawing your own conclusions

only prudent in the 'everything is rigged' situation we live in today

how many times have the globalist warmers been caught in lies? it's what (they) do

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We are living in a de-laminating culture, where NO ONE can be trusted.

I remember a lesson given to us in Sunday School...I was, probably, 8 years old. The author of the lesson (prepared by the church national offices, as with hymnals, prayer books, etc)...the author started by describing how everything we do, is based on TRUST. On honesty. Imagine a world where you couldn't trust people to stop at red lights. Where you couldn't trust the bank to deposit your money in your account. Where you couldn't trust the store to not poison the Cheerios. Where you couldn't drop a letter into the mailbox and trust the Post Office to deliver it.

Wrote the author: Life as we know it, would end.

The lesson for us kids, was the value of HONESTY...of abiding by the Commandments, not to steal, not to bear false witness, not to kill or harm. How important it was that we all do so.

The lesson today, that I take, is what happens when a culture goes godless, where legalism replaces moral convictions. We saw it in the last years of the USSR; and now we're exactly there. More so - once Stalin was gone, the Soviet government never conceived a population genocide. Even the gulag system wasn't as misanthropic, as evil, as this Jab Lottery.

We are living in the society I was warned of, as a kid - where no one can be trusted; and such a world is unsustainable. It can only devolve to chaos and barbarism.

BTW, while the peer review process obviously has it's faults, it does serve a purpose in setting minimum standards for methods and statistical analysis in studies. Corruption/bias are always bad and should be rooted out, but the peer review process (when not corrupt) also weeds out a lot of "bad" science from becoming FUD and wasting everyone's time.

Casey Jones said:

Even the gulag system wasn't as misanthropic, as evil, as this Jab Lottery.

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You aught to try reading

The Gulag Archipelago - An Experiment In Literary Investigation - Nobel Prize Winning Complete Three Volume Trade Paperback Set by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn​

some time.

I say 'try' because if you can get even halfway through you're a better man than I.

It's a study of man's inhumanity to man - real life stories told to Solzhenitsyn by those in the gulag when he was also in the gulag.

Goldhedge said:

You aught to try reading

The Gulag Archipelago - An Experiment In Literary Investigation - Nobel Prize Winning Complete Three Volume Trade Paperback Set by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn​

some time.

I say 'try' because if you can get even halfway through you're a better man than I.

It's a study of man's inhumanity to man - real life stories told to Solzhenitsyn by those in the gulag when he was also in the gulag.

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I have it on my desk. Reading it in small bits at a time - which is the only way to digest it.

First, that was in Stalin's time. Stalin also launched a famine to starve out the Ukrainian kulaks.

Second, the choice of who entered the gulag system wasn't random. It wasn't deserved, for the most part, but it was done to those who drew the ire of Party insiders, or who represented political threats.

The Jab Clot-Shot Lottery...is just carpetbombing the whole of the nation. So far, it's looking like about 15 percent are showing up with serious injury or death. Moar to come, but how much moar? We don't know.

We just know that this was aimed at ALL of us.

Tangentially related (not peer reviewed issue):

Earlier this week, Laura Helmuth resigned as editor in chief of Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. ...
...
But Helmuth's posts were symptoms of a much larger problem with her reign as editor. They accurately reflected the political agenda she brought with her when she came on as EiC at SciAm—a political agenda that has turned the once-respected magazine into a frequent laughingstock.
...
But increasingly, during Helmuth's tenure, SciAm seemed a bit more like a marketing firm dedicated to churning out borderline-unreadable press releases for the day's social justice cause du jour. In the process, SciAm played a small but important role in the self-immolation of scientific authority—a terrible event whose fallout we'll be living with for a long time.

When Scientific American was bad under Helmuth, it was really bad. For example, did you know that "Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy"? Or that the normal distribution—a vital and basic statistical concept—is inherently suspect? No, really: Three days after the legendary biologist and author E.O. Wilson died, SciAm published a surreal hit piece about him in which the author lamented "his dangerous ideas on what factors influence human behavior." That author also explained that "the so-called normal distribution of statistics assumes that there are default humans who serve as the standard that the rest of us can be accurately measured against." But the normal distribution doesn't make any such value judgments, and only someone lacking in basic education about stats—someone who definitely shouldn't be writing about the subject for a top magazine—could make such a claim.
...

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