Two really smart people sent me separate articles recently about something called "Predatory Journals." I'm going to reserve my opinions and just put the papers out there because I think they're both really interesting.
This is the second (most recent one above) that I was sent. Some people who read this silly blog may already find something funny about this post, but this gets better.
I strongly recommend this new paper by Lucas McGeorge and Annette Kin (Edit -- this has now been taken down). It deals with mitochondria -- and more specifically -- midichlorians, which are what allows organisms to interact with The Force -- yes...
This entirely fictitious study -- that includes Reddit's favorite scene from the prequels -- in it's entirety(!!) was part of this --
--sting operation! The "study" was sent to 9 journals. Apparently 4 accepted it! One of them offered the fictional Dr. Lucas McGeorge a position on their editorial board...having obviously never read a single page of this work. As of this second as I'm writing this...only one of these journal websites that accepted it still has this paper up.
Okay -- again, I'm just pointing y'all toward these articles. No opinions on my part. However, I've flipped through some articles on a couple sites that accepted this spoof article. There appears to be some legitimately good and interesting science here. I'd be so bummed to think -- "wow, the reviewers loved my article, it went right through!" -- and find out this reputable sounding journal with this reputable looking website was on this list. And I think this is why the journals themselves are considered the predatory part....
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