Nothing new here, but tests for predatory journals are always fun.
“Midichlorians-mediated oxidative stress causes cardio-myopathy in Type 2 diabetics. As more fatty acids are delivered to the heart, and into cardiomyocytes, the oxidation of fatty acids in these cells increases,” the paper reads, sounding kind of legit and science-y, but then suddenly:
“Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? I thought not. It is not a story the Jedi would tell you. It was a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichloria to create life.”
Some of the other journals who didn’t accept the paper did pick up on the Star Wars references, but puzzlingly Neuroskeptic was asked to simply revise the text and resubmit it – including suggestions to revert the spelling of “midichlorians” back to “mitochondria”. Really?
Neuroskeptic is skeptical of midichlorians but has no doubts about Darth Plagueis the Wise.
https://futurism.com/a-neuroscientist-just-tricked-4-dodgy-journals-into-accepting-a-fake-paper-on-midi-chlorians/
Neursoskeptic is obviously run by wise Sith.
ReplyDeletePersonally, i find your lack of faith in NS disturbing
<<force chokes Rhys Taylor
My favorite one was when they recently got a journal of gender studies to publish a fake article about how sexually fantasizing about someone without their consent was mental rape.
ReplyDeleteMainly because, I started writing a SciFi story a while back about a world where we own the rights to our image so strongly and copyright laws are so pervasive that we're prevented by chips in our brains from sexually fantasizing about real people without their consent. So, we still have fantasies in that world, but either about made-up people, or people who consent to it, including some celebrities who will license the right for people to do this.
I meant it to be an extrapolation on some current trends, and after seeing that, it seemed less implausible than I initially feared.
Eli Fennell the article wasn't that much of ba stretch . There was ridiculous commercial that claimed every sexual glance in public was rape.
ReplyDeleteI remember that particular attack generating quite some controversy as to the sincerity of the purpose behind it. I can try and dig up the links if anyone really want but it would take some effort.
ReplyDelete