Today's papers speak of medical journal articles that list authors who had nothing to do with the papers they are supposed to have co-written.
This is said to be a problem because the co-authors give credibility to weak papers.
I'm not sure about the credibility argument but regardless the problem is not new.
While working on an MSc in Astrophysics nearly 30 years ago I wrote a paper on a star. I had a co-author who did lots of work and arranged for publication. The paper came out in a prestigious journal and my co-author and I were the first of ... five authors!!!
Who were the last three?
People who arranged funding or helped get the paper printed.
I was a little surprised but accepted the situation as normal -- besides, all I cared about was getting the paper published. Perhaps today I would have made a stink but I was very young and accepted what I was told.
But I suppose there are three (older now) academics with resumes listing a paper in which they had no actual input.
James Morton
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3 comments:
You might find this piece interesting, James.
Medical Papers by Ghostwriters Pushed Therapy
Thanks -- I did see this one. It's a different issue and one far more problematic. After all, adding an author doesnt mean the paper is wrong but hiding a biased author...!
I studied genetics in University, never got my name on a paper but I did do a few years as an unpaid research assistant. From that perspective I have earned a great deal of skepticism for the science we see in the newspapers and blogs. The idea that science is pure, that is it free of the personal biases of the researcher, is just pure crap. I am especially disgusted by the political machinations behind climate change and the idea that consensus is somehow science. Consensus is for politicians and womens' support groups.
That papers are given extra authors to increase the credibility of bad science, well, that's par for the course as far as I'm concerned.
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