Matan Shelomi is out having fun:
On March 18, 2020, the American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research published my paper claiming that eating a bat-like Pokémon sparked the spread of COVID-19. This paper, “Cyllage City COVID-19 outbreak linked to Zubat consumption,” blames a fictional creature for an outbreak in a fictional city, cites fictional references (including one from author Bruce Wayne in Gotham Forensics Quarterly on using bats to fight crime), and is cowritten by fictional authors such as Pokémon’s Nurse Joy and House, MD. Nonetheless, four days after submission, editor Catherine Nichols was “cheerful to inform” me via email that it had “received positive review comments” and was accepted for publication.
It’s not the only fake paper on Pokémon I’ve had published or accepted for publication, covering creatures from Pikachu to Porygon. Some would argue that editors cannot recognize Pokémon names, but lines in the text such as “a journal publishing this paper does not practice peer review and must therefore be predatory” or “this invited article is in a predatory journal that likely does not practice peer review” would have tipped off anyone who bothered to read the articles. These papers did not slip in under the radar; they were welcomed in blindly. [TheScientist]
How do they make money? By billing the authors for publishing their papers, for one thing. If they’re smart, they won’t pay. But I wonder if they pay those who cite their paper. You’d think no one would do that, yet …
To make matters worse, my Pokémon-inspired paper on the novel coronavirus has already been cited. A physicist based in Tunisia published “The COVID-19 outbreak’s multiple effects,” which claimed that COVID-19 was human-made and is treatable with “provincial herbs,” in another predatory journal, The International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology. He not only cited my article, but also cited one of my made-up references, “Signs and symptoms of Pokérus infection,” as the paper that first identified SARS-CoV-2. When I asked the author how this happened, he failed to see any problem with citing a paper he never read while writing a paper outside his field, and was unaware of the difference between open access and predatory journals. The difference—editing and peer review—is critical: when it comes to public health, fake journals are a real danger.
Of course, if the person doing the citing thinks they can turn their little scam into a profitable venture, then the fee for citing – if it exists – is merely a one-time fee for buying credibility.
I wish I could say this is all delusional, but seeing industries such as homeopathy and acupuncture fleecing their customers of their wealth year after year after year, I am not surprised.
Wolves and sheep. That’s our nature. Which are you?
