The pseudo side of science publications: The rise and growth of ‘junk journals’

Clelia Frondaroli Head of Comment

In a post Covid-19 world where social media has exacerbated already strained tensions between science and public trust, scientific publications are often lauded as being the pinnacle of rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific research. However, what if this is not entirely the case?

Good scientific and academic research requires funds, prestige and, most importantly, time. Often researchers spend years formulating precise research questions and undertake rigorous participant studies to ensure their research is accurate. All this occurs before the publishing of the material itself; academics are required to submit their research findings to scientific journals, where their content is verified and vetted through a peer-reviewed process and eventually leading to the study being published if approved. This is what lends scientific journals a trustworthy reputation; these checks are put in place to ensure scientific research maintains credibility as well as upholds public trust. However, what if the content published in these journals are not verifiable because the journals themselves are fake? This is the case for over

Has the rise in ‘junk journals’ implicated the integrity of scientific research?

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10,000 academic journals (known by the term ‘junk journals’) found on the internet, which was discovered in an investigation conducted by Eduardo Franco. Franco, a leading specialist in oncology, initiated his investigation into these fraudulent journal publishing sites after noticing some inconsistencies with the academic journals in which his colleagues had published their research. He found that many of his colleagues had studies published in journals that were later exposed as scams: they were journals set up to mimic reputable science publishers yet essentially published ‘junk’ (fraudulent) science.

These ‘junk journals’ were established as a result of online, open- access publishing, which allowed academics to publish their material at a much faster rate than the traditional publishing process. This, in addition to the rising pressures on academics to provide CVs with extensive published material, allowed an entire online network of fraudulent scientific journals to flourish. These journals charge academics a fixed fee (ranging from $200 to upwards of $2000) in return for publishing their unverified, and at times falsified research material into their online journals, generating extensive profits and providing academics with all the published content they desire. However, the consequences of such a trade are dire. As detailed

Evan Johnson-Charteris Comment Editor

If you have spent any time online in the past year, you may have heard or seen the plethora of new websites and pieces of software that have been expanding the capabilities of what artificial intelligence can do, not limited to but including: ChatGPT, DALL-E and Character AI.

From the belief that the internet was simply a fad to the infamous failure of Google’s glasses (they were real, look it up!); predictions about technology have all but often failed horribly. Nevertheless, predicting where artificial intelligence will go is both fun and exciting for the most part, with a side dish of existential dread. Whereas it was previously thought that automation would only ever affect more practical hands-on labour, the ability to generate any texts (ChatGPT) or images (DALL-E) from a simple text prompt the size of a standard Instagram caption, has proven this is not necessarily the case anymore.

However, it is important to realise that these new artificial intelligence systems do not automatically signal the end of the creativity industries as we know them, and instead will just change them. Although there is great debate on whether the internet killed the newspaper or even if video truly did kill the radio star; there will inevitably be roles that will be lost and roles that will be gained with these new technologies. Take the difference between using the yellow pages to search for people and using social media, no one would have foreseen the rise of the social media influencer looking through page after page for a plumbing service.

What if the content published in these journals are not verifiable because the journals themselves are fake?’ by Alex Grillis in The Walrus, fraudulent scientific material is being published at a faster rate than legitimate material, with over 30 percent of medical research articles being shown to be entirely inaccurate. Scientific journals are widely used by healthcare professionals yet pharmaceutical companies (such as AstraZeneca) publish false studies within junk journals to promote the use of their drugs, creating the dangerous possibility of doctors trusting these studies to prescribe the use of these drugs to their patients that may not function in the way the studies have claimed.

Therefore, this is the dark side of science research in general. By publishing false scientific research, these junk journals not only exacerbate the issue of spreading false information online but also diminish both public trust in scientific research and the integrity of science as a whole.

Not only do we not know what roles these technologies could create, they can also remove a lot of jobs we don’t necessarily all want to do. Similar to how the printing press removed the need for monks to endlessly copy out new books; we can track, service or create using artificial intelligence so we can focus on more important/advanced things. Obviously, this is not completely foolproof, as we have all sat through the pain of automated customer service calls. But in a world where there is endless information & time pressures, we can use artificial intelligence such as Dall-E or ChatGPT to inspire our human creations & reduce the burdens of the creative process.

Furthermore, we can explore our wildest dreams with artificial intelligence too. Not only can you now create any collection of mashups you want without the need of being a master artist or photoshop user, you can also now do things such as conversate with AI versions of your favourite characters like Super Mario or make them talk to each other to see what happens.

Overall, despite the concerns, there are reasons to be optimistic for the growth of AI technology. However it is important to acknowledge that there is a clear conflict of interest in this article too, being in a university newspaper, by someone studying journalism. As such, in the next issue of Gair Rhydd, the second part of this article will address the potential negatives of AI and creativity as to cover the whole range of the debate.

In the meantime, what do you think? Is the dawn of AI a positive or negative for human creativity?