Non-reputable scientific journals

[Royston]

This thread was prompted in part by this...open challenge and that I'm currently working on my dissertation, which has clocked up more than 60 references so far.

 

I've been quite strict in my sources, i.e sticking to what I feel are reputable journals e.g MNRAS (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society), Astronomy and Astrophysics: a European journal, IOP et.c. My research has branched into (for me) unfamiliar territory such as experimental plasma physics, and simulation software and computational models for astrophysics. I've found that experimental data is harder to access over theoretical work, which is understandable, considering how prolific crack-pottery is.

 

Now, I realise certain papers leak through into reputable journals. A good example that led to the media shit storm was the MMR link to autism, that was originally published in Lancet, that swiftly got rebuked and debunked. I'm sure there are other such instances.

 

This leads to a few questions.

 

There is no definitive list as to what compromises a reputable source of scientific papers...why not ? I've come across the argument of impartiality, but this doesn't hold water for me...if you simply have something to go on, then why hasn't it been accepted by the more (so-called) rigorous journals. The argument that there is some elitism within science, is so littered with flaws, that I'm not sure where to start.

 

And, why is there this seeming proliferation of hokey sci journals popping up over the last few years. I don't get it...more avenues for espousing crap claims is just that, more avenues. The only effect it has, is that a slightly larger percentage of people are misinformed, it doesn't lead to new technology or advances in science, so is such a thing really dangerous ? IOW, has science gone about it's business regardless of popularity, or is there something I'm missing ?

Edited June 15, 2012 by Royston

[John Cuthber]

Does this help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor

[D H]

This leads to a few questions.

 

There is no definitive list as to what compromises a reputable source of scientific papers...why not ? I've come across the argument of impartiality, but this doesn't hold water for me...if you simply have something to go on, then why hasn't it been accepted by the more (so-called) rigorous journals. The argument that there is some elitism within science, is so littered with flaws, that I'm not sure where to start.

Who decides? How do they decide? This list of yours would be elitism, no doubt, and who would make it? The publishers of the "good" journals? There are de-facto lists of what's good and what's bad, but it's generally word of mouth.

 

And, why is there this seeming proliferation of hokey sci journals popping up over the last few years.

Cha-ching! There's lots of money to be made by publishing hokey journals, particularly if you just pretend that you have a peer review process and don't have technical editors. Another problem is the publication industry, which far surpasses the oil industry in greedy capitalistic excess. There's a big push back nowadays against Elsevier et al, and one unintended consequence is a proliferation of some really crappy, so-called open journals.

 

 

 

Does this help?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor

Yes and no.

 

Impact factor is easily gamed by less than savory journals, particularly so in the physical sciences. Physicists and their kin tend not to use lots of references in their papers. The underlying idea is that a paper should stand on its own merits. Many papers have just a handful or so references. Some of the most influential papers have none. The editor of a disreputable journal can use this fact to bump that journal's impact factor relative to other journals in the same field. Simply ask authors to add references in the (supposed) peer review, maybe even suggesting one or two papers that just happen to be published in that same journal, and perhaps another paper in some crony journal that just happens to reference the suspect journal. And this is happening.

[timo]

There is no definitive list as to what compromises a reputable source of scientific papers...why not ?

I think the people mainly interested in such a list are people not active in the respective fields of research, who happen not to be the target audience for research journals.

[juanrga]

Nobody would believe that papers published in "reputable journals" are automatically legitimate, whereas those are not published therein are automatically crap. A bit of research shows:

 

• Too many wrong and even fraudulent papers have been published in the so-called top journals (with a superb strict and rigorous refereeing process). Search the Schön scandal for a typical example. Just this week I did learn that certain key papers in chemistry have been withdrawn from top journals, including Science, because it is now understood that the papers were wrong.
• Most if not all Nobel laureates saw their work rejected by the "reputable journals" and they were called crackpots by their colleagues. If I am not mistaken Murray Gell-Mann has an interview where he explains how physicists considered that his work on quarks was "crack-pottery" (before he won the Nobel Prize, of course). Even the great Isaac Newton (then journals did not exist) saw his pioneering work rejected by his colleagues.
• Some very important recent development in science have been published outside the "reputable journals". A typical example is Perelman's work on the Poincaré conjeture. Perelman's work was published on the web!! Still he was awarded the Millennium Prize and the Field Medal (a kind of Nobel Prize for mathematics) for that work.

Edited June 15, 2012 by juanrga

[D H]

Nobody would believe that papers published in "reputable journals" are automatically legitimate, whereas those are not published therein are automatically crap.

Nobody ever said that papers in reputable journals are automatically legitimate. Getting a paper published is much closer to the starting point rather the ending point of the scientific process. On the other hand, there are journals and website that are so close to 100% crap that it is essentially pointless to look at them. Yep, someone might publish an absolute gem at vixra. The odds of that happening: Well there's a slim chance that I might win the lottery if I just played the stupid game. The odds are so low and the payoffs are so biased that it isn't worth it the time, effort, or money to do so.

[juanrga]

Getting a paper published is much closer to the starting point rather the ending point of the scientific process. On the other hand, there are journals and website that are so close to 100% crap that it is essentially pointless to look at them. Yep, someone might publish an absolute gem at vixra. The odds of that happening: Well there's a slim chance that I might win the lottery if I just played the stupid game. The odds are so low and the payoffs are so biased that it isn't worth it the time, effort, or money to do so.

 

The first main point that I tried to state on my previous post was that the average physics expert is not always able to differentiate reliable work from fraud and plain wrong nonsense. The thousands of plain wrong and fraudulent papers published in the top journals are the proof. I have given some examples, including the Schön scandal, which is considered one of the biggest frauds in physics.

 

The second main point that I tried to state on my previous post was that the average physics expert is almost always unable to differentiate true cranks from pure genius. As said in my previous post, almost all the works awarded a Nobel Prize were first rejected by the average physics expert.

 

So far as I know, Vixra was born to accept any work over the basis of this second point (not to accept only what the average physics expert thinks that would be published). The vixra blog has a series of posts titled "crackpots" who were right" --episode 1 starts with B. Belousov-- with examples of true genius whose scientific work was considered crap by the average physics expert.

 

I do not know what is your definition of "absolute gem", but there are preprints at Vixra published in respectable journals such as Physical Review D.

 

Edit: The original interview to Murray Gell-Mann (where he explains how his Nobel awarded work about quarks was then considered crank by most physicists) is now behind a paywall, but an open copy is available in txt format at CERN. At the end, Gell-Mann explains how he is being considered again a crank by the Establishment. Gell-Mann is again fighting the orthodoxy...

Edited June 16, 2012 by juanrga

[Royston]

I've been buried in research, so sorry for the late response...but thanks all for the replies.

 

Who decides? How do they decide? This list of yours would be elitism, no doubt, and who would make it? The publishers of the "good" journals? There are de-facto lists of what's good and what's bad, but it's generally word of mouth.

 

I guess from my perspective, it's grabbing information that is 'to the best of my knowledge' (and therefore) less likely to be littered with poor papers. It's not so much elitism, more, it's the best I can go on (at my level). I can see why it would be considered elitism, but I'm perfectly aware that the peer review process is far from water tight.

 

Cha-ching! There's lots of money to be made by publishing hokey journals, particularly if you just pretend that you have a peer review process and don't have technical editors.

 

I overlooked the money aspect...so all I need is a web designer and a Baez filter

 

I think the people mainly interested in such a list are people not active in the respective fields of research, who happen not to be the target audience for research journals.

 

I'm not sure how broad a statement that is, i.e whether that's applicable to other fields of science (over physics). But again, from an undergrad point of view, would such a list not be useful ?

 

Nobody would believe that papers published in "reputable journals" are automatically legitimate, whereas those are not published therein are automatically crap.

 

Of course not, I gave the Lancet example for a reason. However, I agree with your other points, except that Perelman had reached notoriety in the mid nineties, long before his work on the Poincare conjecture.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Royston

[swansont]

Most if not all Nobel laureates saw their work rejected by the "reputable journals" and they were called crackpots by their colleagues.

 

Oh, come on. A few examples does not make for "most if not all". That might have some truth for theory where the theory preceded experimental confirmation (though Einstein published in Annalen der Physik — that's not a reputable journal) but for experimental results? I'm pretty sure the laser cooling/BEC/optical frequency comb atomic physics papers that led to Nobels were all in reputable journals.

[juanrga]

Oh, come on. A few examples does not make for "most if not all".

 

I know about 50 examples of Nobel laureates. And you would increase that figure at least on one order of magnitude if you count very important papers but that did not won a Nobel Prize.

 

That might have some truth for theory where the theory preceded experimental confirmation (though Einstein published in Annalen der Physik — that's not a reputable journal) but for experimental results?

 

Some examples related to experimental and applied physics:

 

• In the year 1958 PAVEL ALEKSEYEVICH CHERENKOV, ILYA MIKHAILOVICH FRANK and IGOR YEVGENYEVICH TAMM shared the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery and interpretation of the Cherenkov effect". However, their original manuscript entitled Visible radiation produced by electrons moving in a medium with velocities exceeding that of the light was turned down by Nature, "whose editors did not take the work seriously".
• Twice the Journal of Chemical Physics rejected in 1965 the key paper that led to the 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry so rightfully awarded to Richard R. Ernst. The editors claimed that the contents of originality were insufficient for publication in such journal. This article described the use of single, high energy pulses of radio waves containing all frequencies that would make atoms "flip" instead of a gradual sweep with a spectrum of radio waves that was in use previously.
• Klaus von Klitzing was awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect". However the original report initially submitted to the Physical Review Letters was returned.
• A share of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to JOHN CHARLES POLANYI. According to the Nobel Press Release "The method which he has developed can be considered as a first step towards the present more sophisticated, but also more complicated, laser-based methods for the study of chemical reaction dynamics". His paper was rejected by Physical Review Letters.
• One half of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to GERD BINNIG and HEINRICH ROHRER for developing the scanning tunnelling microscope. In their Nobel Lecture, they have spoken about being often told that they were addressing something that would "not have worked in principle". Actually, their first attempt to publish a letter describing the scanning tunnel microscope failed. Professor Nico García, a visiting scholar from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), intervened with his paternal remark, "that's a good sign".
• The 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to DAVID MORRIS LEE, DOUGLAS DEAN OSHEROFF, and ROBERT COLEMAN RICHARDSON for the discovery of superfluid Helium. Their key paper was rejected by the reviewers of the journal Physical Review Letters. One reviewer argued that the system "cannot do what the authors are suggesting it does".
• The 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to HERBERT KROEMER "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed and opto-electronics". His paper was rejected by the journal Applied Physics Letters.

Edited June 29, 2012 by juanrga

[swansont]

I know about 50 examples of Nobel laureates. And you would increase that figure at least on one order of magnitude if you count very important papers but that did not won a Nobel Prize.

 

 

 

Some examples related to experimental and applied physics:

 

• In the year 1958 PAVEL ALEKSEYEVICH CHERENKOV, ILYA MIKHAILOVICH FRANK and IGOR YEVGENYEVICH TAMM shared the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery and interpretation of the Cherenkov effect". However, their original manuscript entitled Visible radiation produced by electrons moving in a medium with velocities exceeding that of the light was turned down by Nature, "whose editors did not take the work seriously".
• Twice the Journal of Chemical Physics rejected in 1965 the key paper that led to the 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry so rightfully awarded to Richard R. Ernst. The editors claimed that the contents of originality were insufficient for publication in such journal. This article described the use of single, high energy pulses of radio waves containing all frequencies that would make atoms "flip" instead of a gradual sweep with a spectrum of radio waves that was in use previously.
• Klaus von Klitzing was awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect". However the original report initially submitted to the Physical Review Letters was returned.
• A share of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to JOHN CHARLES POLANYI. According to the Nobel Press Release "The method which he has developed can be considered as a first step towards the present more sophisticated, but also more complicated, laser-based methods for the study of chemical reaction dynamics". His paper was rejected by Physical Review Letters.
• One half of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to GERD BINNIG and HEINRICH ROHRER for developing the scanning tunnelling microscope. In their Nobel Lecture, they have spoken about being often told that they were addressing something that would "not have worked in principle". Actually, their first attempt to publish a letter describing the scanning tunnel microscope failed. Professor Nico García, a visiting scholar from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), intervened with his paternal remark, "that's a good sign".
• The 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to DAVID MORRIS LEE, DOUGLAS DEAN OSHEROFF, and ROBERT COLEMAN RICHARDSON for the discovery of superfluid Helium. Their key paper was rejected by the reviewers of the journal Physical Review Letters. One reviewer argued that the system "cannot do what the authors are suggesting it does".
• The 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to HERBERT KROEMER "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed and opto-electronics". His paper was rejected by the journal Applied Physics Letters.

 

In what non-reputable journal were these works finally published?

[Arete]

In what non-reputable journal were these works finally published?

 

I was going to say - how many times does a paper just sail into a top tier journal?

 

Science and Nature reject something like 97% of submissions because they get so many. I've never had a rejection because my work was fatally flawed - but plenty because it wasn't "a significant enough advance" or "not of broad enough interest for the journal's readership". I've rejected some articles because I don't believe the evidence presented is enough to support the conclusions - this is not a rejection of the work itself, I just think that they've proven less than they're saying they did. Usually the paper comes back eventually in a much improved form - which is what peer review is there for.

 

Rejection is part of the game. It doesn't mean your work has been rejected en masse by the scientific community. More often than not it's because an editor has 80 articles submitted, space for 10 and found a reason to publish someone else's work instead of yours. There's a hundred reasons why an article which turns out to be groundbreaking might be initially rejected - especially as scientists aren't trained in making their points and language as clear as possible. Bouncing an article which makes an extraordinary point a few times to force the authors to be clearer about what they're saying, or providing additional support for their hypotheses is a good thing, and certainly not an indication of peer review being broken.

[timo]

I'm not sure how broad a statement that is' date=' i.e whether that's applicable to other fields of science (over physics). But again, from an undergrad point of view, would such a list not be useful ?[/quote']

I'm not convinced of the usefulness for an undergrad.

1) You (or at least "I") learn much more from attending talks, seminars, workshops, and conferences (or any other form of human-human interaction) than you do from reading papers.

2) If you're citing a paper in your work based only on (a) being on a topic somewhat related to your work, and (b) being published in a "list of reputable journals" then you should perhaps not cite it at all. If you're citing something because you rely in the information therein, then "I use it because it is listed in an okay journal" is not sufficient. If you cite a randomly-found paper solely based on being published in Nature and having 150+ citations because you have to fill the "overview over the field" section of your thesis, then you clearly have no overview over the field (which in many fields would actually be a lame thing to expects of someone below lecturer level, anyways).

3) I do admit that one can feel very helpless when trying to find suitable interesting, readable, and helpful research papers about a topic, and fully understand why one would ask for assistance in this task. I do, however, believe that it is the duty of the research group (and in particularly the supervisor) to provide this help. Not in the sense of "here, read these papers I printed out for you", but at least in the sense of "Yin&Yan did something on this in the late nineties".

4) Let's face it: Already as of today Google scholar is probably more efficient at telling useful papers from useless ones than a compilation of "reputable journals" could ever be.

 

I've rejected some articles because I don't believe the evidence presented is enough to support the conclusions - this is not a rejection of the work itself, I just think that they've proven less than they're saying they did. Usually the paper comes back eventually in a much improved form - which is what peer review is there for.

So you are the ominous

.

Edited June 29, 2012 by timo

[imatfaal]

"Or I could write it up for Scientific American"

[juanrga]

In what non-reputable journal were these works finally published?

 

If you wait enough time the revolutionary correct claims become mainstream and publication is easy. I remark again that Newton and Gell-Mann were both considered crackpots. Today both are considered geniuses.

 

Denis Gabor (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1971) had to wait 11 years before his initially rejected work in the field of experimental/applied physics was finally published.

 

The largest time span I know was in chemistry, where one very important work was published 25 years after it was initially submitted!

 

And regarding Physiology or Medicine, Burnet's work was rejected by the reputable journals up to a point that Burnet published his observations in an unrefereed monograph entitled "The production of antibodies". The discovery reported in the second edition of the monograph was awarded with a share of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

 

Regarding theoretical physics, you can easily publish a paper in chaos in a reputable journal today, but do you know what was the reception of journals when chaos theory was being developed?

 

I was going to say - how many times does a paper just sail into a top tier journal?

 

Science and Nature reject something like 97% of submissions because they get so many. I've never had a rejection because my work was fatally flawed - but plenty because it wasn't "a significant enough advance" or "not of broad enough interest for the journal's readership".

 

I have received a rejection letter from one of those two journal and reading it was a pleasure:

 

Thank you for submitting your manuscript entitled XXXXX. However, we regret that we are unable to offer to publish it in XXXXX.

 

Owing to the fact that we receive many more papers than we can publish, we must decline a substantial proportion of manuscripts without sending them to referees, so that they may be sent elsewhere without delay. Decisions of this kind are made by the editorial staff when it appears that papers, even when technically correct, are unlikely to succeed in the competition for limited space. Among the considerations that arise at this stage are the interest the work is expected to generate within the broader physics community, and the likelihood that a manuscript would seem of great topical interest to those working in the same or related areas of physics.

 

In the present case, although your thoughts on XXXXX may well prove stimulating to others thinking about such questions, I regret that we are unable to conclude that the work provides the sort of firm advance in general understanding that would warrant publication in XXXXX.

 

I am sorry that we cannot respond more positively, and I hope that you will understand that our decision in no way reflects any doubts about the quality of the work reported. The unfortunate fact is that we receive many more papers than we can undertake to publish, and we must attempt to select those that will be of the greatest interest to a wide audience. I hope that you will rapidly receive a more favourable response elsewhere.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

I already knew that my work was correct because I discussed with a pair of experts before, but politeness and sincerity of this rejection letter still captivates me.

[swansont]

If you wait enough time the revolutionary correct claims become mainstream and publication is easy. I remark again that Newton and Gell-Mann were both considered crackpots. Today both are considered geniuses.

 

Denis Gabor (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1971) had to wait 11 years before his initially rejected work in the field of experimental/applied physics was finally published.

 

The largest time span I know was in chemistry, where one very important work was published 25 years after it was initially submitted!

 

And regarding Physiology or Medicine, Burnet's work was rejected by the reputable journals up to a point that Burnet published his observations in an unrefereed monograph entitled "The production of antibodies". The discovery reported in the second edition of the monograph was awarded with a share of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

 

Regarding theoretical physics, you can easily publish a paper in chaos in a reputable journal today, but do you know what was the reception of journals when chaos theory was being developed?

 

I'll take this non-response response as not having support for the original premise.

 

I was going to say - how many times does a paper just sail into a top tier journal?

 

 

And the claim wasn't even that the top-tier journals rejected them. The claim was reputable.

[juanrga]

I'll take this non-response response as not having support for the original premise.

 

And the claim wasn't even that the top-tier journals rejected them. The claim was reputable.

 

My original premise was:

 

Most if not all Nobel laureates saw their work rejected by the "reputable journals" and they were called crackpots by their colleagues. If I am not mistaken Murray Gell-Mann has an interview where he explains how physicists considered that his work on quarks was "crack-pottery" (before he won the Nobel Prize, of course). Even the great Isaac Newton (then journals did not exist) saw his pioneering work rejected by his colleagues.

 

And I supported my claims by giving link to Gell-Mann interview explaining how his work was considered crackpot and by giving some examples of Nobel awarded works rejected by reputable journals. There are many more. I also cited a specific example of a Nobel awarded work which was published in a unrefereed monograph, because journals rejected it.

 

I have also explained that works, initially rejected, can be published latter when the topic is mainstream or when initial resistance to novel ideas vanish. In fact, when a topic becomes mainstream enough specialized reputable journal are born for it. For instance journals on quantum chemistry did not exist 70 years ago.

 

I note you did not answered my question about chaos theory.

[swansont]

My original premise was:

 

 

 

And I supported my claims by giving link to Gell-Mann interview explaining how his work was considered crackpot and by giving some examples of Nobel awarded works rejected by reputable journals. There are many more. I also cited a specific example of a Nobel awarded work which was published in a unrefereed monograph, because journals rejected it.

 

I have also explained that works, initially rejected, can be published latter when the topic is mainstream or when initial resistance to novel ideas vanish. In fact, when a topic becomes mainstream enough specialized reputable journal are born for it. For instance journals on quantum chemistry did not exist 70 years ago.

 

I did not challenge your claim that some were considered crackpots. I challenged your claim that most if not all Nobel laureates saw their work rejected by the "reputable journals". Not a reputable journal, mind you. The reputable journals. If you mis-stated your claim, then say so. If not, defend it.

 

I note you did not answered my question about chaos theory.

 

No, and I will not. I have no claim to defend here, save that part of your premise, as stated, was wrong. I do not feel compelled to answer for a claim I never made, nor respond to any moving of goalposts.

[Ringer]

Many geniuses are still considered crackpots in some aspects. Newton was into alchemy, Linus Pauling believed that vitamin C could cure anything, etc.

[ajb]

...but politeness and sincerity of this rejection letter still captivates me.

 

We all have papers rejected for all sorts of reasons. So far, I have not had a paper bounced back to me at such an early stage. The referees, even when not being positive about some work, are in my experience, polite, yet short and firm.

 

Learn from it and move on.

[juanrga]

Learn from it and move on.

 

What do you mean?

[StringJunky]

What do you mean?

 

What ajb meant was: learn and absorb the reasons why one was rejected and then forget about it...don't get overly dejected. This sort of thing is probably a learning curve, involving some initial failures, before one gets there.

Edited July 7, 2012 by StringJunky

[juanrga]

What ajb meant was: learn and absorb the reasons why one was rejected and then forget about it...don't get overly dejected. This sort of thing is probably a learning curve, involving some initial failures, before one gets there.

 

Agree with this, but what has it to do with the original quote to which ajb replied?

Edited July 7, 2012 by juanrga

[ajb]

What do you mean?

 

I just mean you should not take it too personally and try to use whatever the editors and/or referees tell you in a positive way.

 

I my experience people tend to be polite and respectful when rejecting papers. I have been told of people who do not take rejection well and start to argue with the referees. I can not see that working!

[juanrga]

I just mean you should not take it too personally and try to use whatever the editors and/or referees tell you in a positive way.

 

I completely agree with you. As said, the editor was deliciously polite and sincere and I liked that.

Edited July 7, 2012 by juanrga