Phys.org June 21, 223
A group of multidisciplinary scientists are working to tackle research fraud and poor practice using metascience. Fraud in science is alarmingly common – sometimes researchers lie about results and invent data to win funding and prestige, researchers might pay to stage and publish entirely bogus studies to win an undeserved pay rise—fueling a “paper mill” industry worth an estimated €1 billion a year. More sophisticated AI which can generate plausible scientific data is a new threat. Some of this can be easily spotted by peer reviewers, but the peer review system has become badly stretched by ever-rising paper numbers. The latest idea among academic publishers is to use automated tools to screen all papers submitted to scientific journals for telltale signs. However, automated tools are easy to fool. According to the group of scientists recommed stronger screening systems, and spend money on people… read more.