In 2017, I penned a post titled 'Fake authorship...and consortia’s Mafia Dons,' which now resonates even more profoundly in light of the prevalence of what I term 'Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Immortal' scientists—individuals whose names persist on papers long after their passing. I urge you to review the email attached at the conclusion of this post for further context.
In an era rife with fraudulent data, dubious authorship, and an alarming trend toward papers boasting hundreds or even thousands of co-authors, it becomes increasingly untenable to discern the genuine contributions of each individual. Consequently, the traditional practice of relying on the assessment of just 2-3 reviewers for paper validation seems inadequate. I argue that papers warranting the highest esteem are those where the contribution of each co-author is transparent, those that have undergone rigorous scrutiny by a multitude of academics, or those that have garnered significant citations. These, and only these, merit the designation of the 'holy grail' of scientific literature.
Lex Bouter (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Tony Mayer (Nanyang Technological University) and Nick Steneck (University of Michigan, USA), Co-Chairs of Fifth World Conference on Research Integrity provided written evidence to the Science and Technology Committee of UK Parliament that addresses Research Integrity issues where one can read the following: "the whole system of academic research is currently permeated by perverse incentives (from governments through funding agencies, to institutions and thence to individuals) through the academic reward system that need to be removed or at least diminished
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De: F. Pacheco Torgal
Enviado: 29 de Outubro de 2018 13:08
Assunto: The immortal scientists that keep on publishing even after they´ve died
Why is that science watchdogs are not very much concerned over fake authorship? Do they really believe its normal that someone can produce a paper every 5 days has been mentioned by Stanford Full Professor John Ioannidis in the email below?
Let´s look for instance to Arnold L. Rheingold who according to Scopus has 2055 publications and that in 2018 at the age of 78 years old has manage to publish 37 journal papers. Or Howard Maibach that has 1734 Scopus publications and at the age of 89 years old publishes around 25 Scopus publications per year. Or to Harold A.Scheraga that has 1239 Scopus publications and keeps on publishing at the age of 97 ! What do they drink ? Science viagra ?
Or even better to Alan Roy Katritzky who according to Scopus has/had 1658 publications. Its truth that he died at the age of 86 years the same year that he published 27 publications referenced on Scopus being that even one year after his death almost a dozen with his name were published referenced on Scopus. Of course, we can imagine a scientist that left his "team" so many excellent ideas that for the next years after his death they keep on adding his name to the publications ! But how many years after one´s death is it possible to keep publishing? 1, 5, 50 years ?
