{"id":1535,"date":"2025-02-20T06:41:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T06:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1535"},"modified":"2025-02-20T12:01:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T12:01:22","slug":"the-world-of-bullshitmore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1535","title":{"rendered":"The World of Bullshitmore"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Papermilling is a dubious research practice. It refers to situations in which research processes or findings are conducted in a way that is questionable, misleading or lacking integrity. This includes unethical practices, exploitation of students and postdocs, plagiarism, deliberate manipulation of data or superficial research that doesn’t contribute genuinely to the field. It is driven by the ‘publish or perish<\/em>‘ mentality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is enough bullshit already in the world of academia. Papermilling produces more and more bullshit. It makes up “the world of Bullshitmore”. Sniffing out the bullshit is one of the jobs of the papermill hunters at For Better Science <\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor John Suckling <\/a>is Director of Research in Psychiatric Neuroimaging in the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge University. He is also a member of CRUK<\/a>, Cambridge. His profile states he “has a strong interest in research ethics and is the Chair of the Psychology Research Ethics Committee, and the University Research Ethics Committee that oversees University policy for research that involves human participants and personal data<\/em>.” Listed as a research associate at Cambridge University in Professor Suckling’s group is Dr Juan Manuel Gorriz, who is also a Professor at the University of Granada<\/a>\u00a0in Spain. Dr Gorriz has a Cambridge University webpage here<\/a> with an affiliation to the Department of Psychiatry in which he announces his keenness to supervise Cambridge graduate students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, Alexander Magazinov — one of the patrolmen at For Better Science<\/em> — noticed that Dr Gorriz may have engaged in unethical practices or paper-milling. He provided a number of examples of unsatisfactory behaviour, which include violations of research integrity. They are listed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, a paper<\/a> co-authored by Dr Gorriz was retracted for peer review fraud. It now carries the disclaimer \u201cFollowing publication, the publisher uncovered evidence that false identities were used in the peer-review process. The assignment of fake reviewers was confirmed by an investigation, conducted in accordance with Frontiers\u2019 policies and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Given the concerns, the editors no longer have confidence in the findings presented in the article<\/em>“.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another co-authored paper<\/a> of Dr Gorriz’s has repeated obvious mistakes in acronyms and offers little contribution to the advancement of the field. For example, \u201cSARS\u201d is stated as standing for \u201cSerious Intense Respiratory Disorder<\/em>\u201c. Pubpeer also lists further papers co-authored by Dr Gorriz with multiple retractions <\/a> or with citation stacking<\/a>. These are all unethical practices which degrade the integrity of modern research. The latter two papers list Dr Gorriz’s affiliations as “Department of Signal Theory, Networking and Communications, University of Granada, Granada, Spain and Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1TN, UK<\/em>“.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accordingly, For Better Science<\/em> made a complaint to Cambridge University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cambridge’s Research Strategy Office swung into action. The matter was reviewed by Dr Rhys Morgan, Head of Research Policy, Governance and Integrity and member of the Centre for Science and Policy<\/a>. The full text of the letter, labelled ‘Strictly Private and Confidential’, is available on the For Better Science <\/em>website<\/a>. (Dr Morgan was also involved in the lengthy and abusive handling of Magdalen Connolly’s plagiarism complaint, blogged on earlier here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Morgan deftly pushes away everything as someone else’s problem. First, he argues that some of the instances are “more appropriately handled<\/em>” by the University of Granada. Then he does that familiar Cambridge thing — he sets the bar for misconduct so high that everyone can scramble under it, even Dr Gorriz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was the view of the reviewer that the complaints raised do not fall within the definition of research misconduct as set out in the University\u2019s Procedure. It has, however, been recommended that the concerns raised regarding the fourth paper should be raised with the authors to decide whether a correction to the literature may be required. Given the findings of the initial review, the Head of the Department of Psychiatry has decided to dismiss the complaints made. [Dr Rhys Morgan, Head of Research Policy, Governance and Integrity, Cambridge University]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is an extraordinary decision, though individuals familiar with Cambridge University and its very remarkable grievance procedures will not be too surprised. The actual decision seems to have been taken by the Head of the Department of Psychiatry.<\/a> This gave Leonid Schneider <\/a>of For Better Science<\/em> the opportunity to deliver an absolute belter of a right hook:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“The Head of Department of Psychiatry is called Ed Bullmore<\/strong>, who should change his name to Ed Bullshitmore.” [For Better Science]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Should Cambridge University be doing better than this? Should Professor Suckling, who is Chair of the Psychology Research Ethics Committee and a member of the University Research Ethics Committee, be expecting higher standards of his own research affiliate and collaborator? Should Professor Bullmore (once he has picked himself up off the ground after the knockout) be aspiring for excellent research practices in his own department? Should those offering themselves as supervisors and mentors of Cambridge University graduate students be aiming for the highest principles of research integrity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all have a responsibility to maintain high research standards. Especially an elite university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Papermilling is a dubious research practice. It refers to situations in which research processes or findings are conducted in a way that is questionable, misleading or lacking integrity. This includes unethical practices, exploitation of students and postdocs, plagiarism, deliberate manipulation of data or superficial research that doesn’t contribute genuinely to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1535"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1564,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions\/1564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}