Up to 30% of Published Neuroscience Papers May Be Faked

Researchers desperate to publish in scientific journals have been purchasing fake papers to boost their resumes, leading to a concerning rise in the number of sham publications being accepted into official scientific journals. A computer program designed to detect these fake studies suggests that far too many are slipping past peer review. Using artificial intelligence, researchers trained a computer to look for several red flags commonly seen in fake papers submitted to scientific journals. When the tool could pick out red flags with 90 percent accuracy, it was used to comb through roughly 5,000 neuroscience and medical papers published in 2020. The tool marked 28 percent of them as probably made-up or plagiarized.

Despite the fact that fake publishing is seen as a small problem, the actual scale of it remains unknown, despite the increasing number of reports on paper mills. Between 2010 and 2020, the new tool revealed a 12 percentage point increase in the rate of potential fake papers published by some journals. The nation with the highest number of potential fakes was China, contributing to just over half the red flags. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and India were also significant contributors. The quality of these studies is often poor but just good enough to pass peer review, even in established journals.

Researchers are calling for a more rigorous review system to counter this emerging technology and uphold the reputation of science itself. Fake science publishing is possibly the biggest science scam of all times, wasting financial resources, slowing down medical progress, and possibly endangering lives. Publishers and learned societies are just beginning to adjust editorial, peer-review, and publishing procedures. Researchers blame ‘paper mills’ for the fraudulent activity. Paper mills bill themselves as ‘academic support’ services, but in reality, they use AI to scale and sell fake publications to researchers. Prices for fake papers can range from US$1,000 up to US$25,000.

The rise of generative AI such as ChatGPT only makes the scam more of a threat. Not all the flags raised by the tool are truly fakes, but they help identify the most suspicious studies that should receive extra scrutiny by reviewers. Publishers are aware that this is a serious issue that undermines their reputation. Scientists have even tricked publications into accepting laughably fake papers to bring attention to the problem. Sometimes, paper mills will go so far as to pay publishers to accept their fake studies.



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