"The proportion of papers published in any given year that go on to be retracted — has more than tripled in the past decade," said Nature. "In 2022, it exceeded 0.2%." Wiley, a more than 200-year-old publishing company, has retracted more than 11,300 compromised papers and closed four journals in the past two years. The company also announced that it will be closing 19 others. Several other publishing companies have been required to take similar actions.
Fraudulent scientific papers can have large implications. "The products of paper mills often look like regular articles but are based on templates in which names of genes or diseases are slotted in at random among fictitious tables and figures," said The Guardian. "Worryingly, these articles can then get incorporated into large databases used by those working on drug discovery." One of the most notable examples was the drug ivermectin being deemed a suitable cure for Covid-19 despite the studies largely containing evidence of fraud.
Some journals have created more rigorous standards for publication and have also increased surveillance to spot fraudulent papers. The good news is that many fake science papers have telltale signs, like unusual wording to avoid plagiarism and references listed that are irrelevant to the paper's topic. However, the advancement of AI could throw a wrench in the progress. "Generative AI has just handed [paper mills] a winning lottery ticket," Kim Eggleton, head of peer review and research integrity at IOP Publishing, said to the Journal. "They can do it really cheap, at scale, and the detection methods are not where we need them to be. I can only see that challenge increasing."
More: https://theweek.com/science/rise-of-fake-science-fraudulent-papers
