Over 10000 in a single year is a new record. Finding fraud in these papers can be difficult, and a time consuming process. But I am glad it is being done. The merits of scientific research depends on its extremely strict criteria and rigour.
As for the details.
- Most of these (8000) were from the UK based Hindawi.
- Most of these niche, special issues, which tend to often be overlooked by guest editors. And thus low quality papers can thrive in these areas.
- Retraction rates are not spread evenly. With Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan Egypt and a bunch of others being massively overrepresented in Sham paper production.
- Common issues include plagiarism, citation fraud, tortured phrases.
There are likely far more to come. As integrity specialists point out that there are likely hundreds of thousands of papers that need to be retracted. Paper mills, are an issue. Even if no one reads the studies, they can be included in aggregates, and thus spill over into the mainstream narrative that way.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8
That said, none of this changes the fact that the majority of scientific papers are still valid and are by far the greatest evidence around. If the scientific literature didn't hold up, I would not be able to type this message to you on this gaming PC.
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