Bogus research is undermining good science, slowing lifesaving research

January 31, 2025

Close up of a stack of magazines

(Ars Technica) – Over the past decade, furtive commercial entities around the world have industrialized the production, sale, and dissemination of bogus scholarly research. These paper mills are profiting by undermining the literature that everyone from doctors to engineers rely on to make decisions about human lives.

It is exceedingly difficult to get a handle on exactly how big the problem is. About 55,000 scholarly papers have been retracted to date, for a variety of reasons, but scientists and companies who screen the scientific literature for telltale signs of fraud estimate that there are many more fake papers circulating—possibly as many as several hundred thousand. (Read More)