Increasing Bunko in Secular Science Papers

The secular science industry has had a long-standing problem with junk in peer-reviewed papers. Sometimes bad science gets through and papers are retracted, but the number of plagiarized, poorly researched, and outright fraudulent papers is increasing at an amazing rate.

When found, retractions are often issued. When found. You see that, Seymour? Some tricksters are skilled and subtle. By the time bunko is discovered, serious damage may have been done. Like fraudulent human ancestors in the evolutionary parade, bad science can be built on fake science. Indeed, science paper fraud can be dangerous.

There are many reasons for fraudulent papers. While scientists are viewed as paragons of virtue and impartially following where the evidence leads, that image is the opposite of the truth. They are often pushed to publish, and some will do almost anything to get their name in lights and the money that goes with it.

One way that bad science and fraud can be missed is when reviewers are having their biases confirmed. We have seen many times that things passing for research are absurd and illogical — but they delivered something that appears to support evolution and support materialism.

Also in evolutionary machinations, secularists are simply being consistent with their worldviews. Why not cheat if it helps the fittest survive better and in greater comfort? Secularists cry that cheating is immoral, but in their worldview of atheistic naturalism, there is no ultimate standard for morality. Inconsistently, they appeal to God for right and wrong. The opposite happens among biblical creation scientists: They want to please the Creator and have him guide their efforts so true science is presented.

Also, the secular science industry is a good ol' boys' club; whistleblowing is not an approved practice. It happens on occasion, but unpaid people are usually doing the fake-finding work.

Linköping University Assistant-Professor Lonni Besançon has focused his career during the last few years on the task of identifying fraudulent research papers. . . .

One analysis of academic fraud determined that, of 2,047 biomedical and life-science research articles indexed by PubMed retracted on May 3, 2012, revealed that only 21.3% of retractions were attributable to error. In contrast, 67.4% were attributable to misconduct, including fraud or suspected fraud (43.4%), duplicate publication of the same paper in a different paper (14.2%), and plagiarism (9.8%).

This is a serious indictment of science and is one more reason why science has lost much of its credibility in the past decade, especially research findings related to the COVID pandemic. . . .

A major finding is the number of scientific papers retracted has increased more than five-fold between 2013 and 2023. The fraud investigators have also concluded that the 10,000 research papers that were retracted in 2023 is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

To read all of this startling article, see "Rampant Fraud in Science Grows." Also of interest is "The Fake Science Peer-Review Virus is Spreading," from 2021.