The credibility of scientific journals has seriously diminished in recent years. Lots of junk papers with findings that can’t be reproduced now make their way into print. Is that a problem and if so, what to do?

In today’s Martin Center article, attorney Nathan Schachtman examines the declining integrity of scientific journals. He writes, “For some time, however, the practice of scientific publication has suffered from threats to the integrity and validity of published papers. These threats undermine trust in science, as well as public health and the rule of law.”

The proliferation of scholars trying to get published (lest they perish, at least in academia) has led some established journals to put money ahead of integrity and to a new species of journal that cares only about the bottom line. So many published papers have to be retracted that it’s hard for scientists to tell wheat from chaff.

Schachtman continues:

A recent 2024 report in Science noted that scientists now undertaking systematic reviews must wade through mounds of published detritus to find studies that are worthy of inclusion in their reviews. Scientists themselves are losing trust in the available datasets and analyses, with the result that the whole enterprise of “systematic reviews,” and seeking broad conclusions from many studies, is in peril. The high prevalence of “fake papers” compromises research synthesis and causal inference.

Things have reached the point where one professor has filed an antitrust suit alleging that a group of publishers have conspired to restrain trade and maintain exorbitant profits. Schachtman doubts that the case will succeed, but it indicates the depth of the problem.

Read the whole thing.