Researchers knowingly submit misleading papers to journals, says scientist
Researchers who want to be published in scientific journals often adjust science to fit the publishers’ preferred narratives, admitted a climate scientist Tuesday.
In an article for The Free Press, Breakthrough Institute Climate and Energy Co-Director Patrick Brown revealed that he recently submitted a paper along with seven other researchers which he knew was not “the full truth.”
The paper examined the link between “climate change” and wildfires which are ravaging various locales such as Canada and Hawaii. While there are several factors which contribute to the wildfires — including many reports of arson — Brown excluded them and blamed “climate change,” which he knew the editors of Nature would favor.
Nature published Brown’s paper on August 30th.
“I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell,” wrote Brown.
The researcher added that science journal editors “have made it abundantly clear” that “they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.”
These editors wield major influence on scientific fields, he added, choosing submissions at their discretion and publishing them as quality science.
“Savvy researchers tailor their studies to maximize the likelihood that their work is accepted. I know this because I am one of them.”
Aside from omitting contributing factors to wildfires like forest management practices, Brown’s paper also selected metrics the authors knew would be most sensational, even if they were not the most intuitive metrics. For example, instead of focusing on how many more acres of land are damaged from “climate change,” the author’s wrote that wildfires have burned over 10,000 acres in a single day.
In reality, wildfires are declining, as noted by Canada’s own Canadian National Fire Database (CNFDB). Climate deaths have also been decreasing, Brown acknowledges, while crop yields have been increasing. Nevertheless, climate “scientists” continue to insist in their academic papers that “climate change” is evident by climate deaths and agricultural damage.
"Climate change” is not the only narrative prioritized over science. Science journals have taken a reputational dive during the COVID-19 pandemic as editors shaped “science” on masks and vaccines.
Oxford University Senior Associate Tutor Dr. Tom Jefferson, MD is the lead author of a large-scale study recently published by the Cochrane Institute which concluded that surgical masks and even N95 or P2 respirators offer little protection against COVID-19, if at all.
Dr. Jefferson revealed in February that as far back as 2020 he had discovered the inefficacy of masks — but Cochrane held back on publishing his research.
“In early 2020, when the pandemic was ramping up, we had just updated our Cochrane review ready to publish . . . but Cochrane held it up for 7 months before it was finally published in November 2020,” Dr. Jefferson told reporter Maryanne Demasi in an interview. “Those 7 months were crucial. During that time, it was when policy about masks was being formed. Our review was important, and it should have been out there.”
Cochrane made Jefferson and his team jump through hoops to delay publication, such as demanding the study go through an extra peer-review.
“And then they forced us to insert unnecessary text phrases in the review like ‘this review doesn't contain any COVID-19 trials,’ when it was obvious to anyone reading the study that the cut-off date was January 2020,” Jefferson said.
He added that during the seven months the study was withheld, other researchers at Cochrane were allowed to publish “unacceptable pieces of work” because they had the “right answer” — that mask-wearing is effective.
Then, after the seven-month delay, Cochrane published Jefferson’s research. But they attached an editorial to undermine his work.
“The main message of that editorial was that you can't sit on your hands, you’ve got to do something, you can't wait for good evidence. . . . [I]t's a complete subversion of the ‘precautionary principle’ which states that you should do nothing unless you have reasonable evidence that benefits outweigh the harms.”
Still other narratives are preferred by journal editors over scientific evidence, as three researchers found through an experiment in 2018.
James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian submitted 20 academic papers to several “serious” peer-reviewed journals over 12 months. The articles espoused ludicrous notions — such as “female interpretive dance” being superior to western astronomy, which was declared sexist. Another paper focused on “canine rape culture” and suggested dogs “suffer oppression based on (perceived) gender.” Yet another paper advocated for educators to bind white students in chains, and another rewrote portions of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in feminist language.
Only six of these papers were rejected by science journals.
“It may be time to move from assuming that research has been honestly conducted and reported to assuming it to be untrustworthy until there is some evidence to the contrary,” wrote former British Medical Journal Editor Richard Smith in 2021.
