Re: Merck published fake journal

[Jean-Claude Guedon <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

Irony lovers, like myself, will also enjoy pointing out how 
behaviour such as Merck's and Elsevier's as described in this 
thread taints the whole scientific communication process. There 
is nothing surprising here: when profit seeking is mixed with 
truth seeking, shenanigans multiply. This is sub-prime publishing 
at best, designed to satsify stock holders, not researchers. What 
is surprising is that some people seem surprised by it. For 
money, many people will simply do anything.

The faster scientific publishing is freed from commercial 
considerations, the better. Now is the right moment because the 
present economic crisis has awaken all of us from the dreamy 
situation that posited the fetishism of holy markets 
(oligopolistic markets at that, another ironic comment).

Jean-Claude Guedon

PS If repentence is a stain, then we should disqualify Saint Paul from
Christianity... (and quite a few others as well).

PPS Peer review is not done only or exclusively by editors. As its name
indicates, peer review is often carried out by ... peers, i.e.
colleagues. We need to organize peer review to make it work as well as
possible. We do not need commercial publishers to organize peer review,
however.

Jean-Claude Guedon
Universite de Montreal


Le lundi 11 mai 2009 a 20:41 -0400, Anthony Watkinson a ecrit :

> Irony lovers will also love this rather typical piece from Dr.
> Prosser, a former Elsevier staff member who has since repented.
> Is he really suggesting that accepting sponsorship from
> pharmaceutical companies necessarily involves giving up standard
> peer review by journal editors and that this is the normal
> Elsevier practice - or is this one of his little jokes?
>
> Anthony
>