Academic Journals Doing Crime

Nature Neuroscience recently unveiled an 11k dollar open access publishing fee. Tristopher is upset.

[@DGlaucomflecken]

Thanks for watching. Text your friends in academics every now and then. Make sure they’re ok.

[@teresaangle-young974]

It’s ok. We get big bucks as adjunct faculty. You know, $4000 or so…oh….yeah….wait….

[@emelkangi]

*thumbs up crying cat emoji* Gotta love science, am I right?

[@AJ-xm4xc]

Journals are 100% like this.

[@rosebohrer4899]

Don't worry, we're not!

[@jacksbloodyface]

We are not…I mean we totally are, definitely no reason to call authorities…

[@DoctorAzmain]

Gamora: "Did you publish it?" Thanos: "Yes" Gamora: "What did it cost?" Thanos: "Everything"

[@DGlaucomflecken]

Lol

[@DoctorAzmain]

@@DGlaucomflecken you can bet I'm gonna screenshot, print and frame this "Lol" - might even sell it for 11K as an NFT to fund my open access publication 👀

[@wardiya3arbiya]

I am dyslexia and read "Camorra" which a mafia from the Italian Campania region, still accurate.

[@ST-gd4eq]

What did it cost? -$11,000

[@geddon436]

Just like the real world, baby. Limited number of good paying jobs and LARGE amount of people applying for the jobs. Rat race, kill or be killed.

[@Gabistruwwelliese]

Long live SciHub. Democratizing science against criminal academic publishing companies

[@FitraRahim]

Could we say Illegal criminal against legal criminal?

[@pleaseenteraname4824]

I'd say illegal virtuous against legal criminal

[@alessandrocoatti5186]

@@pleaseenteraname4824 perfect example of how legality does not always mean morality

[@mirai8685]

Oh yes, I'm writing my thesis and the other alternative is to pay 60$ on a pay per view. I don't even know if I'm going to put that paper in as a reference after using it. I put in 20 sources, and read maybe 50, so for 3000 dollars I could have asked someone to write one for me. This shit is crazy, good thing I have the hub.

[@NathanMadden98]

Here here

[@tarms7052]

It's even worse than that. This ensures corporate sponsored research from drug manufacturers will easily get their data published and available while making it more costly to independent researchers.

[@heathergballew6106]

Thank you. That's exactly the problem

[@charleswolfe8764]

As I understand it, that is a huge part of how Perdue Pharma got so many doctors to prescribe oxy.

[@foxxygearreviews7754]

That’s also how the FDA works

[@Rhombae]

Yes this exactly, surprised it wasn't mentioned in the vid. In a previous career I worked for a pubs agency, we'd pay the open access fee when submitting for the authors then send the bill to the pharma/biotech.

[@PrivateSchemers1]

This is true from what I've seen. And let's not even begin to discuss Pfizer

[@elkevermeulen7343]

This is... too real. It's one of the reasons I left academia. I wasn't allowed to publish because there wasn't enough money in the budget but I wasn't allowed to use my own money to pay since that would be "unethical". Academia is full of these Catch 22s

[@AAbdi-kl6mo]

There is study comparing their value they the society gain from their work. Like how many $ the society gain compared to every $ they make. It's devastating. I'll suggest a great book called Bullshit Job - David Graber

[@mcslammer4989]

Quickly switched over to diagnostics, research just seemed like endless suffering 😅

[@nickcarroll8565]

Oh but if you have results that a big donor likes, you will find money to publish. But if they don’t like your results they won’t. Definite monetary bias.

[@justsomenobody889]

Wait, how is it unethical?? I gotta hear the argument for that one

[@elkevermeulen7343]

@@justsomenobody889 I think my supervisor who was also on the paper did not condone it because there's other people on the paper besides me including them and ... something. They just told me no, you can't use your own money. End of discussion.

[@ceneblock]

Luckily in the Computer Science world, almost everyone post their articles for free on their own websites.

[@karstelobster8203]

Sounds like the computer science folks need to team up with the other sciences and kick predatory system out in the cold

[@Pope_Balenciaga]

We still have sci-hub

[@nullmeasure6155]

And for books, we have the lovely libgen :)

[@E88twenty2]

@@nullmeasure6155 thank god for libgen

[@theguitargod12]

@@karstelobster8203 we do, it’s called pirating

[@tylerbennett2123]

We're also forgetting that the legal ownership and copyright for the paper go to the journal, not the author. Researchers have received legal threats from journals for reusing figures and data from their own research to teach. Researchers can get in trouble for "self" plagiarizing. They pay to get published instead of getting paid, then have to pay to access their own work, then don't have any right to their own work.

[@gooacnt707]

Why do they pay then

[@robertmcintyre9023]

@@gooacnt707 fear

[@calorion]

@@gooacnt707 The video explains.

[@elweewutroone]

Self-publish

[@calorion]

@@elweewutroone That doesn't count for tenure.

[@Asethet]

Odd that this is a difficult fix. In my country the Doctors formed an association/union and one of it's functions is as a publishing journal, as it's run by the doctors themselves it can't rip them off, and as it's run by the doctors they naturally choose to publish all their work there, making it the principal (high impact) journal for the country. They essentially cut out the predatory extortionists from the market.

[@hardwirecars]

no concern over a conflict of interest?

[@Zeverinsen]

@@hardwirecars Do you really think that a diverse array of unionised doctors would have more of a conflict of interest, than an organisation literally extorting specialists for money? 🤔 Also, did you forget peer reviewing?

[@valentinemcdermott]

What country is this?

[@pinkandbright1234]

@@valentinemcdermott . Same question

[@Asethet]

@@hardwirecars Less of a concern, since like all others the journal doesn't review the works themselves (beyond basic formatting, etc), they're peer reviewed. It's simply a platform, but unlike the one cited in the video it's not being gate-kept by money hurdles so there's no method to create special interests.

[@dunemaroon]

Our lab group is very committed to open access publishing so of course this came up in lab meeting last week. We decided that instead of publishing in Nature, a better use of our grant money would be to buy a used yacht. Now if only we could convince the NIH.

[@snowmonster42]

You're not wrong, though. I mean, a new yacht would definitely be unethical, but a used one??? I'm sure NIH would understand! Nobody outside a university will ever see anything you publish in nature anyway -- those bas!@&$%# are so tight with their content, half the time you can't even read the fu%$@ abstract. I'm not a researcher, but I'm a very dedicated reader. Those c^%ck$u*^%$ make it seriously difficult for someone like me to be a lifelong learner.

[@grmpEqweer]

You could use the grant money to start your own open-access paper-hosting site?

[@lawrencebates8172]

@@snowmonster42 To be fair (which is not easy given how awful Nature press is), the whole point of publishing open access is that the paper won't be behind a paywall. Of course, other publishers manage to offer that for a tiny fraction of the price.

[@lawrencebates8172]

@@grmpEqweer There already are plenty of cheap(er) open access options. The problem is that as scientists, our future funding and careers are dependant on publishing in 'top tier' journals, because it's used very improperly as a metric for how good our research is. And despite many organisations dropping this as an official criterion, it's still prevalent in the minds of panels who make the decisions.

[@christinegelabert1651]

@@lawrencebates8172 in your opinion what do think about the peer reviewed articles on the STAT site?

[@OGimouse1]

In case you want to know why the costs of academia are so high and not going towards actual academia.

[@ApparentlyGoogledislikesmyname]

People in high academia nowadays must have marketing skills on par with Wall Street, it's all about how to "sell" your research ideas, how "in tune" they are with what the big funding agencies want to support.

[@HisameArtwork]

so some barrenly literate nephew that has a degree in management or busyness can get a second yacht and boob implants for his side chick.

[@limo-swine6537]

In case I want to know why the costs are so high then what should I do?

[@yuenjanson]

Thank God for SciHub. If I academic journals are going to do crime, imma do crime too.

[@rasbunny]

Oh my god, this video felt like therapy. As a department admin at a pharmacy school, I cannot tell you how many times: 1) this comes up as a point of contention during department meetings between faculty doing research and administration who want them to publish but will not provide funding for these extortionate publishing fees; 2) those faculty get told off for not publishing at "rEpUtAbLe, HiGh-ViSiBiLiTy JoUrNaLs" but instead at less prestigious publications with VASTLY more reasonable fees; 3) I have had to look into, uh... less-than-legal methods of acquiring PDFs for faculty researchers who are desperate for particular references but can't get them because certain articles are not open-access and our library doesn't have a subscription to access them. This sort of thing hurts everyone involved except the journal-which is the point, and it SUCKS. It actively hurts the advancement of scientific knowledge, innovation, and development, and keeps science as something for the wealthy. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it!! Sucks!!! I just screamed aloud thinking about it!! (also if the journal subscription police are lurking, please don't arrest me for the article thing i'm but an admin and have even less money than the researchers you extort)

[@YuzuruA]

I was so naive that I actually thought that they payed the reviewers to justify the high prices. Nope - can hear the last piece of my academic soul dying 😀

[@echognomecal6742]

Idk if this guy's comment helps, but I've seen it said before: randomdude 1 year ago One piece of advice I got and would like to spread is that if you're doing research and a paper that is relevant to you is locked behind a paywall, try and find the original author and email them. More often than not they'll happily send a pdf since they're just excited to have someone be interested in their work and they get nothing from the publisher.

[@dakine1984]

We pay to publish and we pay to read - both from the same grant money... But as you said, it's publish or perish, so especially high impact journals will keep charging insane amounts of money

[@hardwirecars]

wait grant money? are yall complaining about using the money that was sent to yall for that reason or am i missunderstanding something?

[@JacenHawk]

@@hardwirecars the money is meant to be used on actual research, not this type of thing.

[@gottagoMS123]

Grant money is very limited in supply. 94% of grant applications gets rejected every year. A lot of grants are also small, around the range of 10-20k. It's hard to produce results when you barely have enough money to acquire supplies and equipment for assays. Science is really expensive. A vial of 100ul antibody would cost about $300-600. A bottle of fetal bovine serum that lasts you two weeks or less depending on the amount of cells you are keeping for experiment costs $350, minus the media itself. Let's not get started about animal experiments, which is basically required to have some sort of animal model as proof of concept in living organisms rather than a plate of cells for higher impact journals. It makes sense as there is a big difference in conditions of animals vs controlled cell culture. Problem is, each mice could cost up to $200 depending on strain, and often several dozens or even hundreds of mice are needed for large in vivo studies. Money do not last long in research. Journals take away precious resources that scientists must squeeze out from the grant budget to publish.

[@whatamess8764]

@@gottagoMS123 ^^this

[@dakine1984]

@@hardwirecars well, first off, it's not random money "sent to us". We apply for funding, it's a very competitive process (and again involves unpaid reviewing work by other scientists in the field), and our publication record is one of the main factors involved in getting funded. So we need to publish regularly and ideally in higher impact journals. But what I'm actually complaining about is: we pay on both ends. We pay to read publications and we pay to publish them. So your, mine, our all tax money goes into paying to publish research papers as well as to get access to read these publications.

[@JAYZ999]

When I was younger my dream was to become a researcher, I loved ‘getting to the truth and nothing but the truth no matter what’, but when I grew up and gained some knowledge of how things are I was shocked. The very reason I wanted to become a researcher was being violated by researchers. Often it wasn’t about getting to the truth, it was about getting your name out there. It was publish or perish.

[@Done478]

We have lost a lot of good teachers because they weren't amazing at publishing, too.

[@ACDBunnie]

Same

[@avinashsuresh5221]

Touche

[@chanterelle483]

That's not fault of the individual researchers, as the video said if they don't get their stuff out they are seen as good-for-nothing by the system.

[@Karansharma-on2kt]

Hat's off doctor, presenting everything that's wrong with the system. Not only in academia but everywhere else. I love the content you make, always so relevant, funny and accurate reality of the world.

[@magnuspalsson5139]

Many thanks to Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell's father, for this particular scam. Things didn't used to be like this... Medlife Crisis did an excellent job covering this history in his video "Should Knowledge Be Free?".

[@nancylindsay4255]

Thanks for the reference, Magnús; I'll be watching his video.

[@Nikki-lodeon]

Love Medlife Crisis

[@mouf725]

Agreed, that video was fantastic. Who would've guessed that none other than Ghislaine Maxwell's dad would somehow be involved in all of this mess?!

[@onetwothree9]

yeesh, that whole family is rotten to the core I see

[@PunishedFelix]

yooooooooooo

[@sarahcunha7607]

Best quotes oh, you know, all the costs Oh, Tristopher, so dramatic It's academics, baby

[@melaninmonroe007]

I gotta say I love the creative names! Why is no one named Tristopher??

[@Ninth_Penumbra]

@@melaninmonroe007 Generally 'cause it's not Victorian England...

[@melaninmonroe007]

@@Ninth_Penumbra but people are still called Ann or Elizabeth. I’m gonna bring the name back, 😂

[@Ninth_Penumbra]

@@melaninmonroe007 Hell, why not bring back Oliver, while you're at it..? ; )~

[@melaninmonroe007]

@@Ninth_Penumbra GOT YOU! saved for my firstborn, lol

[@Sylaise]

As someone not party of the community in any way shape or form, I can say there have been very few times in my life where I can only sit and stare in absolute shock. You know the shock that leaves you speechless and emotionless because, well, this can't simply be real. But it is. And heaven knows for how long. Dear gods, this is atrocious and shockingly not shocking (if that makes any sense).

[@vidal9747]

I am a part of this and I hate it. But science will prevail using piracy. It is totally ethical to do piracy in scientific articles. The researchers get no money from publishing. The best course of action is to don't buy any articles.

[@Sylaise]

@@vidal9747 Wait wait wait, so they don't get any income from publishing after having to pay a ton of money for it to be Free Use for the public? Nothing down the road? Not a sad thin slice pizza party? No, but jokes aside, at what point did this go south? What next, charging people to use libraries?

[@krkrbbr]

@@Sylaise Yeah no monetary gain for the researcher, watch medlife crisis video about this topic. This is the biggest scam in human history, they are literally blocking the way of science.

[@randomdude2600]

@@Sylaise correct, they get nothing beyond bragging rights, one piece of advice I got going into college was that if I found an article behind a paywall, just try and find the person who wrote it and email them. More often than not if they see it they'll be happy to send you a copy since they don't get paid by the publisher and they're just happy someone is interested in their work.

[@Sylaise]

@@krkrbbr I most definitely will! Absolutely appalling!

[@ceciliavernes9097]

The other piece at the end of this is that the institution's library where the author is based has to subscribe to that journal so that the article is accessible as full text. Every year journal subscription costs go up. Every budget year the collection development committees have to decide what will be included/added and what will be dropped. We do this for our public health digital library.

[@lawrencebates8172]

It's true that the institutions subscribe to journals to access articles, and that those costs have reached just stupid levels, but the whole point of publishing open access is that your paper actually won't be behind a paywall. Of course, loads of other places manage that at a fraction of cost Nature press are going for.

[@ceciliavernes9097]

@@lawrencebates8172 True about 10% of our collection is open access. There is also a discussion amongst librarians and research scholars about the idea of open peer review.

[@mzkhilari]

SHOTS FIRED!!!! Oh man i really do hope you are able to get some sort of show where u can continue to do these "shorts" type of things (I tuned in a bit for What the Hell Wednesdays where you talked about something similar to Bluey lol). My concern would be that a company would push you too hard for too long even if you do not feel "inspired", you burn out, and then we lose one of the greatest gifts to the world-- your content!! Big fan, keep it up! :)

[@marynametka1588]

Let's see if John Oliver will take this up!!

[@gottagoMS123]

Just because it's grant money they think it's okay to extort it out of the researchers and institutions. Scientists are very underpaid for how much they work... Imagine living in a lab for 70-80 hours a week after 4 years of additional education for a PhD and earning 55k a year. Money given to science goes to the wrong places. I'm looking forward to leaving this field and getting a position somewhere in the biomedical industry...

[@SupHapCak]

Someone needs to print out this comment section and give it to the Supreme Court. There needs to be anti-extortion laws created, and if they’re already created they need to be enforced. This isn’t a monopoly by definition of the word but what makes a monopoly is a high barrier to entry. The way taxi companies in New York have to buy a million dollar sticker to prove they’re a taxi company (also wildly, blatantly illegal).

[@WorldsUnhealthiestFitPerson]

If you're working anything close to 80 hours a week for your postdoc, your priorities are pretty screwed-up in the first place. Find, you know, a PI who doesn't expect you to be completely insane just to appease them, and work there. They exist. Look harder.

[@queenbunnyfoofoo6112]

@@SupHapCak It needs to be sent to Congress. Supreme Court doesn't make laws.....that's Congress. Supreme Court determines if a law is Constitutional.

[@autotrip5]

The actual extortion is when they "invite" you to submit your work. Then hit you with the $11k fee and hound you like a collections agency claiming you can't submit or publish the article anywhere else and that they own it whether you pay or not. Best you can then do is tell them you don't really care to see it published any more and that you made it all up. I've found that they are then willing to cut the fee way down. It takes some haggling but you can get it down to 10%.

[@JustinKoenigSilica]

And the worst part is, they are still making a profit that way. Journals cost next to nothing to run compared to the fees...

[@SupHapCak]

That’s bullshit them saying they own something even when you haven’t submitted or paid anything You should have hit them with an extortion lawsuit (there are lawyers who work for cheap).

[@SilentKnightZer0]

I can't get over the delightful name of "Tristopher" lol

[@zoezzzarko1117]

Same !!

[@nancylindsay4255]

Dermatology's Jonathan would be Blistopher.

[@dibyajyotisaikia11]

Not only that, it also implies that it is more likely that only heavily funded projects with their own agenda (pharma ones) will be published in ' high impact factor' journals. It is just not affordable for an academic researcher.

[@prernajagdish2906]

Very rightly said 👍🏻

[@tykjpelk]

During my PhD I got an email from someone I've never heard of asking me to do a few days of work for them, without any form of pay or recognition. For some reason the rest of my department thought I should go for it. First time reviewing.

[@learningwithlanden]

So true! Gotta love those “publishing fees” to advance the financially-sacrificial field of scientific research 🤣

[@whatamess8764]

It's crazy because I have an article in a high-impact journal and I can't even access it because I have to pay an exorbitant amount

[@rockymcrockwell8021]

Sci Hub my dude, sci hub

[@valentinemcdermott]

@@rockymcrockwell8021 was about to make the same comment

[@ronin1914]

I never fully appreciated this till I actually published a paper and my Mom couldn't even read beyond the abstract. Using public money to fund research that then gets privatized by the journal. I forsee this as becoming actually illegal in a few years.

[@fkrkf]

Lol capitalism doesn't work that way

[@Vizivirag]

This should be it, if public money funded the research, it's gonna be open access for free. Privatization is cancer.

[@SusanMiles]

really dumb question i'm sure from this master's student - whenever i hear things like this i wonder why researchers don't keep a copy of all the files for themselves?

[@Vizivirag]

@@SusanMiles They usually do. Someone earlier mentioned that asking them directly may be a good idea, as they oftentimes happy to share.

[@tomaslane6018]

I needed to find a psychiatric journal for a economics thesis. I was shocked when I found that the information was hidden away either behind relentless paywalls. I’m only a masters student but I was surprised by the difference in availability of data/journals from the medical field.

[@Simile95]

There is certain browser extension, which makes them free 🏴‍☠️

[@tandyrichae6194]

@@Simile95 tell me

[@pinkribbon1007]

right? i always thought the countless of paywalls i have encountered were to pay researchers for their work. turns out to get their work published they need to PAY these journals?? what?? shouldnt these journals pay them to feature their hard work behind a paywall

[@daan8695]

@@tandyrichae6194 You know who you should google? Alexandra Elbakyan. It's a really interesting person. (I promise this is not some weird spam or random comment. Just trying to not get my comment taken down by the algorithm.)

[@daan8695]

@@pinkribbon1007 Well, if there is a paywall, the researchers do not pay. They payment happens if you want your research available without a paywall. (But both are wild. The research has already been paid for by the government in most countries! It should be available for free.)

[@javierjacobo8711]

OMG!!… Somebody had to say it…… They make it almost impossible for institutions in low income countries to publish… the publishing fees are outrageous

[@krishnendusinha5812]

That’s exactly what is happening. Thank you very much for highlighting the issue again. We all should support open access movements from our core. Sci-hub is the superhero in this business. We should only publish in true open access journals for the betterment of mankind!

[@SicYennefer]

Thank you soooo much for spreading information on things that are not known to the general public. I hope it'll blow people's minds and cause them to riot against this effed up system.

[@carlosvaleraribera3725]

Entering Sci-hub: Allow me to introduce myself

[@subramanianc9871]

As a final year PhD student, I can confirm this. Please someone give this guy a medal!

[@MsFiercePierce]

Thank you so much for doing this. Most people don’t realize this is actually what’s happening in scientific research. Next, the insurance companies and hospital administration.

[@drnandhu1]

I got many reference articles for my research thesis by directly e-mailing the corresponding author, requesting their help. They are most of the time more than happy to help a fellow doctor by sharing their work. 😁

[@Mrsangeandbella]

"oh, you know, all the.....costs." :D

[@ladygrey8707]

This is so true, my nursing papers would have been so much better if I had access to the better articles that you had to pay for

[@aeloh6921]

I know this video is a joke but this is a serious problem in the world of research today and I'm glad that more people are becoming aware of it. This has to change fr

[@billbee895]

Like, your videos are objectively funny, but also you’re nail-on-the-head validating a lot of the problems I have with my academic medicine career. :*|

[@nynkekrans2925]

I remember getting a question to make a cover image for ChemCatChem at some point. Super happy, I started creating and making a beautiful cover image. When it was done they told me; ah that will be 9000 dollars to publish that on our website.. and I was like.. ehm.. okay. And my professor said, no we will not do that. So all that time, down the drain 😅

[@jessicac.9324]

"It's academics baby." --Dr.G 2022 😎

[@JM-wt4bf]

wait... You mean to tell me that all the articles I used for my Uni assignments that were open access was founded by the author at a ridiculous rate?! Thank you, kind authors for getting me through uni

[@siddheshzadey9714]

I have been ranting about this on Twitter for months. You summarized it accurately in a minute-long video. As a young researcher, I can't thank you enough

[@mehnazhossain4632]

Does ranting work?

[@mehnazhossain4632]

First time here read everyone's views and accepted the situation as it is.

[@Dr.C_Stag]

This…. This hurt my insides…. Deep, deep into the core of my academic soul…. 😐😫 Plus, with step 1 being P/F now, publications are going to be a bigger part of how student physicians get into competitive specialties that they actually want to do for the rest of their lives….. just throwing that out there.

[@marynametka1588]

Extortion...greed at its core

[@Gehslol]

This is was so interesting, given that I once coveted a career in academia. How horrifying that such respected organisations succumb to capitalistic tendencies that veer away from academic integrity.

[@ugiboogy1111]

and now you have a career in thesaurus abuse

[@gooacnt707]

@@ugiboogy1111 tshhhhh

[@SupHapCak]

Capitalistic would be the ability for anyone to publish their articles. This is a fascist economic extortion. Capitalism is literally “charge whatever you want” and the cheaper but higher quality comes out on top due to natural markets. This is happening because the “science council” or whatever up and decided the scientists aren’t allowed to publish with cheaper journals because in their minds more expensive means better? I don’t understand why they’re putting up with it at all. I guess because Nature can bury cheaper publishers with their money? I also see you aren’t a professor in economics. I’m not even in college and I know the difference between true capitalism and fascist economics.

[@cmacompilation4649]

Soooo True, especially for me as a person from Africa ❤️ thank you for talking on our behalf as well

[@ajbp95]

This is chilling! Worse than a horror movie, since this is true...

[@missl1775]

My dad was a researcher and is now an editor at one of the big name magazines. He doesn't handle the finance or make any of these decisions, so I don't know about that side of things, but let me tell you - they do not pay editors enough for what they have to deal with. Taking 30+ submitted ideas, refining the one that isn't plagiarized, so inaccurate a 12 year old would notice, or incomplete, and turning that into a finished piece ready for publication can take months of back and forth, plus you have to politely, and then firmly, reject all the other papers and explain why. It requires him to understand every area of the sciences submitted to his department enough to recognize logical errors in papers and enough literary skills to make them clear for anyone who wants to read them, and a lot of overtime. The solution absolutely should not be to make the writers pay more to make their papers available, but please consider who makes the decisions and who benefits from them. Not everyone who works in the industry is automatically problematic. (Which I completely see is not the message of the video but since a lot of people have never been inside a publication house, I wanted to share my experience. Follow the money. Idk where it's going because it's not to the scientists or the PhD editor employees.)

[@crucipuzzle9617]

Wow, your dad seems like an admirable person who's really devoted to do his job the best he can. Kudos for him. I'm sorry he doesn't get paid enough! I wouldn't blame him if he decides to quit academia for all the stress it means.

[@pani3610]

the author ain't making money, reviewer ain't making money, editor ain't making money. So who's making money? Nancy Pelosi?!

[@luisa146]

The money is definitely not going to anyone who actually works, which tends to be the case in most fields.

[@jbpeltier]

And researchers that have political interests can receive grants (bribes) for research that suits the most profitable agenda and can control the entire collective consciousness of a country 😃

[@lawrencebates8172]

I mean, sure they could, but the when the system is working properly other scientists will review the work and look for any flaws or biases in the methodology and the paper won't get published, or if it slips through the net, other people will either try to repeat it directly or perform experiments on the assumption that it was correct, find out that it was wrong and spread that information. Science at it's core is about generating a consensus by repeatedly pushing an idea to it's breaking point, not about relying on one or two poor quality studies.

[@Fincayra15]

yes that’s how it’s supposed to work, but the whole problem here is that too often that’s not what’s happening. It’s a sound plan as long as there’s not corruption/incompetency at every level, but there is, and when the spots of corruption in each level align, a compromised paper gets through. There’s a greater success rate of the theoretical process over a longer time, because eventually things are caught, but a lot of damage is done in the meantime. The false information reaches much, much further than the corrections do. A well-known example: There are still many people who believe vaccines cause autism despite over a decade of educational campaigns (the paper in The Lancet was published in 1998 and retracted in 2010). And people who have believed it or still believe it have influenced laws and policy, which have had literal life-or-death consequences at an enormous scale. So the point is, the corruption is a very real problem. The way “science at its core” is currently systematized in practice is a big problem that will never fully work itself out and has indefensible costs.

[@Fincayra15]

@@lawrencebates8172 Also, most research is never replicated. There’s a great video series by @BobbyBroccoli on a case where the scientific process did eventually succeed, but it shows how easily things can get through. Here’s part 1/3: m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJenoKCiYqmVbJY

[@lawrencebates8172]

@@Fincayra15 You’re not wrong, but I’d argue that the Andrew Wakefield autism thing is an example of the scientific system working exactly as it should confounded by a serious deficit in the education system. A paper was submitted, and it’s content was scientifically sound, but fabricated by a corrupt scientist. It made a serious claim, and lots of additional work was done to confirm or refute it. The evidence came down firmly on the side that the results were wrong, and subsequent investigation revealed the corruption and the original paper was retracted. I don’t think there is a way to prevent corruption, or to easily identify papers submitted in bad faith, but I don’t think there’s any evidence that either of these things are common. So the only real problem is that a large number of people still believe the disproved paper, either because they don’t understand the scientific method or because they aren’t actually using evidence to guide their views, neither of which are things that science itself is equipped to deal with. I’d be curious to hear what alternative system you’d prefer?

[@Fincayra15]

@@lawrencebates8172 you’re right, bad example

[@JoeRyMi]

And ortho journals, I’m sorry to say, will sometimes reject sound research if it flies in the face of the necessity of some common surgical procedures.

[@JenskiC]

I used to work in medical publishing and was horrified by how expensive it was for authors to publish! Also the awkward emails asking academics to use their time to peer review without pay 😬 I wish articles were all OA!

[@captainsavem]

more exposing the unscrupulous nature of going into a science/medical field please. people think that smartest people go into these fields and become rich, but the bs that they have to go through is rarely seen in the public eye

[@madhu1693]

Really well put Dr.😎 the first time I tried to publish something I was shocked by the publication charges. Luckily I found a good journal which is indexed who published my article free of cost. 😊

[@elizabethsos5993]

I didn't know this, but I am not surprised. Now I understand why it is hard to find good articles. It is sad.

[@Megan-nt7dm]

my lab just paid 4k to publish my paper.... and the journal has an impact factor of 4ish.... nature has an impact factor of 50. THIS SHIT IS WHY IM RUNNING AWAY FROM ACADEMIA! well also because I don't want to touch a pipette ever again, but still

[@DetectiveMcGarnacle]

Then the BIG companies only hire “exceptional research candidates” who have high impact factor publications.

[@PhoenixRoseYT]

Trust and believe that you never want to work for one of those companies. They’re horrible.

[@royce6485]

I’ve never been more grateful for a videos. I’ve seen these practices in other areas of academia but I didn’t know it happened in medicine. Heart breaking

[@ApparentlyGoogledislikesmyname]

As someone working in academia, thank you for preaching truth!

[@jennyhart1918]

Literally 100% accurate. I'm a researcher looking for a job in industry because of THIS VERY REASON

[@user1029xspl8dy]

As a medical student, does it really matter what kind of journals I try to get publications in? Even if I wrote something good enough for a high-impact journal, I sure as hell don't have $11k sitting around

[@graylucas3178]

Unfortunately, yes, it does. Publishing in a high impact journal early in a career can pay huge dividends. Of course, as a med student, any and all publications look good on a cv.

[@zadinal]

It doesn't matter for you now, anything will do in the beginning. Later on(depending on your specific field) it can be far more relevant. There are some amazing mass spectrometry guys I know that will never get an article in Nature but have made significant contributions in thier field.

[@PhoenixRoseYT]

Your PI will worry about where it’s published, you just contribute what you need to.

[@erockromulan9329]

Finishing up a Master's degree right now. I never anticipated the level of stress of having research papers published like your entire education, career, and funding depend on it. All for those sweet, sweet citations.

[@LadyRad2000]

The Academic Mafia is real.😁

[@solomonsmith8095]

That “what?” after hearing $11,000 is priceless

[@belaydevice8695]

As a history PhD candidate trying to navigate the deep, deep waters of academic publication, this hit hard. It plagues us all - not just the sciences.

[@mehnazhossain4632]

I sort of just stopped caring at that point. We get depressed by that. Before going into academia, prepared for it by going through it. However, would it be possible to see an example accounting of how the markup of 11,000 got there? Who are the stakeholders? The authors, the students, and Anyone interested in science.

[@adrivoid5376]

or I find the article on researchgate or academia- god academia is despicable, the pressure of publishing creates false results and burnout financially and emotionally

[@OrionDeHunter]

Thanks so much for all you do. Keep us informed of further corruption please.

[@maryamkhalid7583]

Omg I love you for voicing this. I'm in third world country n charges make up a year worth of my salary. It's a struggle

[@JasonB808]

College it’s self is a paywall where most of what you learn is forgotten, and all you get in return is debt. With our current technology, we can provide low cost, high quality education anywhere in the world. Yes there are online colleges, but I am talking about new age digital learning courses that remove the College “pay wall”. It will be a game changer.

[@SupHapCak]

Exactly. I got my high school diploma online It hasn’t actually come yet… It was free though so idk what scam it was if it was a scam.

[@costakeith9048]

I say go one step further, have standardized tests for degrees. Let people get their education in whichever manner they want, be it through traditional universities, online courses, self-study, or whatever other means one comes up with, but require everyone to sit a standardized exam to actually receive their degrees. It could be a multi-day exam, could include the review and grading of a dissertation for higher degrees, and could even include in-person aspects, say a performance for some music degrees or a dissertation defense; but open it up, make it available to everyone who wants to sit for the exam, and let them choose how they approach their actual education.

[@pisoprano]

Hoo boy, as someone who's been involved with academic publishing, this one hurt. I was never was part of a journal with APCs (author processing charges), but the concept always seemed too close to vanity publishing for my liking. And yeah, it's not like publishing a journal is as easy as uploading a PDF to a website (copyeditors have to go through each article with a fine-tooth comb to make sure it adheres to the formatting guidelines because *no one* will submit a perfectly clean draft, wrangling all the peer reviewers can be a nightmare, if you're a big enough journal to get a slush pile (like Nature) then it's probably requires multiple people working full time just to sift through it, IT personnel have to maintain the website/servers for the journal and address any tech issues, you have to coordinate your records with all the various metadata aggregators and pay for membership fees, etc.), but still, asking for 11 grand per OA article is putting too much of that cost burden onto the authors--particularly those authors who are not part of an institution that is willing to pay the APCs for them.

[@iramya77]

Thank you so much for this video, it's so great of you to put this out there.

[@messmeister92]

Usually I send your videos, laugh, and send them onto my wife and other friends who all work in medicine who can appreciate them more than I do. Not this one. I work in publishing. This is pure gold.

[@aslansown]

Tristopher!

[@PauloGaspar]

Unfortunately reality is even worse than this. It's a whole industry, with lobbies and everything. Even conferences are money making machines. It's one of those cases where the system is corrupt but there's still something good being done (actual useful research) which helps perpetuating the corrupt system. Some more pressure: Universities are also evaluated according to their publications, internally and sometimes even externally (for public funds and scholarships), which forces researchers into publishing in quantity rather than quality. We called this paperware, and was one of the reasons I left academia. Say what you will about private companies and capitalism, but at least they're transparent about the money making goal.

[@Gabistruwwelliese]

As a scientist I LOVE THIS SKETCH.

[@nekonekoabc]

Yes, it is sickening and frustrating! Ugh this is so relatable..

[@pearkore6821]

In my first year of my Bachelor of Science, we were told to always use the best journals, and that the best of the best was Nature. I never used a Nature article through the 4 years I was in my BSc because my university (one that claims to be in the top 3% of universities in the world) didn't have access. Academia is a scam from day dot.

[@SupHapCak]

Do you have info on who runs the Nature Could it be other scientists who want to monopolize and and all research so they can keep peddling things people don’t need

[@epicmarschmallow5049]

@@SupHapCak this seems pointlessly conspiratorial, and also really dumb. Chances are it's just some capitalist being a typical capitalist

[@flordelphinta]

Friendly tip, when the article you are looking for costs too much or you just dont like to pay. Try asking the authors directly. Because a lot of them hate the publisher's way of doing things. They most likely will give you the research for free. Source: tried it once. Passed because of it.

[@Fincayra15]

Yeah, I asked an author for the full paper through ResearchGate once in my undergrad. I didn’t get it in time to help me, but it was a pretty old paper and I didn’t really expect to hear from them. They were really nice when I heard from them though.

[@indeedthatguy]

Thank you so much for the laughs man, lots of love from 🇩🇪 ❤

[@aaronhooker7588]

Sad reality. *hello darkness my old friend...

[@rosilove28]

props to sci hub for making academic articles more accessible ♥️

[@jamesdienow]

If anyone doing research is still under a college/university and an article is locked behind a paywall, you can also get your library to purchase the article! (The rest of the uni would have access to it too thereafter) :)

[@Flow-no4kq]

Yes, this always gets me! But we are supposed to be sharing knowledge.

[@onyinyeobi-obasi9658]

It’s the “guilt trip them for the good of science “ for me 😩😩😩😩

[@elizabethclaiborne6461]

Turning legit science publishing into vanity publishing.

[@eddiegreif2715]

YES DOC GO OFF!!! I can only imagine the level of complexity your internal monologues have, you must have some really great conversations and discussions with yourself! 😂

[@pedrogomes2399]

Thank you for pointing this out in the most wholesome way!

[@alvi78]

In the extortion racket, every single party is a rent seeking leech...from the medical college to the residency program to the program director to the octogenarian good for nothing senile Dept Chair.....Sci-hub is a blessing for articles. I use it despite having the university access, its my way of face palming the system.

[@chedzeesheeda1019]

"At least we can never hope to be published in Cell" is still the funniest rallying cry in academia.

[@maryoconnor2527]

Wait, as a non academic, what's wrong with Cell? Is it this kind of set up? Also, didn't know Nature did this :( though it seems like all of them do based on these comments

[@chedzeesheeda1019]

@@maryoconnor2527 The big thing with Cell is that it's credited as the first journal to market itself as being a "High-Tier" and like a career achievement to be published in instead of a good fit. It kinda created the prestige hierarchy idea we see in publishing today.

[@barutaji]

On the era of the internet it is insane we don't have open online journals where the peer reviewing is done by the users themselves. You could have multiple open reviews of the same article and could check the credibility of each reviewer. What else can a journal add in terms of credibility?

[@katierasburn9571]

Dude exactly, and the money generated from clicks goes to the researchers and the reviewers

[@raghadalhuthil3844]

This is painfully true, I have been saving for a while to get my research published

[@KingPriestMinistries]

What up Glauc Flock. Tis now my favorite line for everything, and I don't care if it matches or not, "its academics baby!" HA!😆

[@RakhtanQ]

You need to sell Jonathan now in order to publish

[@twistedtea7046]

publishing is such a scam period. Essentially paying to do work? No thanks

[@toaster19_32]

Never shows up but i would like to congratualte the dentist overseeing the dental quality of all these gentlemen, it is above average 👍

[@donprather742]

These skits are wonderful. We need more of these to show us the absurdities of society in this modern day.

[@ezmerelda129]

Talk to an academic or medical librarian about the costs of the databases to access the journals.

[@LuccaAce]

As a librarian, this hurts and makes me laugh

[@ceciliavernes9097]

Yes and then that journal is bundled with other journals that are not as valued but must be included in the electronic resources collection.

[@LuccaAce]

@@ceciliavernes9097 💀💀💀

[@MrOmid1955]

Tristopher is doing gods work. please keep spreading the message. As an academic this is ridiculous.

[@ArchanaaDas]

Just checked. As suspected, a Private Equity firm BCEC XI (based in London) bought Springer Nature in 2013. Why these firms are not illegal yet, is mind-boggling