Here we go again with marketing and how ethics and making
a buck and this is just basically an extension of the all the data selling that goes on. You can see the video at the link below where Ben Goldacre has has campaign about bringing ethics back and getting good accurate trial and other data reported, not more junk. Again I keep saying we need to license and tax the data sellers to keep of track of them and regulate. Here’s a couple videos from Dr. Goldacre, one recent and one from a couple years ago and both are relative.
Ben Goldacre, One Doctor/Scientist That Knows Models–Discussion on Trial and Academia Papers- We Don’t Get all the Data and Math Modeling/Algorithms Take Over As Some Models Lie While Others Are “Fiddled” With
Bad Science and Bad Analytics That Misleads–TED Video Takes on Advertising on Steroids and Danger of Mis-Matched Analytics And Distortion of Clinical Trials (Video)
You can read the entire article at the New York Times with the link at the bottom here for additional details. It’s exactly what I have been saying for a few years now with other areas of healthcare, determining what’s good and what’s junk. The scientists here actually were “duped” into a conference and errors were made with credentials and names. Everybody wants to be an expert when they are not, why? Because it makes money to bill yourself as an expert, something I try not to say here at all because I’m not, but I do have common sense and that’s what gets lost here. I also know the mechanics of data bases as well as the web, so as I have said there’s a lot of junk.
There was a good tweet out there from the FDA that said I’m not a slave to “P” values either as folks mess with those too, why, to make money. Here’s a PLOS One study to where a suggested area to look for with “fiddled” values is suggested. Why do we have this, because people are messing with it to make money.
PLOS One Abstract–Methodology for Detecting Manipulation of “P Values” To Show Significant Statistical Value, “Inappropriate Fiddling” Which Can Lead to “Algo Duping” Situations And Numbers
You can read below to where this has become so mainstream that one researcher created a list of those journals to be suspicious of and he has 300 on the list. It’s all about making money and it’s the same stuff they do on Wall Street with models that lie and “Algo Dupe” you. This is just one more branch of that action that is now taking place in the science world. Watch those Algo Dupe videos at the link, you will get educated.
I have to tell you even as a blogger I get emails that want me to 
speak at certain conventions and thank goodness I keep a sharp eye out for those that seem to appear out of the blue as they want you to pay to be a speaker, and I’m not an expert on the topics they are requesting either, that’s my first clue that it’s some type of a scam. I’m just a blogger and as you can read scientists are getting this kind of stuff too except tons more at stake by all means. So again, selling data, or in this case, documents to make a buck with no concern for accuracy and the effect it has on the consumer.
It’s a model these journals can use and work to suck folks in. On a related topic be sure and read this post about how you get sucked in going over the cliff and again I am talking about believing everything on a computer screen and letting your GPS take you to the wrong place…that’s a classic example that plays out everywhere. This is also where the Attack of the Killer Algorithms comes in, a series of flawed data and duping consumers. I guess the FTC and the DOJ are duped too because they are not doing much here at all. I try to help them and communicate but as well as consumers, government, Congress and others are duped, duped, and duped again. We need executives with some tech knowledge to help them as it not, well you see what we get..Duped Government and a Duped Congress:)
Big Data Revolution-Dangers of Using It To Drive Ourselves Off a Cliff -Debunking Myths of Algorithms Replacing Humans In Decision Making Processes in the Healthcare Business (Video)
This is the root of all of this is the value of the algorithms that Wall Street and 
others have placed out there with duping games. Yes there is value and yes we need research but not to the extent of the antics that have gone on, just look at the value of Facebook that was so highly exaggerated, that was a joke. It has value of course but not to what Wall Street did with it and the manipulation of money with buying stock in a bunch of algorithms that run on the web. Silly…but it hurts all of us and there’s more out there just like it. They have value of course but not exaggerated to what we have seen, it’s marketing and sadly the science world now is yet another prey of the vultures. I guess I’m a little down the feed chain but I get press releases and many are good, but I get the “junk” ones announcing journal publications and so far I think I weed out the "garbage” pretty well as you won’t see them on the Medical Quack. If I get one out there by mistake though and get duped myself, do let me know:) BD
I have not heard one government official even mention the word “model” in all the reading I do for goodness sakes, proof of wide spread algo duping. I also said too the name “data scientist” name should be replaced too as it’s an oxymoron and is not real science..it’s just queries and data bases…for the business world to find efficiencies and not splitting atoms like science research does. It’s an occupation, not really a science unless you are into genomics and other scientific data, just mining and finding some little tiny strange data relationships that may not really exist in business. I guess being a data scientist adds some flare but to me the title sounds like it was created to add a name that allows for more modeling for profit..oh well that’s just me. BD
“Data Scientists”– An Oxymoron? Is Finding the Value in Data Bases Queried Together in the Business World To Make Money Actually Science?
But some researchers are now raising the alarm about what they see as the proliferation of online journals that will print seemingly anything for a fee. They warn that non-experts doing online research will have trouble distinguishing credible research from junk. “Most people don’t know the journal universe,” Dr. Goodman said. “They will not know from a journal’s
title if it is for real or not.” Researchers also say that universities are facing new challenges in assessing the résumés of academics. Are the publications they list in highly competitive journals or ones masquerading as such? And some academics themselves say they have found it difficult to disentangle themselves from these journals once they mistakenly agree to serve on their editorial boards.
Jeffrey Beall, a research librarian at the University of Colorado in Denver, has developed his own blacklist of what he calls “predatory open-access journals.” There were 20 publishers on his list in 2010, and now there are more than 300. He estimates that there are as many as 4,000 predatory journals today, at least 25 percent of the total number of open-access journals.
One of the most prolific publishers on Beall’s list, Srinubabu Gedela, the director of the Omics Group, has about 250 journals and charges authors as much as $2,700 per paper. Dr. Gedela, who lists a Ph.D. from Andhra University in India, says on his Web site that he “learnt to devise wonders in biotechnology.”
About two years ago, James White, a plant pathologist at Rutgers, accepted an invitation to serve on the editorial board of a new journal, Plant Pathology & Microbiology, not realizing the nature of the journal. Meanwhile, his name, photograph and résumé were on the journal’s Web site. Then he learned that he was listed as an organizer and speaker on a Web site advertising Entomology-2013. “I am not even an entomologist,” he said.
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