We need less research

“We need less research, better research, and research done for the right reasons. Abandoning using the number of publications as a measure of ability would be a start.” Although I have expressed similar sentiments in blog posts [here and here], I didn’t say it. It was written by Douglas Altman, a well-known statistician and researcher who died in June.

Altman made that statement in a 1994 BMJ article entitled “The scandal of poor medical research.” Here we are, 24 years later, and nothing has changed. In fact, thanks to the rise of predatory journals, things are much worse.

Altman lamented research containing flaws such as “the use of inappropriate designs, unrepresentative samples, small samples, incorrect methods of analysis, and faulty interpretation” and felt many poor studies were the result of pressure on researchers to publish.

The dark side of academic research

A new study found several senior academic surgeons had published papers in what used to be termed “predatory journals.” The newer, gentler term is “solicited publishing,” but it defines the same pay-to-play, low quality publications.

Surgeons from the University of California, San Diego examined 110 emails sent to the senior author from 29 publishers during a six-week period and early 2017. Nearly all were requesting manuscript submissions. The 29 publishers represented 113 different surgery journals most of which had existed for two years or less. Only 12 were indexed in PubMed, and of the 9 that mentioned a self-reported impact factor, the median was 0.24 which means they had less than one citation per article in the last two years. The median publication fee for the 88 journals posting the information was $755.

Emails from the publishers contained a mean of 9.6 grammatical errors, possibly because more than half had addresses in foreign countries, and of those with US addresses, 30% were residential.