If a creationist take a dump in a science journal, and the science journal later flushes it away, does it still stink?

poop

Yes, it surely does. It reeks.

I completely missed this article -- no surprise, it seems everyone did -- titled "Fossils Evidences (Paleontology) Opposite to Darwin’s Theory," by Md. Abdul Ahad and Charles D. Michener, in the Journal of Biology and Life Science, and now you can't read it because the journal retracted it and deleted it.

The first sign that something might be off in this paper is the title. "Fossils Evidences (Paleontology) Opposite to Darwin’s Theory"? Seriously? No one even stopped to notice how ungrammatical it was?

And then there's the abstract.

Darwin‟s Theory is a central theme of biology and all theories of evolution. Paleontology, the study of fossils provide convincing and the direct evidences for evolution. Save for, if the organisms of same class arise from the same ancestor as Darwin opine; fossil record should provides a series of fossil from the progressive to older deposits, that show stage of intermediate between specialized modern (existing) living organism, but no so found at all. Nevertheless, silicafied wood is a familiar example of plant fossils. Invertebrates have no hard parts, so, they are rarely form fossils but few insects found in amber as fossils. The entire vertebrate fossils are fragmentary bones. For example fossil of dinosaurs are thigh bone, arm bone, teeth, footprints, track, bite etc., and fossils of ancestors of human are skull fragments, teeth, jaws etc. Even these fossils are negligible amount and are not found in the original form but are moulds, casts, compression, impression, etc. The only unchanged fossil is the Woolly mammoth. Furthermore, transitional fossil is absent; claimed transitional fossils of Archaeopteryx and Seymouria are not transitional, they are true bird and true reptile, respectively. Obtain fossil are of fossil of present day organisms or are fossil of extinct organisms, which may form during a universal flood. Fossil evidences prove that humans have not evolve/descent from monkey lower animal. Even Darwin himself agreed in the “Descent of man‟ that origin of human cannot explain by science. Co-discoverer of natural selection Alfred Russel Wallace never believes that human is evolved from lower animal. Moreover, estimation of age of fossil, age of earth by radiometric method and preparation of geological time table (scale) is imaginary as it overlooks 3.5 billion year. Extinction of living organism never produce any new species, if produce, no need of biodiversity conservation convention to prevent extinction. Living fossils prove that there is no evolutionary relationship between fossils and existing organisms. The fathers of modern paleontology and geology opposed evolution. Consequently, paleontology does not provide convincing, strongest, verified, and direct evidences for evolution as well as fossils evidences are opposite to Darwin‟s Theory. Moreover, the scientists of the most countries except a few have no facility to work with fossils; due to lack of technologies even they have no chance to see the fossils too. That is why the evolutionists as well as paleontologists cunningly have shown the fossils as the direct evidences of organic evolution. Darwin stated that if the geological record be perfect then the main objection of his theory natural selection will be greatly dismissed or disappears and he, who rejects these views on the nature of geological record, would rightly reject his whole theory.

Why, that's nothing but stock creationist assertions, all presented in fractured English in a hodge-podge fashion. It makes absolutely no sense…but it got published.

I kind of suspect that the Journal of Biology and Life Science has an amazingly slackworthy process of review in place. In fact, I dare say the review process probably involves paying the $100 submission fee, and nothing more.

But wait! There's more! The authors on that paper are Ahad and Michener. Michener is actually a respected entomologist at the University of Kansas — and he was totally surprised to learn that his name was on a retracted paper, since he'd never seen it, contributed nothing to it, and didn't even know it existed.

So that's how you publish a creationist paper: find a journal that will take your money and not even bother to proofread, and then just to add that extra veneer of contemptible dishonesty, use a real scientist's name as a co-author.

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Are you saying science journals are toilets? I agree somewhat. There's some bad science around. Creationists don't have that cornered, just as your fruedian slip up implies.

By darwins.a.fossil (not verified) on 24 Mar 2014 #permalink

Michener needs to get a lawyer, ASAP, and sue the living daylights out of that Ahad guy for what lawyers call a "general tort", in this case appropriating his name in a manner that is harmful to his reputation. He might even want to try for libel, because being a published scientist does not make you a "public person," so the applicable standard is falsehood and harm, with no need to prove malicious intent.

He could probably name the "Journal" as a co-defendant and add "civil negligence" to the complaint.

If either Ahad or the "Journal" have any assets, for example equity in a house, it may be possible to retain a lawyer on ca contingent fee basis. Or it may be that U.Kansas has lawyers on retainer who would be willing to take this on.

Any kind of successful lawsuit would send a strong message against this kind of behavior.

The text as presented feels like it was written in a different language and run through a machine translator -- it has odd words that an ESL person probably wouldn't choose ("opine"), poor punctuation, and a distinct lack of consistent tense, all hallmarks of a mechanical translation from a language that doesn't have similar constructs, e.g. Chinese or Arabic.

By Daniel Welch (not verified) on 25 Mar 2014 #permalink

Nice picture of a turd. I vote to keep it on here. It is very representative of the content here.

By Joe Lumberton (not verified) on 25 Mar 2014 #permalink

This should remind us of a tactic that Conservatives have developed in the last decade or so: Since they can't get real scientific journals to publish their nonsense, they have started creating fake ones with real-sounding names, in a deliberate attempt to destroy the meaning of peer review. It's not really much different than their fake news sources (Fox, National Review Online, and on and on) which have succeeded fabulously in destroying people's faith in news organizations, so that they accept every view as equally valid. Unfortunately, we expect politicians to twist things, but there is very good reason to feel that this sort of thing in the scientific world is a recipe for disaster.

By Green Eagle (not verified) on 26 Mar 2014 #permalink

This should remind us of a tactic that liberal globalists have developed in the last four decades or so: Since they can’t get real scientific journals to publish their nonsense, they have started creating fake ones with real-sounding names, in a deliberate attempt to destroy the meaning of peer review. It’s not really much different than their fake news sources (MSNBC, Huff and Puff Post, and on and on) which have succeeded fabulously in destroying people’s faith in news organizations, so that they accept every view as equally valid. Unfortunately, we expect politicians to twist things, but there is very good reason to feel that this sort of thing in the scientific world is a recipe for disaster.

By Joe Lumberton (not verified) on 26 Mar 2014 #permalink

where did ed brayton run off to? Guess he couldn't handle the heat from good old Captain patriot, so he went into exile.

By Joe Lumberton (not verified) on 26 Mar 2014 #permalink

Oh my, you guys got a weak creationist trolly up in heeyuh.

By SquidEatinDough (not verified) on 27 Mar 2014 #permalink

Joe, your lying and your cleverness are destroying our country. You are the lowest kind of person, without honor and without morality. I have nothing more to say about you.

By Green Eagle (not verified) on 27 Mar 2014 #permalink

green buzzard.

this country was destroyed a long time ago by you left wing hippies marching around naked spreading your immorality and sex diseases and "tolerance" of garbage and pagan earth worship. America's downhill decline start in the very late 1950s and just keeps getting worse. Mccarthy warned everyone this would happen and no one would listen. Looks like he was right.

By Joe Lumberton (not verified) on 27 Mar 2014 #permalink

Joe
When you seek professional medical treatments do you select doctors who were educated through the peer reviewed research accepted by the science community or the "pretend" journals you apparently support? I'm curious how well you have thought this one out. Appears you're running on 98% emotion and 2% critical thought.

I select doctors who have been to medical school and have a number of years of experience but at the same time who are open minded enough to cast doubt about FDA rulings and make decisions for themselves on what treatments work best. The FDA says a number of traditional mediciens do not work, but they are full of crap. Thye only endorse what makes big pharma the most money. Hence, I pick he doctor who isn't brainwashed by your peer reviewed New World Order crap. Happy now?

By Joe Lumberton (not verified) on 29 Mar 2014 #permalink

The word "evidences" is a shibboleth of creationists. I don't know why, but it's true.

Resorting to dishonesty is justified by the ends: promoting their religion.

If a scientist took a dump in a creationist journal, would the nature of that journal change? Would using the word dreck instead of shit make any difference?

davis,

speaking of religion ... hows that pagan earth worship global warming/cooling/climate change stuff working for you? Found your enviro-savior yet? I bet he's a reptile and his symbol is a red triangle.

By Joe Lumberton (not verified) on 31 Mar 2014 #permalink

where did ed brayton run off to?

The same place PZ "ran off to". :-D

The word “evidences” is a shibboleth of creationists. I don’t know why

Historical accident, possibly influenced by analogy to "information". 100 years ago scientists happily said "evidences".

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 31 Mar 2014 #permalink

Yep. I would say a "Science Journal" where the editor does not even proofread is a fake journal. The problem is not just that a controversal and unsubstantiated point of view got published, but that the whole thing is a scam. Yes, you too, can get published in a "science" journal for a modest $100 "submission fee" with no questions asked.

Way to go creationists. I hope you are proud.

Darn, the date shudda been 4/1 since it is April Fool type stuff. Oh, and Joe Lumberton, please don't bother.

By BobFromLI (not verified) on 06 Apr 2014 #permalink