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Elo comments on Open Thread, May 25 - May 31, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 25 May 2015 12:00AM

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Comment author: James_Miller 25 May 2015 12:26:28AM 7 points [-]

I propose that some major academic organization such as the American Economic Association randomly and secretly choose a few members and request that they attempt to get fraudulent work accepted into the highest ranked journals they can. They reveal the fraud as soon as an article is accepted. This procedure would give us some idea how of easy it is to engage in fraud, and give journals additional incentives to search for it. For some academic disciplines the incentives to engage in fraud seem similar to that with illegal performance enhancing drugs and professional sports, and I wonder if the outcomes are similar.

Comment author: Elo 25 May 2015 10:18:45AM 3 points [-]

I would be concerned that including fraud-detection processes would also bring in biases of "I don't like this work and therefore we shouldn't publish it". I also agree with the points of the purpose of peer review is to check for sanity of method and soundness of scientific process; not fraud.