How Low Can Nature Go?

Dragging a “call for papers” through the faculty lounge

On an almost daily basis I get emails inviting me to submit a scientific paper for publication. A lot of these are poorly written, spammy come-ons from fishy journals I’ve never heard of. “Dear esteemed professor,” they usually begin, “we are seeking your valuable contribution to fill an upcoming number of Advances in Biophysical Dermatology and Experimental Metabolomics,” or some equally unlikely title.

Journal spam is a symptom. The underlying disease is the commodification of science. This is what happens when uninspired careerism on the research side meets unbridled gigantism on the corporate publishing side. The misguided mania for open-access publishing only exacerbates the problem.

In the big picture, journal spam is a minor annoyance. A few clicks over morning coffee and it all disappears into the trash folder.

But not this morning. The subject line was: “Scientific Reports: Call for papers - Social biases and discrimination.” That’s weird, I thought. Scientific Reports is the name of a high-profile journal in the prestigious Springer-Nature family of publications. They couldn’t be spamming me, could they?

Yes, they most certainly could.

The email was from one Stuart Weir, who styles himself as a “Commissioning Editor” in “Content Acquisition” which apparently is Springer-Nature’s corporate designation for In-House Spammer. (And by the way, yes, Mr. Weir appears to be an actual person.)

Spam-master Weir seeks contributions on the topic of unconscious social bias. These are judgements that encourage “systematic attribution of negative traits to certain individuals or groups,” and in particular social biases “such as racial or gender biases” which “can lead to discrimination or exclusion of individuals.”

Wow. Nothing says “trustworthy major scientific publisher” more than trawling for politically slanted click bait papers on a topic like unconscious racial bias (one version of which, “implicit bias”, has been roundly debunked). It’s a bit surprising that Springer-Nature sinks so low. But then again, they have motive: you have to pay $2,390 for the privilege of entering the pages of Scientific Reports. (Hey, all those douchey Commissioning Editors don’t work for free.—Ed.)

P.S. The Nature group has other problems. See, for example, the controversy over the Fauci-finagled COVID-19 “Proximal Origins” paper in Nature Medicine. And the two questionable papers in Nature by soon-to-be-former Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Or for that matter the retracted COVID-19 vitamin D paper in Science Reports.

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Dear Dr. Gilbert,

I am writing to let you know that Scientific Reports is currently welcoming submissions of original primary research to our Social biases and discrimination Collection. Due to the work you have done in this area, I hope that you will consider this Collection as an outlet for a future research paper.

During everyday social interaction, people constantly make judgments about each other’s behaviour, intentions, and personality. The underlying cognitive processes of these judgments, however, are often unconscious and people are mostly unaware of why they arrive at certain judgments or conclusions. This makes judgments about other people prone to biases and sometimes encourages systematic attribution of negative traits to certain individuals or groups. Furthermore, social biases, such as racial or gender biases, can lead to discrimination or exclusion of individuals. Research included in this Collection will explore the psychological aspects giving rise to and helping maintain social biases and how these biases affect social interaction. Work from all areas of Psychology is welcomed.

 To submit your manuscript for consideration as part of this Collection, please do so via our submission system. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read the submission guidelines.

·         Scientific Reports | View submission guidelines

This article Collection is a great opportunity to highlight this important area of research, and we hope you will be able to contribute.

If you’d like any further information about the Collection, or the journal more generally, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thank you very much for your time, I hope to hear from you soon.

Best wishes,

Stuart

Stuart Weir

Commissioning Editor

Content Acquisition | Publishing Performance and Intelligence Group

Spring Nature