The rise of "fake" science poses a serious threat to the integrity of academic research, a new study warns.
A widespread underground network of fraudsters is pumping out fake scientific results at an ever-increasing pace, researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In fact, the publication of fraudulent science now outpaces the growth rate of legitimate scientific journals, researchers found.
"These networks are essentially criminal organizations, acting together to fake the process of science," said senior researcher Luís A.N. Amaral, a professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics at Northwestern University. "Millions of dollars are involved in these processes."
News reports of scientific fraud usually involve single instances of retracted papers, falsified data or plagiarism committed by individuals who take shortcuts to get ahead, researchers said.
