Adrian Barnett
@aidybarnett.bsky.social
Statistician working in meta-research. Deltiologist.
Reposted by Adrian Barnett
Can you justify using (and paying for) a service that generates a ready to submit paper with just one prompt?
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February 8, 2026 at 3:57 AM
Can you justify using (and paying for) a service that generates a ready to submit paper with just one prompt?
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Reposted by Adrian Barnett
📝 Latest Article Commentary Alert! 📝
"Closing the paper mines"
@aidybarnett.bsky.social & @jabyrnesci.bsky.social
→ doi.org/10.1080/0898...
#PaperMill
#ResearchMisconduct
#AI
#GenAI
#ResearchIntegrity
"Closing the paper mines"
@aidybarnett.bsky.social & @jabyrnesci.bsky.social
→ doi.org/10.1080/0898...
#PaperMill
#ResearchMisconduct
#AI
#GenAI
#ResearchIntegrity
Closing the paper mines
Scientific fakery is a centuries old problem. Twinned with the long history of hard-working scientists earning fame for genuine discoveries, runs a tawdry history of those who were willing fabricat...
doi.org
February 5, 2026 at 2:48 PM
📝 Latest Article Commentary Alert! 📝
"Closing the paper mines"
@aidybarnett.bsky.social & @jabyrnesci.bsky.social
→ doi.org/10.1080/0898...
#PaperMill
#ResearchMisconduct
#AI
#GenAI
#ResearchIntegrity
"Closing the paper mines"
@aidybarnett.bsky.social & @jabyrnesci.bsky.social
→ doi.org/10.1080/0898...
#PaperMill
#ResearchMisconduct
#AI
#GenAI
#ResearchIntegrity
An outstanding long-read on research integrity and outright lies. It made me gasp out loud. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Did a Celebrated Researcher Obscure a Baby’s Poisoning?
After a newborn died of opioid poisoning, a new branch of pediatrics came into being. But the evidence doesn’t add up.
www.newyorker.com
February 1, 2026 at 2:31 AM
An outstanding long-read on research integrity and outright lies. It made me gasp out loud. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Reposted by Adrian Barnett
Wiley: "We’re supporting responsible research assessment practices" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1520...
Also Wiley: "Prove that your article is a good fit for this journal 😉😉😉😉😉 by citing at least two of our articles in your manuscript before we will even consider reviewing it" 🤡
Also Wiley: "Prove that your article is a good fit for this journal 😉😉😉😉😉 by citing at least two of our articles in your manuscript before we will even consider reviewing it" 🤡
January 30, 2026 at 11:29 AM
Wiley: "We’re supporting responsible research assessment practices" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1520...
Also Wiley: "Prove that your article is a good fit for this journal 😉😉😉😉😉 by citing at least two of our articles in your manuscript before we will even consider reviewing it" 🤡
Also Wiley: "Prove that your article is a good fit for this journal 😉😉😉😉😉 by citing at least two of our articles in your manuscript before we will even consider reviewing it" 🤡
Reposted by Adrian Barnett
“If fabricated studies make their way into the evidence base, they can mislead real scientists and ultimately slow progress for patients."
Published in The BMJ, a new AI tool developed by @aidybarnett.bsky.social and colleagues has exposed the scale of fake studies flooding cancer research.
Published in The BMJ, a new AI tool developed by @aidybarnett.bsky.social and colleagues has exposed the scale of fake studies flooding cancer research.
New tool exposes scale of fake research flooding cancer science
A new machine learning tool has identified more than 250,000 cancer research papers that may have been produced by so-called “paper mills”.
www.qut.edu.au
January 30, 2026 at 4:43 AM
“If fabricated studies make their way into the evidence base, they can mislead real scientists and ultimately slow progress for patients."
Published in The BMJ, a new AI tool developed by @aidybarnett.bsky.social and colleagues has exposed the scale of fake studies flooding cancer research.
Published in The BMJ, a new AI tool developed by @aidybarnett.bsky.social and colleagues has exposed the scale of fake studies flooding cancer research.
Everybody loses when research results are changed or supressed. This is an ongoing problem in Australia. As a start, we need a conversation between researchers and bureaucrats/lawyers.
Rules around government-sanctioned research can leave academics in a no-win position by forcing them to accept revisions that violate their ethical obligations, a Queensland analysis suggests #academicsky
ow.ly/IZUJ50Y4PJ6
ow.ly/IZUJ50Y4PJ6
Funder review rights ‘leave researchers in impossible position’
Mandatory edits of research findings a ‘blind spot’ in integrity debate, says scholar who experienced government agency ‘interference’
ow.ly
January 29, 2026 at 10:29 AM
Everybody loses when research results are changed or supressed. This is an ongoing problem in Australia. As a start, we need a conversation between researchers and bureaucrats/lawyers.
Reposted by Adrian Barnett
Fellowship schemes by Australian funding agencies invite researchers to disclose personal career disruptions to promote equity. But this well-meaning policy can expose private medical details to non-medically trained reviewers and create new risks of bias
Read more: buff.ly/BriGjyG
Read more: buff.ly/BriGjyG
January 24, 2026 at 10:01 PM
Fellowship schemes by Australian funding agencies invite researchers to disclose personal career disruptions to promote equity. But this well-meaning policy can expose private medical details to non-medically trained reviewers and create new risks of bias
Read more: buff.ly/BriGjyG
Read more: buff.ly/BriGjyG
Less is more. This aphorism is constantly on my mind. The scientific publication system is under tremendous strain, the last thing it needs is a massive dump of LLM generated/aided papers. If you love science, then show it some love. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
I’m going to halve my publication output. You should consider slow science, too
If we don’t slow down, the research enterprise is going to crash, argues Adrian Barnett.
www.nature.com
January 19, 2026 at 9:13 PM
Less is more. This aphorism is constantly on my mind. The scientific publication system is under tremendous strain, the last thing it needs is a massive dump of LLM generated/aided papers. If you love science, then show it some love. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
This is a statistical blunder that I've never seen before. Excluding zeros and ones because they didn't give a usable number after log-transforming. No idea why they simply didn't add a constant before transforming, or better still use a Poisson model.
January 18, 2026 at 1:58 AM
This is a statistical blunder that I've never seen before. Excluding zeros and ones because they didn't give a usable number after log-transforming. No idea why they simply didn't add a constant before transforming, or better still use a Poisson model.
A wonderful article from the ABC on Mercy Ships www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...
On the world's largest hospital ship volunteers give people a chance at a better life
On the largest civilian hospital ship in the world, Australian volunteers provide life-changing healthcare that is transforming lives.
www.abc.net.au
January 17, 2026 at 9:22 PM
A wonderful article from the ABC on Mercy Ships www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...
Number of days since I've seen an emu: 0.
January 16, 2026 at 1:48 AM
Number of days since I've seen an emu: 0.
A case study on how an Australian government agency changed the results of a qualitative study. Editing or suppressing research findings is not good policy, can lead to harms, and is awful to experience as a researcher.
Journal: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
OA: eprints.qut.edu.au/262261/
Journal: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
OA: eprints.qut.edu.au/262261/
Client Challenge
link.springer.com
January 12, 2026 at 1:36 AM
A case study on how an Australian government agency changed the results of a qualitative study. Editing or suppressing research findings is not good policy, can lead to harms, and is awful to experience as a researcher.
Journal: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
OA: eprints.qut.edu.au/262261/
Journal: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
OA: eprints.qut.edu.au/262261/
Reposted by Adrian Barnett
The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/n... via @statnews.com
The complete collapse of the NIH, CDC, and FDA is so tragic and damaging to not only the U.S., but the world...
Dark Age 2.0.
The complete collapse of the NIH, CDC, and FDA is so tragic and damaging to not only the U.S., but the world...
Dark Age 2.0.
The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left
“We can no longer lend our credibility to an organization that has lost its integrity,” write four scientists and administrators who recently resigned from the NIH.
www.statnews.com
January 11, 2026 at 6:14 PM
The NIH has lost its scientific integrity. So we left www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/n... via @statnews.com
The complete collapse of the NIH, CDC, and FDA is so tragic and damaging to not only the U.S., but the world...
Dark Age 2.0.
The complete collapse of the NIH, CDC, and FDA is so tragic and damaging to not only the U.S., but the world...
Dark Age 2.0.
I read this excellent book last year about the US coup in Guatemala. So much death and destruction built on lies.
January 3, 2026 at 10:35 PM
I read this excellent book last year about the US coup in Guatemala. So much death and destruction built on lies.
Reposted by Adrian Barnett
"It might be easy to dismiss the idea of ISO 9001 as just another tool to encourage best practice among publishers. But journal certification would fill a long-standing gap in the chain of external oversight from conduct to translation of research."
@jabyrnesci.bsky.social writes in @nature.com !
@jabyrnesci.bsky.social writes in @nature.com !
Put pressure on publishers to follow best practice — external regulation is the answer
Journals that work hard to meet the needs of both authors and readers should be acknowledged publicly — encouraging others to follow suit.
doi.org
December 31, 2025 at 8:55 PM
"It might be easy to dismiss the idea of ISO 9001 as just another tool to encourage best practice among publishers. But journal certification would fill a long-standing gap in the chain of external oversight from conduct to translation of research."
@jabyrnesci.bsky.social writes in @nature.com !
@jabyrnesci.bsky.social writes in @nature.com !
Swallowtail butterfly in my garden.
December 30, 2025 at 2:54 AM
Swallowtail butterfly in my garden.
Reposted by Adrian Barnett
Are peer reviewers influenced by their work being cited?
Coercive citations
Reviewer citation requests can turn peer review into a transaction rather than an objective critique of the article.
buff.ly
December 29, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Are peer reviewers influenced by their work being cited?
Cycling in snow is joyous.
December 24, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Cycling in snow is joyous.
Reposted by Adrian Barnett
"How can funders avoid crossing the Szilard point?"
The Szilard point is "the threshold at which the total cost of competing for a grant equals (or surpasses) the value of the available funding."
The Szilard point is "the threshold at which the total cost of competing for a grant equals (or surpasses) the value of the available funding."
Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding
With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.
www.nature.com
December 19, 2025 at 7:57 AM
"How can funders avoid crossing the Szilard point?"
The Szilard point is "the threshold at which the total cost of competing for a grant equals (or surpasses) the value of the available funding."
The Szilard point is "the threshold at which the total cost of competing for a grant equals (or surpasses) the value of the available funding."
Such important work. Thank you both for helping to eradicate fakes from the scientific record.
December 16, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Such important work. Thank you both for helping to eradicate fakes from the scientific record.
Rather than investing in the energy that "will never kill us or never run out" (Will Self) our state government is pouring money into coal. A sad short-term gamble to win votes.
December 11, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Rather than investing in the energy that "will never kill us or never run out" (Will Self) our state government is pouring money into coal. A sad short-term gamble to win votes.
Was a preprint, now a paper. Our experiment on researchers preferences for published papers. Disappointingly, the journal impact factor still dominates, and even worse, some authors are willing to sacrifice their results for a higher impact factor. www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...
December 11, 2025 at 3:41 AM
Was a preprint, now a paper. Our experiment on researchers preferences for published papers. Disappointingly, the journal impact factor still dominates, and even worse, some authors are willing to sacrifice their results for a higher impact factor. www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...
100%. If a study is beyond the capabilities of you and your team, then do a different study.
December 6, 2025 at 5:35 AM
100%. If a study is beyond the capabilities of you and your team, then do a different study.
Are peer reviewers influenced by their work being cited? Version of record at
@elife.bsky.social. Thorough and useful peer review - who needs and impact factor?!
Links to paper and code/data ⬇️
📄https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/108748
💻https://github.com/agbarnett/cited_reviewers
@elife.bsky.social. Thorough and useful peer review - who needs and impact factor?!
Links to paper and code/data ⬇️
📄https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/108748
💻https://github.com/agbarnett/cited_reviewers
elifesciences.org
November 29, 2025 at 2:24 AM
Are peer reviewers influenced by their work being cited? Version of record at
@elife.bsky.social. Thorough and useful peer review - who needs and impact factor?!
Links to paper and code/data ⬇️
📄https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/108748
💻https://github.com/agbarnett/cited_reviewers
@elife.bsky.social. Thorough and useful peer review - who needs and impact factor?!
Links to paper and code/data ⬇️
📄https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/108748
💻https://github.com/agbarnett/cited_reviewers