Unregistered Submission
Unreg, does this look like a newspaper? If the editors wanted to play their amateur games, they should have taken their humor to a newspaper, but not posted it in an academic journal...
Unreg, does this look like a newspaper? If the editors wanted to play their amateur games, they should have taken their humor to a newspaper, but not posted it in an academic journal...
"I am of the opinion that this paper has no place in a scientific journal like this."That's fine, but yours is not the opinion of the scientific community in general, because spoof papers are…
I just have a hard time imagining this purported segment of the readership who would be deceived and therefore harmed. I think they do not exist, or, like aliens, are difficult to access...
Many newspapers do exactly that on April Fools' day: see http://hoaxes.org/aprilfool
Do not try and evade the issue. We are talking about the lack of a publishing conscience in a Wiley journal, not in the BMJ. It's always concerning when readers try to detract from the issue at hand...
Both analogies are incorrect. This is a scientific journal, not a newspaper, or a blog. Even though there may be one sector of the readership that understands the humor and sees this as nothing more…
Or maybe the proper analogy would be NPR doing a spoof news story on April 1st and expecting their listeners to be intelligent enough to get it...
The Onion is the wrong analogy. A correct analogy would be if the NY Times published a spoof article in the guise of a serious one, but without labeling it as such, and just expected readers to "get…
Then perhaps you should take your argument to the BMJ. I do not believe they have been granted a monopoly on scientific satire.For a balanced discussion: http://www...
Editors and scientists should learn to relax elsewhere. Scientific journals are never the appropriate places for fun-filled satirical pieces...
Oh relax. It's well-done farce and should be applauded. It is also extremely unlikely to incite a wave of maternal indifference to boo boos.
I strongly disagree that this article is a problem. Jokes and satire are an accepted part of science, see for instance the BMJ's regular Christmas special issues (presumably the present paper was…
An excellent point.There is no disclaimer or statement that this is a spoof, and there are no authors listed to contact. The dismissal of concerns about this issue by the Editor in Chief, Professor…
Carl L von Baeyer | Jan 06 2016 13:02 ESTSpoofs and hoaxes are sometimes fun to read, but not if they look so much like real studies that many readers would be fooled -- particularly people whose…