Year: 2017 (Page 2 of 3)

Moral panic in the intellect

6 September, 2017 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Moral panic develops intellectually. It is our thoughts that are racing. Certain mental images make such a deep impression on us that we take them for Reality, for Truth, for Facts. Do not believe that the intellect is cold and objective. It can boil over with agitated thoughts.

This is evident in bioethics, where many issues are filled with anguish. Research information about cloned animals, about new techniques for editing in the genome, or about embryonic stem cell research, evoke scary images of subversive forms of research, threatening human morality. The panic requires a sensitive intellect. There, the images of the research acquire such dimensions that they no longer fit into ordinary life. The images take over the intellect as the metaphysical horizon of Truth. Commonplace remarks that could calm down the agitated intellect appear to the intellect as naive.

A science news in National Geographic occasions these musings. It is about the first attempt in the United States to edit human embryos genetically. Using so-called CRISPR-Cas9 technique, the researchers removed a mutation associated with a common inherited heart disease. After the successful editing, the embryos were destroyed. (You find the scientific article reporting the research in Nature.)

Reading such research information, you might feel anxiety; anxiety that soon takes possession of your intellect: What will they do next? Develop “better” humans who look down on us as a lower species? Can we permit science to change human nature? NO, we must immediately introduce new legislation that bans all genetic editing of human embryos!

If the intellect can boil over with such agitated thoughts, and if moral panic legislation is imprudent, then I believe that bioethics needs to develop its therapeutic skills. Some bioethical issues need to be treated as affections of the intellect. Bioethical anxiety often arises, I believe, when research communication presents science as the metaphysical horizon of truth, instead of giving science an ordinary human horizon.

It may seem as if I took a stand for science by representing critics as blinded by moral panic. That is not the case, for the other side of moral panic is megalomania. Hyped notions of great breakthroughs and miraculous cures can drive entire research fields. Mental images that worry most people stimulate other personalities. Perhaps Paolo Macchiarini was such a personality, and perhaps he was promoted by a scientific culture of insane mental expectations on research and its heroes.

We need a therapeutic bioethics that can calm down the easily agitated intellect.

Pär Segerdahl

This post in Swedish

Are you a person or an animal?

30 August, 2017 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

The question in the title may sound like an insult. That is, not as a question, but as something one might say in anger to reprimand someone who misbehaves.

In philosophy, the question is asked seriously, without intention of insulting. A philosopher who misbehaves at a party and is reprimanded by another guest – “Are you a person or an animal?” – could answer, shamelessly: Eh, I really don’t know, philosophers have contemplated that question for hundreds of years.

What then is the philosophical question? It is usually described as the problem of personal identity. What are we, essentially? What constitutes “me”? What holds the self together? When does it arise and when does it disappear?

According to proponents of a psychological view, we (human beings) are persons with certain psychological capacities, such as self-awareness. That psychology holds the self together. If an unusual disease made my body deteriorate, but doctors managed to transplant my mental contents (self-awareness, memories, etc.) into another body, then I would survive in the other body. According to proponents of the rival, animalist view, however, we are animals with a certain biology. An animalist would probably deny that I could survive in a foreign body.

The difference between the two views can be illustrated by their consequences for a bioethical question: Is it permissible to harvest organs from brain-dead bodies to use as transplants? If we are essentially persons with self-awareness, then we cease to exist when the brain dies. Then it should be permissible to harvest organs; it would not violate personal autonomy. If we are animals with a certain biology, however, harvesting organs may appear as using citizens as mere means in healthcare.

In an article in Ethics, Medicine and Public Health, Elisabeth Furberg at CRB questions these views on identity. She argues that both views are anthropocentric. This is easy to see when it comes to the view that we are essentially persons. The psychological view exaggerates the importance of certain supposedly unique human psychological capacities (such as the capacity for a first-person perspective), and underestimates the psychological capacities of non-human animals. According to Furberg, however, even the animalist view is anthropocentric. How!?

How can an outlook where we are essentially animals be anthropocentric? Well, because the very concept “animal” is anthropocentric, Furberg argues. It originated as a contrast to the concept “human.” It distinguishes us (morally advanced beings) from them (less worthy creatures of nature). The animalist view is unaware of its own anthropocentric bias, which comes with the concept “animal.”

At the end of the article, Furberg proposes a less anthropocentric view on identity, a hybrid view that combines the psychological and animalistic answers to the question in the title. The hybrid view is open to the possibility that even animals other than humans can have psychological identity, such as chimpanzees. If I understand Furberg correctly, she would say that many animals are just animals. A snail is identical to the snail. It has no psychological identity that could survive in another snail body. Nevertheless, a number of animals (not just humans) have an identity that goes beyond their animality. Chimpanzees and humans, and probably some other species, are such animals.

I cannot resist mentioning that I have written an article about similar issues: Being human when we are animals. There, I do not purify a metaphysical question from an insult, but investigate the insult, the reprimand.

Pär Segerdahl

Furberg, E. 2017. “Are we persons or animals? Exposing an anthropocentric bias and suggesting a hybrid view.” Ethics, Medicine and Public Health (3): 279-287

This post in Swedish

We philosophize when we do not know how to think

14 August, 2017 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Philosophers are also called thinkers. We easily believe that philosophers are specialists in thinking, as linguists are specialists in speech and writing. If someone knows how to think, it must be a philosopher, we think.

I believe we are wrong to think philosophers know how to think. Rather, they are people who know when we do not know how to think. They acknowledge (for all of us) when we do not know how to think (although we thought we knew). Such confessions probably need to me made more often!

If you think you know how to think about immigration, or about stem cell research, then you have an opinion. The opinion may be substantiated, but it hardly makes you a thinker, but rather a molder of public opinion. Since you already know how to think, you do not have to think. You only need to keep on talking, according to what you believe you know.

“I need more time to think about it; I don’t know how I should think.” We fail to notice that there is a way of thinking that begins the very moment we do not know how to think. At that moment, the philosophical dimension of thinking opens up.

When you know how to think, you no longer think. Not in the philosophical sense. If you meet an argumentative chatterbox, or a schoolmasterly specialist in thinking, you can be sure it is not a philosopher.

Pär Segerdahl

This post in Swedish

Nudging people in the right direction

27 June, 2017 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Behavioral scientist study how environments can be designed so that people are pushed towards better decisions. By placing the vegetables first at the buffet, people may choose more vegetables than they would otherwise do. They choose themselves, but the environment is designed to support the “right” choice.

Nudging people to behave more rationally may, of course, seem self-contradictory, perhaps even unethical. Shouldn’t a rational person be allowed to make completely autonomous decisions, instead of being pushed in the “right” direction by the placement of salad bowls? Influencing people by designing their environments might support better habits, but it insults Rationality!

As a philosopher, I do, of course, appreciate independent thinking. However, I do not demand that every daily decision should be the outcome of reasoning. On the contrary, the majority of decisions should not require too much arguing with oneself. It saves time and energy for matters that deserve contemplation. A nudge from a salad bowl at the right place supports my independent thinking.

Linnea Wickström Östervall, former researcher at CRB, has tried to nudge people to a more restrained use of antibiotics. It is important to reduce antibiotics use, because overuse causes antibiotic resistance: a major challenge to manage.

In her study, she embedded a brief reminder of antibiotic resistance in the questionnaire that patients answer before visiting the doctor. This reminder reached not only the patients, then, but also the doctors who went through the questionnaire with the patients. The effect was clear at the clinic level. In the clinics where the reminder was included in the questionnaire, antibiotics use decreased by 12.6 percent compared to the clinics used as control.

If you want to know more about the study, read Linnea’s article in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, where the interesting results are presented in detail. For example, the nudge appears to affect the interaction between doctors and patients, rather than the individual patients.

Can you arrange your everyday environment so that you live wisely without making rational choices?

Pär Segerdahl

Wickström Östervall, L. 2017. “Nudging to prudence? The effect of reminders on antibiotics prescriptions.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 135: 39-52.

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When “neuro” met “ethics”

13 June, 2017 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Two short words increasingly often appear in combination with names of professional fields and scientific disciplines: neuro and ethics. Here are some examples: Neuromusicology, neurolaw, neuropedagogy. Bioethics, nursing ethics, business ethics.

Neuro… typically signifies that neuroscience sheds light on the subject matter of the discipline with which it combines. It can illuminate what happens in the brain when we listen to music (neuromusicology). What happens in the brain when witnesses recall events or when judges evaluate the evidence (neurolaw). What happens in children’s brains when they study mathematics (neuropedagogy).

…ethics (sometimes, ethics of…) typically signifies that the discipline it combines with gives rise to its own ethical problems, requiring ethical reflection and unique ethical guidelines. Even war is said to require its own ethics of war!

In the 1970s, these two words, neuro and ethics, finally met and formed neuroethics. The result is an ambiguous meeting between two short but very expansive words. Which of the two words made the advance? Where is the emphasis? What sheds light on what?

At first, ethics got the emphasis. Neuroethics was, simply, the ethics of neuroscience, just as nursing ethics is the ethics of nursing. Soon, however, neuro demonstrated its expansive power. Today, neuroethics is not only the “ethics of neuroscience,” but also the “neuroscience of ethics”: neuroscience can illuminate what happens in the brain when we face ethical dilemmas. The emphasis thus changes back and forth between neuroethics and neuroethics.

The advances of these two words, and their final meeting in neuroethics, reflects, of course, the expansive power of neuroscience and ethics. Why are these research areas so expansive? Partly because the brain is involved in everything we do. And because all we do can give rise to ethical issues. The meeting between neuro… and …ethics was almost inevitable.

What did the meeting result in? In a single discipline, neuroethics? Or in two distinct disciplines, neuroethics and neuroethics, which just happen to be spelt the same way, but should be kept separate?

As far as I understand, the aim is to keep neuroethics together as one interdisciplinary field, with a two-way dialogue between an “ethics of neuroscience” and a “neuroscience of ethics.” This seems wise. It would be difficult to keep apart what was almost predetermined to meet and combine. Neuroethics would immediately try to shed its neuroscientific light on neuroethics. And neuroethics would be just as quick to develop ethical views on neuroethics. The wisest option appears to be dialogue, accepting a meeting that appears inevitable.

An interesting article in Bioethics, authored by Eric Racine together with, among others, Michele Farisco at CRB, occasions my thoughts in this post. The subject matter of the article is neuroethics: the neuroscience of ethics. Neuroethics is associated with rather grandiose claims. It has been claimed that neuroscience can support a better theory of ethics. That it can provide the basis for a universal ethical theory that transcends political and cultural divides. That it can develop a brain-based ethics. That it can reveal the mechanisms underlying moral judgments. Perhaps neuroscience will soon solve moral dilemmas and transform ethics!

These pretentions have stimulated careless over-interpretation of neuroscientific experiments. They have also provoked rash dismissal of neuroethics and its relevance to ethics. The purpose of the article is to support a more moderate and deliberate approach, through a number of methodological guideposts for the neuroscience of ethics. These include conceptual and normative transparency, scientific validity, interdisciplinary methods, and balanced interpretation of results.

In view of this critical perspective on hyped neuroscientific claims, one could define the article as a neuroethical article on neuroethics. Following the linguistic pattern that I described above, the article is an example of neuroethics-ethics. No, this will not do! We cannot use these two expansive words to specify in neurotic detail who currently happens to advance into whose field.

I choose to describe the article, simply, as a neuroethical paper on neuroethics. I want to see it as an example of the dialogue that can unite neuroethics as an interdisciplinary field.

Pär Segerdahl

Racine, E., Dubljevic´, V., Jox, R. J., Baertschi, B., Christensen, J. F., Farisco, M., Jotterand, F., Kahane, G., Müller, S. (2017). “Can neuroscience contribute to practical ethics? A critical review and discussion of the methodological and translational challenges of the neuroscience of ethics.” Bioethics 31: 328-337.

This post in Swedish

Internal investigation of research misconduct often fails

30 May, 2017 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

What characterizes a research scandal? In a short article in Hastings Center Report, Carl Elliott uses as an example the case of Paolo Macchiarini at the Swedish Karolinska Institutet.

Macchiarini’s deadly experiments with stem cell-covered artificial trachea, transplanted to patients who did not have life-threatening diseases, have unique features linked to the personality and charisma of the researcher. However, the scandal resembles other scandals on one point, Elliott says. Whistle-blowers who use internal channels at the home university to handle research misconduct often fail. Justice is not done until the press reveals the scandal. In this case, a Swedish documentary film, The Experiments, exposed the scandal.

If Elliott is right, I personally draw two conclusions. The first is that investigative journalism is important. It reveals misconduct that would otherwise not be exposed. My second conclusion is that we cannot be satisfied with this.

Angry customers who want to force the shop assistant to correct what they think went wrong can threaten: “If you don’t fix this, I’ll contact the local newspaper.” A responsible person who suspects research misconduct should not have to act in a way that others can interpret as partial exercise of power. It poisons the situation and increases the risk for the whistle-blower.

If internal channels often fail to handle research misconduct, as Elliott claims, a system of external management is required. Therefore, it is good that a Swedish public inquiry recently suggested that an independent agency should investigate suspected research misconduct.

Contacting the media should not have to be “the way” of effectively exposing research misconduct; it is a way out if the standard way fails. If the way out often is required, something is wrong with the way.

Pär Segerdahl

This post in Swedish

Research is not a magical practice

16 May, 2017 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Why does hearing about research sometimes scare us in a vertiginous way? I mean the feeling that researchers sometimes dig too deeply, that they see through what should not be seen through, that they manipulate the fundamental conditions of life.

It does not have to concern GMOs or embryonic stem cell research. During a period, I wrote about studies of human conversation. When I told people that I was working on conversation analysis, I could get the reaction: “Oh no, now I dare not talk to you, because you’ll probably see through everything I say and judge how well I’m actually talking.”

Why do we react in such a way? As if researchers saw through the surface of life, as through a thin veil, and gained power over life by mastering its hidden mechanisms.

My impression is that we, in these reactions, interpret research as a form of magic. Magic is a cross-border activity. The magician is in contact with “the other side”: with the powers that control life. By communicating with these hidden powers, the magician can achieve power over life. That is at least often the attitude in magical practices.

Is this how we view research when it scares us in a dizzying way? We think in terms of a boundary between life and its hidden conditions; a boundary that researchers transgress to gain power over life. Research then appears transgressive in a vertiginous way. We interpret it as a magical practice, as a digging into the most basic conditions of life.

The farmer who wants to control the water level in the field by digging ditches, however, is not a magician who communicates with hidden forces. Digging ditches gives you ordinary power in life: it gives control of the water level. I would like to say that research is more like digging ditches to control the water level than like engaging in magic to control life itself. Certainly, research gives power and control – but in life, not over “life itself.”

This does not mean that research does not need to be regulated; digging ditches probably needs regulation too.

The magical aura of charismatic researchers sometimes seduces us. We think they are close to the solution of “the riddle” and give them a free hand… We must be careful not to give research work a magical interpretation.

Pär Segerdahl

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Where to publish and not to publish in bioethics – the 2017 list

9 May, 2017 / Stefan Eriksson / 11 Comments

Stefan Eriksson, Associate Professor of Research Ethics, Uppsala University

This blog has been updated! Click to see the new 2018 list!

Allegedly, there are over 8.000 so called predatory journals out there. Instead of supporting readers and science, these journals serve their own economic interests first and at best offer dubious merits for scholars. We believe that scholars working in any academic discipline have a professional interest and a responsibility to keep track of these journals. It is our job to warn the young or inexperienced of journals where a publication or editorship could be detrimental to their career and science is not served. We have seen “predatory” publishing take off in a big way and noticed how colleagues start to turn up in the pages of some of these journals. While many have assumed that this phenomenon mainly is a problem for low status universities, there are strong indications that predatory publishing is a part of a major trend towards the industrialization of misconduct and that it affects many top-flight research institutions (see Priyanka Pulla: “In India, elite institutes in shady journals”, Science 354(6319): 1511-1512). This trend, referred to by some as the dark side of publishing, needs to be reversed.

Thus we published this blog post in 2016. This is our first annual update (the previous version can be found here). At first, we relied heavily on the work of Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado, who runs blacklists of “potential, possible, or probable” predatory publishers and journals. His lists have since been removed although they live on in new form (anonymous) at the Stop predatory journals site (SPJ) and they can also be found archived. These lists were not, however, the final say on the matter, as it is impossible for one person to judge reliably actors in every academic discipline. Moreover, since only questionable journals are listed, the good journals must be found elsewhere.

A response of gatekeeping needs to be anchored in each discipline and the scholars who make up that discipline. As a suitable response in bioethics, we have chosen to, first, collect a few authoritative lists of recommended bioethics journals that can be consulted by anyone in bioethics to find good journals to publish with. Last year, we recommended a list of journals ourselves, which brought on some well-deserved questions and criticism about criteria for inclusion. Unfortunately then, our list ultimately drew attention from other parts of the message that we were more concerned to get across. Besides, there are many other parties making such lists. We therefore have dropped this feature. Instead we have enlarged the collection of good journal lists to the service of our readers. They are all of great use when further exploring the reputable journals available:

– Top 50 Bioethics Journals and Top 250 Most Cited Bioethics Articles Published 2011-2015 (Mark Hakkarinen, Georgetown)
– Top 100 Bioethics Journals in the World (same author)
– The CODEX list of journals in the field
– List from Google Scholar
– Key Journals in The Philosopher’s Index
– Core Bioethics Journals in PubMed (Georgetown)

It is of prime importance to list the journals that are potentially or possibly predatory or of such a low quality that it might be dishonoring to engage with them. We have listed all 36 of them (up with eleven from last year) alphabetically and provided both the homepage URL and links to any professional discussion of these journals that we have found (which most often alerted us to their existence in the first place).

Each of these journals asks scholars for manuscripts from, or claims to publish papers in bioethics or related areas (such as practical philosophy). They have been reviewed by the authors of this blog post as well as by a group of reference scholars that we have asked for advice on the list. Those journals listed have unanimously been agreed are journals that – in light of the criticism put forth and the quality we see – we would not deem acceptable for us to publish in. Typical signs as to why a journal could fall in this category, such as extensive spamming, publishing in almost any subject, or fake data being included on the website etc., are listed here:

– 8 Ways to Identify a Questionable Open Access Journal (Chrissy Prater)
– How to avoid predatory journals—a five point plan (Jocalyn Clark)
– Identifying and avoiding predatory publishers: a primer for researchers (Canadian Assoc. of Research Libraries)
– The false academy: predatory publishing in science and bioethics (article by us, includes the 25 defining characteristics of a “predatory” journal)

We have started to more systematically evaluate the journals against the 25 defining characteristics we outlined in the article linked to above (with the help of science and technology PhD students). The results will be added when they exist.

We would love to hear about your views on this blog post, and be especially grateful for pointers to journals engaging in sloppy or bad publishing practices. The list is not meant as a check-list but as a starting point for any bioethics scholar to ponder for him- or herself where to publish.

Also, anyone thinking that a journal in our list should be given due reconsideration might post their reasons for this as a comment to the blog post or send an email to us. Journals might start out with some sloppy practices but shape up over time and we will be happy to hear about it. You can make an appeal against the inclusion of a journal and we will deal with it promptly and publicly.

Please spread the content of this blog as much as you can and check back for updates (we will do a major update annually and continually add any further information found).

WHERE NOT TO PUBLISH IN BIOETHICS – THE 2017 LIST

American Research Thoughts (Kogaion Publishing Center)
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ (i.e. Stop predatory journals); Title and payment in US$ although published in Romania; No articles found on site; Some pages are not working; Unofficial impact factor displayed.
Austin Journal of Genetics and Genomic Research (Austin Publishing Group)
Criticism 1 │Criticism 2 │Criticism 3
Critical remark (2017): Spam e-mail about special issue on bioethics; Listed by SPJ; Romanian editorial member is said to be from a university in “Europe”; Another editorial board member is just called “Michael”; APG has been sued by International Association for Dental Research and The American Association of Neurological Surgeons for infringing on their IP rights. Student review concludes the journal is not suitable to publish in.
Creative Education (Scientific Research Publishing – SCIRP)
Criticism 1 │ Criticism 2
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; They claim misleadingly to be indexed by ISI but this relates to be among cited articles only – they are not indexed. A thorough review May 2017 concludes that it exhibits at least 5 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
East European Scientific Journal (East European Research Alliance)
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Criticised by Beall for having a bogus editorial board; Claims to be indexed by ISI but that is not the well-known Institute for Scientific Information (now Thompson Reuters), but rather the so-called International Scientific Indexing.
European Academic Research (Kogaion Publishing Center, formerly Bridge Center)
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Uses impact factor from Universal Impact Factor; A thorough review May 2017 concludes that it exhibits at least 15 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
European Scientific Journal (European Scientific Institute)
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Use of alternative indexes. A thorough review May 2017 concludes that it exhibits at least 9 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
International Journal of Advances in Social Science and Humanities
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Impact factor was last year given by “International Services for Impact Factor & Indexing” which now seems to have ceased operations.
International Journal of Contemporary Research & Review
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Indexed by Index Copernicus; Despite claims they seem not to be indexed by either Chemical Abstracts or DOAJ. A thorough review June 2017 concludes that it exhibits at least 9 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
International Journal of Current Research
Criticism
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Uses IF from SJIF and Index Copernicus and more. It wrongly claims to be indexed by Thomson Reuters, ORCID and having a DOI among other things. A thorough review January 2018 concludes that it exhibits at least 12 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
International Journal of Ethics & Moral Philosophy (Journal Network)
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Publisher was criticised by Beall when launcing 350 journals at once; After a year not one associate editor has signed up and no article has been published; No editorial or contact details available.
International Journal of Ethics in Engineering & Management Education
Critical remark (2017): Papers from almost any field; Claims to have a 5.4 Impact factor (from UJIF); Indexed by GJIF and Cosmos; A non-existent address in “Varginia”, US (sic!); Open access but asks for the copyright; Claims to be indexed in Scopus can’t be verified. A thorough review February 2018 concludes that it exhibits at least 16 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science (Centre for Promoting Ideas)
Criticism 1 │ Criticism 2 │ Criticism 3 │ Criticism 4
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention
Criticism
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ and is on many other lists of blacklisted journals; An IF of 4.5 given by African Quality Centre for Journals; Open access but asks for the copyright; Publishes any subject; Says that the journal is indexed in DOAJ which it does not seem to be. A thorough review February 2018 concludes that it exhibits at least 13 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Claims an IF of 5.22 (by “Research Journal Impact Factor“); Despite title from India; Says that the journal is indexed in DOAJ which it does not seem to be. A thorough review February 2018 concludes that it exhibits at least 13 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Has an amazing fast-track review option for $100 that guarantees “the review, editorial decision, author notification and publication” to take place “within 2 weeks”. “Editors” claim that repeated requests to be removed from the list of editors result in nothing. A thorough review February 2018 concludes that it seems to exhibit at least 10 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
International Journal of Humanities & Social Studies
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; IF from International Impact Factor Services; States that there “is no scope of correction after the paper publication”.
International Journal of Philosophy (SciencePG)
Criticism 1 │ Criticism 2
Critical remark (2017): Listed by SPJ; Alternative indexing and also IF from Universal Impact Factor; Promises a two-week peer review.
International Journal of Philosophy and Theology (American Research Institute for Policy Development)
Criticism 1 │ Criticism 2 │ Criticism 3 │ Criticism 4
International Journal of Public Health and Human Rights (Bioinfo Publications)
Criticism
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ; On many other blacklists and IF from Index Copernicus.
International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies (Sryahwa Publications)
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ; Open access but asks for the copyright.
International Journal of Science Social Studies Humanities and Management (Brainy Buzz)
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ; This “international journal” is run by three editors from India; A fast-track review for $50 guarantees “the review, editorial decision, and author notification” on the manuscript “to take place within 5 working Days”; Publishes any subject.
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research (Research Publish Journals)
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ; On their homepage they state that in order to get a high IF their journals are “indexed in top class organisation around the world” although no major index is used.
International Open Journal of Philosophy (Academic and Scientific Publishing)
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ and was heavily critized on Beall’s blog; The editorial board consists of one person from Iran; Although boosting 12 issues a year they have published only 1 article in the journal’s first four years; A thorough review March 1 2017 concludes that it exhibits 17 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
International Researchers
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ; Indexed by e.g. Index Copernicus; Claims that it is “Monitor by Thomson Reuters” but is not part of the TR journal citation reports; Several pages are not working at time of review; A thorough review April 24 2017 concludes that it exhibits at least 6 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
Internet Journal of Law, Healthcare and Ethics (ISPUB)
Criticism 1 │ Criticism 2
Critical remark (2017): Formerly on Beall’s list.
Journal of Academic and Business Ethics (Academic and Business Research Institute)
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ as well as several other blacklists; Journal seems uncertain about it’s own name, the header curiously says “Journal of ethical and legal issues”.
Journal of Advances in Philosophy (Council for Innovative Research)
Remark (2017): Seems to have ceased operations.
Journal of Clinical Research & Bioethics (OMICS)
Criticism 1 │ Criticism 2 │ Criticism 3 │ Criticism 4 │ Criticism 5 │ Criticism 6
Critical remark (2017): This publisher is listed on SPJ and was taken to court for possible fraud by the Federal Trade Commission in the US.
Journal of Law and Ethics
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ; Claims to be on Ulrichs but is not; Claims to be in the Norwegian list and can actually be found there but under its former name (4 years earlier) and with 0 points.
Journal of Studies in Social Sciences and Humanities
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ; Alternative indexing; Uses several alternative IF providers. A thorough review October 2017 concludes that it exhibits at least 9 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.
Medical Ethics and Communication (Avid Science)
Criticism
Critical remarks (2017): Listed on SPJ; Spamming researchers with offer of eBook publication for $350.
Nova Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
Criticism
Critical remark (2017): This publisher was on Beall’s list; Uses alternative impact factors; Publishes in less than four weeks; Curiously, it says no fee is charged for publication.
Open Journal of Philosophy (Scientific Research Publishing – SCIRP)
Criticism 1 │ Criticism 2 │ Criticism 3 │ Criticism 4
Philosophical Papers and Review (Academic Journals)
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ and blacklisted by the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia; Although it claims to be a peer-review journal, it states that manuscripts “are reviewed by editorial board members or other qualified persons”.
Philosophy Study (David Publishing Company)
Criticism 1 │ Criticism 2 │ Criticism 3
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ.
World Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (Science and Education Publishing, SciEP)
Criticism 1 │ Criticism 2
Critical remark (2017): Listed on SPJ as well as many other blacklists.

UPDATE! New journal added: Advance Humanities and Social Sciences (Consortium Publisher). Behind this journal you’ll find OMICS, the most-ever discussed publisher of this kind, see http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/predatory-publisher-expanding-empire-in-canada. The only article published in 2016 is very badly edited, all the references are lost in the text and the paper would not pass an exam at our departments. The publisher is listed on SPJ.

UPDATE II: New journal added: The Recent Advances in Academic Science Journal (Swedish Scientific Publications). Despite the name it seems based in India. The only Swedish editor’s existence cannot be verified. Website quality is lacking. Listed on SPJ. A thorough review October 2017 concludes that it exhibits at least 15 of the 25 criteria for “predatory” journals.

UPDATE III: New journal added: Journal of Bioethics and Applications (Sci Forschen). Brand new journal with no articles yet. Publisher has been criticized for spamming more than once, have a bad record at Scam Analyze, and is listed on SPJ.

UPDATE IV: New journal added: Jacobs Journal of Clinical Trials. Spamming with invitation to special issue on ‘Ethical Issues in Health Care Research’. Have been severely criticized here and also in this scholarly article. Publisher listed on SPJ. A randomly chosen article from issue 1 is markedly flawed in execution.

UPDATE V: New journal added: JSM Health Education and Primary Health Care. Spamming with invitation to special issue on ‘Bioethics’. The publisher is listed on SPJ, and criticized and exposed here. It is indexed by spoof indexer Directory of Research Journals Indexing among others (whose website is now gone, BTW).

In light of recent legal action taken against people trying to warn others about dubious publishers and journals – see here and here – we want to stress that this blog post is about where we would like our articles to show up, it is about quality, and as such it is an expression of a professional judgement intended to help authors find good journals with which to publish. Indirectly, this may also help readers to be more discerning about the articles they read. As such it is no different from other rankings that can be found for various products and services everywhere. Our list of where not to publish implies no accusation of deception or fraud but claims to identify journals that experienced bioethicists would usually not find to be of high quality. Those criticisms linked to might be more upfront or confrontational; us linking to them does not imply an endorsement of any objectionable statement made therein. We would also like to point out that individual papers published in these journals might of course nevertheless be perfectly acceptable contributions to the scholarly literature of bioethics.

Stefan Eriksson & Gert Helgesson

Essential resources on so-called predatory publishing and open access:

Open access – the rise and fall of a community-driven model of scientific communication, by J Schöpfel.
Predatory Publishing, Questionable Peer Review, and Fraudulent Conferences, by John D Bowman.
Predatory and Fake Scientific Journals/Publishers – A Global Outbreak with Rising Trend: A Review, by Tin et al.
Rise of the predators: Business is booming in the murky global market of suspect and sham publishers and journals, by Bryn Nelson.
‘Predatory’ open access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics, by Cenyu Shen and Bo-Christer Björk.
Spurious alternative impact factors: The scale of the problem from an academic perspective, by Gutierrez et al.
The Writing Style of Predatory Publishers, by Markowitz et al.
How should we treat those taken in by predatory journals?, by Dalmeet Singh Chawla.
Why Open Research, a nice site advocating open access publishing for research

Fear of the unknown produces ghosts

26 April, 2017 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

What really can start feverish thought activity is facing an unclear threat. We do not really see what it is, so we fill the contours ourselves. At the seminar this week, we discussed what I think was such a case. A woman decided to test if she possibly had calcium deficiency. To her surprise, the doctor informed her that she suffered from a disease, osteoporosis, characterized by increased risk of bone fractures.

She already had experienced the problem. A hug could hurt her ribs and she had broken a shoulder when pushing the car. However, she felt no fear until she was informed that she suffered from a disease that meant increased risk of bone fracture.

I do not mean she had no reason to be worried. However, her worries seem to have become nightmarish.

Presumably, she already understood that she had to be careful in some situations. However, she interpreted the “risk factor” that she was informed about as an invisible threat. It is like a ghost, she says. She began to compare her body with a house where the foundation dissolves; a house which might therefore collapse. She began to experience great danger in every activity.

Many who are diagnosed with osteoporosis do not get fractures. If you get fractures, they do not have to be serious. However, the risk of fractures is greater in this group and if you get a hip fracture, that is a big problem. The woman in the example, however, imagined her “risk factor” as a ghost that constantly haunted her.

I now wonder: Are ethical debates sometimes are about similar ghost images? Most of us do not really know what embryo research is, for example, it seems vaguely uncanny. When we hear about it, we fill the contours: the embryo is a small human. Immediately, the research appears nightmarish and absolute limits must be drawn. Otherwise, we end up on a slippery slope where human life might degenerate, as the woman imagined her body might collapse.

I also wonder: If debates sometimes are about feverishly produced ghost images, how should we handle these ghosts? With information? But it was information that produced the ghosts. With persistent logical counter arguments? But the ghosts are in the feverish reasoning. Should we really continue to fill the contours of these images, as if we corrected bad sketches? Is it not taking ghosts too seriously? Is it not like trying to wake up yourself in a dream?

Everything started with the unclear threat. The rest were dreamlike consequences. We probably need to reflect more cautiously on the original situation where we experienced the first vague threat. Why did we react as did? We need to treat the problem in its more moderate beginning, before it developed its nightmarish dimensions.

This is not to say that we have no reason to be concerned.

Pär Segerdahl

Reventlow, S., Hvas, A. C., Tulinius, C. 2001. “In really great danger.” The concept of risk in general practice. Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care 19: 71-75

This post in Swedish

Trusting yourself

18 April, 2017 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Trusting yourself, what does it mean? It can of course mean thinking that you always know best, trusting your strength to prevail over whoever and whatever you may meet in life.

There is another form of trust in yourself, where you trust your uncertainty rather than your certainty. You respond to your uncertainty not by accusing yourself, but by taking a deep breath and saying: this is difficult. I would not be so uncertain if it was not for the fact that I have come across something that truly requires caution, reflection, and long-term investigation.

It sounds humble when Socrates says that the only thing he knows is that he knows nothing. Or when it is said that wisdom lies in the recognition that one is not wise. In a sense, it is humble. However, this form of humility also exhibits self-reliance. One is uncertain not because one is unusually stupid but because some things are unusually difficult. Life sometimes surpasses the intellect.

People who trust their uncertainty express it as honest questions, instead of hiding it behind clever arguments and theses. When they express their uncertainty as questions, their work can begin. The uncertainty is then their only certainty. It shows them there is something worthy of investigation. It shows them the way, through sincere questions and rejections of premature solutions.

Sometimes weakness is a strength. Socrates relied on it. Researching persons do.

Pär Segerdahl

This post in Swedish

Year: 2017 (Page 2 of 3)

Moral panic in the intellect

Are you a person or an animal?

We philosophize when we do not know how to think

Nudging people in the right direction

When “neuro” met “ethics”

Internal investigation of research misconduct often fails

Research is not a magical practice

Where to publish and not to publish in bioethics – the 2017 list

Fear of the unknown produces ghosts

Trusting yourself

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