Wednesday, June 29, 2022

 

‘Humans Descended from Dinosaurs! Hilarious/Sad “Paleontology Journal”'

 

On June 13, I received an invitation to publish in what was obviously a predatory paleontology journal. (The “Assistant Managing Editor” incorrectly assumed I have a doctorate (I don’t)).

Here is the email, preceded by my curt response:

Letter

On June 14, the “Assistant Managing Editor” made this reply:

Dear Dr. Daniel Phelps,

Thank you for your reply, We would like to inform you that ours is not a predatory journal. We have received the ISSN which is provided in our previous email. For your convenience, we are providing the link of our journal where you can find complete information of our journal and Editorial Board members. Link: https://medwinpublishers.com/IJPBP/index.php Kindly revert back if you have any queries. Look forward hear from you soon. Kind Regards, Jackie Crystal Assistant Managing Editor

I clicked on the link and found, sadly, several papers by people that were probably starting their careers. Then there were a couple of absolute crackpot papers. One featured a weird claim about a supposed saber-tooth cat fossil, that was comically just weathered rocks (pareidolia, no actual bones), but the topper was this “Research Article” that claims humans are the descendants of dinosaurs! Here is a screenshot of the start of the “Research Article” in case it is removed:

Screenshot

This “science journal” is taking money from naive and delusional people. They should be ashamed. The “Editorial Board” should be forced to help the unfortunate authors who publish with them and should be publicly exposed and shamed for being associated with this “paleontology journal.”

My apologies for so many scare quotes in this post.




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