Civil Disobedience in Science Publishing?

A new paper asks “what part civil disobedience can enjoy in the context of exploration.”

The paper caught my eye mainly because it cites my blog, and, in specific, the two academic papers that I have printed less than the Neuroskeptic pseudonym (1, 2).

Publishing a paper less than a pseudonym is relatively uncommon, despite the fact that as I reviewed in one particular of my papers, it’s far from unheard of. I never deemed it to be a kind of civil disobedience, but the authors of the new paper, Bart Penders and David M. Shaw, seem to class it as these kinds of.

This is what they have to say about me:

Neuroskeptic (gender mysterious) discusses, critiques and often ridicules, scholarly operate in neuroscience. To prevent retaliation against her ‘normal’ qualified actions, she makes use of the pseudonym. She defended this observe in a scholarly publication discussing the merits of nameless/pseudonymous publication (Neuroskeptic 2013), but the moral status of this activity, as effectively as her motives, have also been actively questioned (Teixeira da Silva 2017).

This is relatively accurate, but the purpose I never considered of my pseudonymity as a kind of civil disobedience is that it’s not disobeying any rules. As far as I know, there is no rule against writing a paper less than an evident pseudonym at any journal.

By evident pseudonym, I indicate a pen name which is plainly not a real name — like “Neuroskeptic,” or (say) “Nameless.” An evident pseudonym is just not misleading in any way, mainly because it is exactly what it seems to be like, a pseudonym.

On the other hand, individuals have printed less than non-evident pseudonyms and Penders and Shaw examine one particular these kinds of situation:

An additional current example is “Lars Andersson”, who printed a controversial article in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. He claimed to present new proof casting doubt on the efficacy of a vaccine utilized in Sweden. When its promises were being speedily debunked, it also grew to become evident that Andersson did not actually operate at the Karolinska Institute, nor did he exist.

Giving your name as Lars Andersson of Karolinska Institute when this is neither your name nor your institution is (as I have explained before) plainly misleading, and is certainly against the rules and norms of authorship.

Then all over again, I myself have utilized this variety of misleading pseudonym as effectively, when I wrote a spoof paper total of Star Wars jokes and submitted it to a amount of journals less than the names of Lucas McGeorge and Annette Kin (which are just about realistic).

My Star Wars spoof was misleading, but I did it to expose deception on the component of the predatory journals that printed the absurd paper. Those people journals (four of them) claimed to be peer-reviewed journals with excellent regulate, which was a lie, mainly because they printed a minimal-excellent spoof. This is likely the closest I have occur to civil disobedience.