Monday, January 28, 2019

Inference - A "Journal" Exposed


I wrote before about Inference, a weird "journal" that bills itself as an "International Review of Science", but has published some very questionable pieces by some very questionable people.

Back when they were hiding their editorial board, I deduced that David Berlinski was involved with it somehow, and my deduction was later proved correct.

Now a real investigative journalist has taken the job of looking further into this bizarre venture. It's physicist Adam Becker, and he's published his exposé in Undark.

Turns out that lots of people, when they find out the kind of stuff that Inference publishes, decide not to get involved with them, despite the large amounts they're paying for pieces. And it also turns out that Peter Thiel is one of the big funders. You know, the same Peter Thiel who has donated to far-right politicians like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Dana Rohrabacher.

I wonder if Becker's piece will convince legit academics, such as Andrew Yao, that they don't want to have anything to do with Inference.

2 comments:

jwaltos said...

I just finished reading the linked article in "Undark" by Becker. It's always good to see decent people doing good work. I would not have been aware of any of this had I not checked this site. I have never heard of "Inference" but I am aware of and have recently encountered such views that I can only consider as sinister..some borne out of agendas and others borne out of ignorance. The latter I encountered off I75 at "xxx Plantation" near Tifton when I stopped for gas. A cashier(ess) was extolling the virtues of Trump and his strength as a leader and only Reagan was second in her mind as a great leader. I politely interjected saying that he (Trump) has fight on his hands now and she came back with how he was unfairly "set-up" and that the Dem's were out to get him. I thanked the lady, paid my bill and left chagrined. I let my dog out of the CRV for a last leg stretch before hitting the road to Ontario and told him what happened. He had a good pee so I guess he understood.

MSEE said...

Anyone not voting D is far right. I say this because Rand Paul, is libertarian, like his dad. And libertarians don't usually vote D and definitely not Rand. That makes him far right.