Does XKCD's Cartoon Show How Scientific Publishing Is a Joke?

'An XKCD comic — and its many remixes — perfectly captures the absurdity of academic research,' writes the Atlantic (in an article shared by Slashdot reader shanen).

It argues that the cartoon 'captured the attention of scientists — and inspired many to create versions specific to their own disciplines. Together, these became a global, interdisciplinary conversation about the nature of modern research practices.'

It depicts a taxonomy of the 12 'Types of Scientific Paper,' presented in a grid. 'The immune system is at it again,' one paper's title reads. 'My colleague is wrong and I can finally prove it,' declares another. The gag reveals how research literature, when stripped of its jargon, is just as susceptible to repetition, triviality, pandering, and pettiness as other forms of communication. The cartoon's childlike simplicity, though, seemed to offer cover for scientists to critique and celebrate their work at the same time...

You couldn't keep the biologists away from the fun ('New microscope!! Yours is now obsolete'), and — in their usual fashion — the science journalists soon followed ('Readers love animals'). A doctoral student cobbled together a website to help users generate their own versions. We reached Peak Meme with the creation of a meta-meme outlining a taxonomy of academic-paper memes. At that point, the writer and internet activist Cory Doctorow lauded the collective project of producing these jokes as 'an act of wry, insightful auto-ethnography — self-criticism wrapped in humor that tells a story.'

Put another way: The joke was on target. 'The meme hits the right nerve,' says Vinay Prasad, an associate epidemiology professor and a prominent critic of medical research. 'Many papers serve no purpose, advance no agenda, may not be correct, make no sense, and are poorly read. But they are required for promotion.' The scholarly literature in many fields is riddled with extraneous work; indeed, I've always been intrigued by the idea that this sorry outcome was more or less inevitable, given the incentives at play. Take a bunch of clever, ambitious people and tell them to get as many papers published as possible while still technically passing muster through peer review... and what do you think is going to happen? Of course the system gets gamed: The results from one experiment get sliced up into a dozen papers, statistics are massaged to produce more interesting results, and conclusions become exaggerated. The most prolific authors have found a way to publish more than one scientific paper a week. Those who can't keep up might hire a paper mill to do (or fake) the work on their behalf.


The article argues the Covid-19 pandemic induced medical journals to forego papers about large-scale clinical trials while 'rapidly accepting reports that described just a handful of patients. More than a few CVs were beefed up along the way.'

But pandemic publishing has only served to exacerbate some well-established bad habits, Michael Johansen, a family-medicine physician and researcher who has criticized many studies as being of minimal value, told me. 'COVID publications appear to be representative of the literature at large: a few really important papers and a whole bunch of stuff that isn't or shouldn't be read.'

Unfortunately, the Atlantic adds, 'none of the scientists I talked with could think of a realistic solution.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.