Thread by @Meaningness

Is this a surprising outlier, or have things gotten worse than I thought? (Elsevier Science Direct peer-reviewed publication: gene for ESP discovered, N=10). sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Ah, hmm, I see? Elsevier is expanding into the lucrative New Age quackery market? They’re going to face stiff competition from established players, and risk their main market positioning, though.

OTOH, maybe they can see the writing on the wall: scientific publishing is over.

TFW it’s for a product strategy pivot. alternativesforhealing.com/business-direc…

Thanks to the several people who pointed out that the senior author is a well-known crank who has been publishing many papers like this every year. Most in the Elsevier journal _Explore_, of which he is the editor. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Radin

The demarcation problem is impossible in general, but usually easy in specific cases.

There are also cases in which it’s difficul: were discredited priming effects unavoidable errors, pathological science, or pseudoscience?

ESP genes are not a hard case. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcati…

Question then becomes: is it now usual or unusual for the mainstream science publishers to publish journals devoted to unambiguous pseudoscience, rather than the usual pathologically bad science?

Crowded market to compete in, but Elsevier has resources… alternativesforhealing.com/business-direc…

Once you’ve established you are in the pseudoscience zone, making fun of anything specific is unseemly. Too easy.

But, this is so much fun! Peer-reviewed Elsevier publication: cancer etc. caused by electron deficiency, treatable with grounding strap. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

It’s cruel and wrong to make fun of the class idiot, even if he’s telling everyone to wear a grounding strap. If the school administrators put the class idiot in charge of teaching AP Bio to avoid paying the regular science teacher’s salary, it should be a scandal.