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by jszymborski 9 days ago
So, I'm not making any accusations or decelerations of "bad science", I've only read the abstract and this isn't my field.

That said, some relevant context here is that:

(1) Case studies are some of the most easily fabricated journal outputs

(2) This is published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, which is listed by some as being a predatory journal [0]. The Frontiers publishers are the fine folk who published an AI generated anatomical figure of a rat that not only was obviously incorrect to anyone you'd stop on the street, it'd give them nightmares [1].

So I'm not saying this paper is bunk, but that I reserve a healthy degree of skepticism pending some clinical trials or replication in animal models.

[0] https://www.predatoryjournals.org/news/list-of-all-frontiers...

[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/scientists-aghast-at...
2 comments
tokai 9 days ago
I would not trust predatoryjournals.org. Beside the site looking much like the worst predatory journals, they have no transparency in who they are and how they evaluate journals. It seems just to be Beall's old list, with some newer things thrown in.

I'm not saying that Frontiers in Neuroscience is not predatory, but its not a proper argument for it to be predatory, to point to a random list as proof. As Beall couldn't understand being crap publisher is not predatory in it self.

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jszymborski 9 days ago
That's totally fair, and I'm often reminded not to paint all "Frontiers" journals with the same brush (although it's difficult for me sometimes).
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repple 9 days ago
They do add:

> Generative AI statement

> The author(s) declared that Generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

> Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.

Which is good.

But it makes me wonder about “wherever possible”. In which case wouldn’t it be possible and why would it remain if it’s not possible?

edits: formatting

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