海角大神

Next month, Dr. Iris Pear will present her groundbreaking new study at the International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics.

Or at least she would, if she were a real person.

Iris Pear 鈥� a play on 鈥淪iri Apple鈥� 鈥� is the invention of Christophe Bartneck, an associate professor of computer science at New Zealand's University of Canterbury. The study in question is completely nonsensical, procedurally generated by iOS鈥檚 autocomplete function. Why, then, did a conference for 鈥渓eading academic scientists鈥� select it for presentation?

On Thursday, Dr. Bartneck received an invitation to submit research for an upcoming conference on nuclear physics. With virtually no background in the subject, he decided to use autocomplete to help write his facetious submission.

鈥淚 started a sentence with 鈥榓tomic鈥� or 鈥榥uclear鈥� and then ,鈥� Bartneck wrote in a blog post. 鈥淭he text really does not make any sense.鈥�

Aside from a sprinkling of scientific buzzwords, Bartneck鈥檚 abstract is both off-topic and unreadable. One passage reads:

Nuclear energy is not a nuclear nuclear power to the nuclear nuclear program he added and the nuclear nuclear program is a good united state of the nuclear nuclear power program and the united way nuclear nuclear program nuclear.

And yet, Bartneck received a follow-up email just three hours later 鈥� his abstract had been accepted. From there, he could pay $1,099 to register as an academic speaker at the Atlanta, Ga. convention.

鈥淚 did not complete this step since to me wasting money this way,鈥� Bartneck told the Guardian Australia. 鈥淢y impression is that this is not a particularly good conference.鈥�

Bartneck鈥檚 study calls to mind other prominent hoaxes, such as the so-called 鈥淪okal affair.鈥� In 1996, the humanities journal聽Social Text published a study titled, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity"聽by New York University physics professor Alan Sokal, whose paper was actually an experiment designed to test the journal鈥檚 political biases and intellectual rigor. Using logical fallacies and pseudoscientific gibberish, it argued that quantum gravity is a social construct.

New research suggests that many journals are slacking on peer review. In a kind of , Harvard biologist and science journalist John Bohannon submitted false studies to 304 open-access journals. More than half accepted his paper, which featured fake names and several basic chemistry errors.

But the acceptance of Bartneck鈥檚 fake study may be less surprising. Between its poorly designed website, open calls for abstracts, and vague location, the conference smacks of a scam.

It wouldn鈥檛 be the first organization that tried to capitalize on scientists鈥� need to publish. In 2014, the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology accepted a submission titled 鈥淕et Me Off Your [expletive] Mailing List." The 鈥渟tudy,鈥� which simply repeats the titular phrase for several pages, was submitted by Peter Vamplew, a lecturer of computer science at Federation University in Victoria after receiving unsolicited requests from the journal.

鈥淭丑别测鈥檙别 , preying on young, inexperienced researchers who unwittingly don鈥檛 realise they鈥檙e of questionable quality,鈥� Vamplew told the Guardian.