More on the “fake, but peer-reviewed” front: in 2013, the “prestigious” journal, Psychological Science, published a paper supposedly finding that climate skeptics tend to have “conspiracist ideation” (whatever that means). The journal suggested that people who disbelieve the moon landing are more likely to doubt government climate claims.
The “study,” by Lewandowsky, Oberauer and Gignac, entitled, NASA faked the moon landing—therefore, (climate) science is a hoax, was quickly found to be filled with statistical errors.
of the 1145 participants in the study, only 10 thought the moon landing was a hoax. Of those who thought climate science was a hoax, almost all of them, 97.8 per cent, did NOT think the moon landing was a hoax.
This editorial suggests that there is a direct relationship between the status of a journal and the likelihood of it publishing fraudulent studies. Or it may be that academia is so riddled with flawed studies that most of them pass unnoticed, but such studies in the most influential journals tend to get exposed more often.
