Friday 23 December 2011

Has the journal Nature sold out to the alternative medicine industry and quack/fake science?

What to say about this move of the world's (by far) most prestigeous scientific journal?


 Well, this surely does not inspire much confidence:

We are grateful for the support of our sponsors, Saishunkan Pharmaceutical Co., ltd. and the Kitasato University Oriental Medicine Research Center.
And I'm sure the boost of the Nature bank balance was handsome. This suplementary issue will very probably also do wonders for the Nature impact factor, a commodity worth its weight in rhodium in these days when scientific publication and citation is a currency and – if stunts like this are becoming a habit among the leading journals – pretty soon not very much more than that. The Nature editors must be proud of being pioneers in this area.

One blogger with both insight and clout has so far concluded:

I'm left with the conclusion that, to their eternal shame, by publishing this issue, the editors of Nature have become willing shills for the TCM industry. Nature has sold out, and its editors and publisher should be called out for it.

But, please, judge for yourselves here (the supplement issue is apparently open access online) and read the comments so far....

Here, and here.

Ta!