Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/02/peer-reviewed-scientific-study-claims-covid-19-is-embedded-in-our-dna-can-be-cured-with-magical-amulets-also-stonehenge.html
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If it allows for peers like that to do the reviewing it can’t be much of a journal.
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I mean, I love batshit out-there fantasy as much as the next person, but maybe don’t call it science?
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A perfect example of a Mud Moat:
key paragraph:
The next question is: Can a misinformative vast literature be used intentionally as a tactic to win political debates? It seems to me that in principle it could. Suppose you and your friends wanted to push a weak argument for political purposes. You could all write a bunch of papers about it, with abstracts and numbered sections and bibliographies and everything. You could cite each other’s papers. If you wanted to, you could even create a journal, and have a peer review system where you give positive reviews to each other’s B.S. papers. Voila - a peer-reviewed literature chock full of misinformation.
This woo-filled paper is only the most obvious example of this. There are other fields where you can find ideas with no empirical backing whatsoever, yet they still have this deep and vast tangle of sciencey citations.
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TEMPORARY REMOVAL: Can Traditional Chinese Medicine provide insights into controlling the COVID-19 pandemic: Serpentinization-induced lithospheric long-wavelength magnetic anomalies in Proterozoic bedrocks in a weakened geomagnetic field mediate the aberrant transformation of biogenic molecules in COVID-19 via magnetic catalysis
This pretty much says it all. Technobabble and insane “conclusions.” Also removed. So there is that…
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Interesting, and it applies beyond STEM fields. Creating “mud moats” of reputable-sounding arguments for neoliberal economics and Constitutional “originalism” is arguably the purpose of the network of think tanks, endowed chairs, and economics and political science departments and law programmes and societies funded by the Kochs and their ilk.
Combine that with STEM training and this is how you get a Scott Atlas.
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So I just gotta transfuse my blood with that of a child, eat a magic ommulette for breakfast and stone grind a hedge?
SMASH CUT TO: nuthin’ happind!?
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One of the interesting things about the whole open science stuff is that the open science journals actually publish the names of the peer reviewers when the paper comes out. That means that the peer reviewers are actually on the hook for stuff like this.
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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
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Tango Uniform
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Do you suppose toilet manufacturers have pee’r reviews? 
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Seagull/Chip Interface Studies, the professional organ* of the Seafront Attraction Association, is a pier reviewed publication.
*Actually, the Wurlitzer is their professional organ.
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This is the kind of high-quality publication process that Elsevier (the world’s largest and best-funded scholarly publisher, also publisher of this journal) swears up-and-down will be irrepairably harmed if open-access journal publication becomes the norm.
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Oh also:
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If you write an idiotic paper and have it reviewed by idiots, it is peer reviewed.
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Withdrawn!?!?! I am shocked. Shocked I am.
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STOTEN is even a somewhat respected journal (Impact factor of 6.55, compare that to nature communications, 12.12).
My partner is an associate editor for a journal, and I know she has an incredibly hard time finding reviewers - those qualified are just extremely busy. But I wonder if bad papers are skipping through as a result? The editor shouldn’t have even sent this one for review.
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Many journals even ask you to suggest reviewers when you submit a manuscript.
