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Are Pseudonyms Ethical in (Science) Publishing? Neuroskeptic as a Case Study

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Abstract

The blogosphere is full of personalities with masks, or pseudonyms. Although not a desired state of public communication, one could excuse the use of pseudonyms in blogs and social media, which are generally unregulated or weakly regulated. However, in science publishing, there are increasingly strict rules regarding the use of false identities for authors, the lack of institutional or contact details, and the lack of conflicts of interest, and such instances are generally considered to be misconduct. This is because these violations of publishing protocol decrease trust and confidence in science and bring disrepute to those scientists who conform to the rules set out by journals and publishers and abide by them. Thus, when cases are encountered where trust and protocol in publishing are breached, these deserve to be highlighted. In this letter, I focus on Neuroskeptic, a highly prominent science critic, primarily on the blogosphere and in social media, highlighting the dangers associated with the use of pseudonyms in academic publishing.

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Correspondence to Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva.

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The author declares no conflicts of interest.

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Disclaimer The author has not read the full text of Dante. The editors of Perspectives on Psychological Science were approached, and felt that given the time between the original publication’s date and this letter, that it would not merit the publication of the letter, or of an expression of concern. Neuroskeptic, who was also contacted by email for comment, denied the allegations and referred the readers to his/her/their defense on another blog: http://blogs.plos.org/scicomm/2016/03/21/pseudonyms-in-science-neuroskeptic-speaks-to-neurocritic-dr-primestein-and-neurobonkers/.

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Teixeira da Silva, J.A. Are Pseudonyms Ethical in (Science) Publishing? Neuroskeptic as a Case Study. Sci Eng Ethics 23, 1807–1810 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9825-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9825-7

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