Scorpion Stings Itself!

In Whos Afraid of Peer Review? ‘Science’ magazine publishes a purported bit of “research” into the failings of open access journals which starts by selecting those of less repute and fails to do any comparable study of the population (of traditional subscription-based journals) against which the open access journals are being compared. This has generated a lot of negative reaction, including a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the writer who submitted to ‘Science’ his story of a “sting” on the open access journals was actually engaged in a sting on the ‘Science’ magazine itself.