To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: News from Ivory Tower Land
From: shofmann at mindspring.com (Scott Hofmann)
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 16:54:49 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

>>>>> "MW" == Michael Walsh <MJW at press.jhu.edu> writes:

 MW> "Three MIT graduate students set out to show what kind of gobbledygook
 MW> can pass muster at an academic conference these days, writing a computer
 MW> program that generates fake, nonsensical papers. And sure enough, a
 MW> Florida conference took the bait."

 MW> http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/04/21/academic.hoax.ap/index.html

>From what I've read, that conference is run by the "Creation Con" people of the
academic world, in other words it's a conference more interested in making
money than bringing a group of subject-matter experts together. Their standards
are low relative to other conferences, and it's showing here, since it's
obvious that absolutely nobody actually *looked* at the paper they
accepted. But heck, as long as people are buying convention memberships and
journal subscriptions....

scott

--
J. Scott Hofmann                      http://www.kniggets.org
shofmann at mindspring.com