Reprecussions of the Busting of a Research Peer-Review Ring

In mid-July, news outlets reported on the crackdown on an academic journal "publishing and citation ring." The publication at hand is the Journal of Vibration and Control. At the heart of the ring is associate professor Chen Chen-yuan (Peter Chen) from National Pingtung University of Education (NPUE) in Taiwan. Apparently, Chen and possible others had created ~130 alias online accounts as puppet reviewers for the journal, with Chen reviewing at least one of his own submissions. The publisher SAGE and the journal editor-in-chief, Prof. Ali Nayfeh, discovered peer reviews using templates for responses and were unable to reach these reviewers. SAGE confronted Chen, who may not have cooperated with the investigation. Subsequently, SAGE notified the university and retracted 60 articles involved in the ring. Under investigation by the university, Chen resigned his position at NPUE. Nayfeh also stepped down from his position as editor. It is unclear how many people were involved in the ring, but other researchers may have unwittingly been included as co-authors. Among the authors listed on the retractions were Peter Chen's brother, Chen Chen-wu, and Peter's former thesis advisor, Wei-ling Chiang—the Taiwan Cabinet's Minister of Education. This led to calls for Chiang resignation from the cabinet. Though Chiang maintains his innocence, he submitted his resignation. Peter Chen subsequently issued an open apology to Chiang for his indiscretion in using Chiang's name. Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology has also gotten involved as it had provided $170,000 in funds towards Chen's research. Furthermore, Chen could face charges of forgery.
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/10/scholarly-journal-retracts-60-articles-smashes-peer-review-ring/

On Certainty - Part 2: Science and Religion (another look)

Among skeptics, many hold fast to science as the be all and end all of all things, as the means to direct, disprove and prove everything else. Yet it so often gives a whiff of patronizing or feigned humility to say, "no one can know anything," while at the same time trying to disprove religion by science and or history. If everything is a great "I don't know," how can you use anything to justify your stance on anything?

Just as skeptics claim that philosophy, more specifically religion is a "stop to thought," skepticism also risks putting a stop to thought. Religious institutions so often welcome explanations except those which challenge their religion. At the same time skeptics welcome explanations except those which challenge science and more specifically Darwinism. Another way of looking at this is well articulated by self-proclaimed Marxist, atheist, evolutionary geneticist, and Harvard professor Dr. Richard Lewington:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Therefore the conclusion is already drawn for many religious or evolutionist that God exists or does not exist and to consider otherwise is unacceptable and any data must be molded or spun to fit that presumption or presupposition. I do not say that it is necessarily wrong at the outset to hold to one side or the other. I do say to claim that religion is the sole stop to thought is to defy self examination and risks hypocrisy. I myself am not above this as I presuppose the existence of God whereas a friend of skeptical leaning presupposes the absence of God. My friend cannot accept or acknowledge even the consideration of God as on the same level of discourse as science. However he puts forth that, "the sad thing is that there are fools on both sides."

Because the denial of God is presupposed, it is not Reason that motivates the denial but often a dogged refusal to change or challenge one's presuppositions. Is science the be all and end all? Skeptics chalk religion and philosophy up to human constructs and science as reality. However I say science is also a human construct in that it is our attempt to describe and organize what we observe. Of the sciences, evolution may very well be the least empirical and most philosophical. Philosophy and science are efforts to grasp reality and are not mutually exclusive. Science attempts to answer the what and sometimes the how, while philosophy attempt to answer the why and sometimes the how. Even this is simplistic as there is overlap; however, it is a start to see how the two can coexist.