When pigs fly: Fake science conferences spread to Canada

‘Fraud affects all of us,’ professor says of scams

• Here’s the latest way to cheat your way to success in the academic world: Give a speech at a science conference that’s so awful, it will let you present research about flying pigs.

All you have to do is pay cash.

Companies t hat host thousands of these conferences per year are now offering them in Canada.

Fake — but expensive — conferences help people to become professors, doctors and other professionals without proper training by providing credentials they haven’t really earned.

They are marketed heavily in the Third World.

And far from being a vic- timless fraud, this cheats the taxpayer and spreads misinformation and i ncompetence in important professions.

When a scientist discovers something big, he or she publishes the findings in a science journal. But “predatory” journals will publish fake studies and make them look like real science. They help unqualified people to get university jobs or promotions, by making it appear they published legitimate discoveries. The journal collects a steep fee.

Last fall, the Ottawa Citi zen exposed an Indian company called OMICS International for publishing fabricated papers and making them look legitimate. OMICS expanded into Canada last year, taking over two Canadian publishing houses.

OMICS and others also run conferences that accept outrageously f raudulent work, the Citizen has found. People who pay to partici- pate in them can establish professional credentials without doing any real research work.

They tell their own universities how t hey have been i nvited to present their important findings to a high- level symposium.

The university ( and ultimately the taxpayer) pays for travel to conferences in Paris, Dubai, Las Vegas and other tourist spots. Participants don’t even have to show up at the conference, because they have written proof that they were registered there.

The Citizen t ested an OMICS biology conference scheduled for this summer, submitting two proposals:

Paper No. 1: The biomechanics of how pigs fly. Biomechanics is the study of bones, muscles and other parts t hat help animals move.

OMICS invited us to the conference to lecture on flying pigs — as long we first paid them US$999.

Paper No. 2. claims that birds live at the bottom of the ocean, including robins and roadrunners. Our paper said robins are endangered by overfishing, and underwater roadrunners are too slow to escape their “wily predators.” We acknowl edged funding from the Acme Company, which supplied the rockets and explosives in the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons. OMICS accepted us again. At the University of Saskatchewan, medical professor Roger Pierson served for years on the committee that decides on tenure and promotion for faculty. “Being an invited speaker is a big deal” for anyone on a career track, he said. “That is something that departments, colleges and universities all use to evaluate your reputation.”

Yet he said universities often can’t tell which conferences are real.

“If someone gets tenure in Canada, that is not a trivial exercise. You’re talking 20 to 30 years, plus,” of career.

“Universities should care about this. These are our colleagues. And if they attain credibility by fraud, it affects all of us.”