A Scientist Used "Rick and Morty" to Troll Academic Journals With a Fake Study On "Schwitinization”

And that’s the waaaay the (fake) news goes.

Oh geez. If you’ve been using Google Scholar or other academic search engines for your studies, be warned: the fake news epidemic has struck those hallowed resources as well. (*Burrp.*)

In fact, as undergraduate college professor and PhD student Farooq Ali Khan of Hyderabad, India has proven, some journals will happily publish academic studies based on Rick and Morty nonsense as if they were 100 per cent real.

According to Motherboard, Ali Khan submitted a clearly-fake paper called "Newer Tools to Fight Inter-Galactic Parasites and Their Transmissibility in Zyrgion Simulation" to 14 scientific journals as part of a scientific study sting (the coolest kind of sting).

He wound up getting published in three journals. Five others offered to publish the paper, so long as he paid them for the privilege. This despite the fact that one of the co-authors of the paper was listed as "Beth Smith" (AKA an actual character from Rick and Morty).

Here’s an excerpt from the paper, where it mentions the fictional nation of Wakanda and actually says in big capital letters 'MORTY'.

Later, he says a "dinglebop was smoothened by the help of schleem", and explains the process to prevent a "fleeb formation".

So, yeah, this should have been an easy fake to spot.

The 14 journals were selected from a list of "predatory" journals maintained by American librarian Jeffrey Beall. The list apparently collects journals that either propagate "fake science" by publishing papers sight unseen, or demand money from authors, using that as the only benchmark for publication. Bookmark that list.

Three of the journals rejected Ali Khan submission, in some cases asking if it was a joke.

(The funniest excerpt from Motherboard’s report comes from the Journal of Bacteriology & Parasitology, which has this comment from one of the reviewers: "The article's language is very confusing and many words doesn't make any sense to me, for instance, dinglebop, schleem, schwitinization.")

Read the whole paper here, in case you need to someday know how to use Magnetic Oddities Radiation TherapY (MORTY).