Fake Paper Generation

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Fri May 22, 2009 2:12 am

I hadn't heard of this site before, which is to do with random creation of papers which have fooled people at actual conferences.

http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/

Doesn't anyone else have their minds utterly boggled by this kind of thing, and want to destroy a few choice journal offices and university buildings for the good of society?

As a kid, I watched an episode of "game for a laugh" where they got a load of random pratts to create pictures out of paint and junk and then invited a few art critics to a posh exhibition. Of course you can imagine the results. That was the best experiment I've ever heard of, and on "game for a laugh"! I wonder if they faked it?

MrPedantic · Post by **MrPedantic** » Sun May 24, 2009 3:12 pm

When I saw the thread title, I thought it was some new circumscription, like "Blank Generation".

(On reflection, it might well be.)

MrP

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:19 am

Since the very first university students in Europe usually only submitted theology papers, we needn't be too hard on the work of the "fake paper generation". There has always been a lot of nonsense.

I do think that the expansion of the university system has created a horrible bilge machine of pointless research though. Everyone seems to.

And this proves that plenty of people are happy to create, or at least read, stuff that they themselves cannot actually attribute any real meaning to.

What should we do about it?