You'd think "The Arthur Vandelay Urological Research Institute" would be a dead giveaway. But it seems some journal editors don't know their Seinfeld reruns.
John McCool wants to expose what he calls "predatory journals." These are periodicals with science-y sounding names that will publish research for a hefty fee and don't have the most robust peer review process (if any), taking advantage of scientists' need to "publish or perish" McCool thought the Urology & Nephrology Open Access Journal might be one of these, so he submitted a paper based on a fake disease from a "Seinfeld" episode and littered the document with references to the show.
The paper purports to be a case study on "uromysitisis," a not-real disease Jerry claims to have when he's caught urinating in a parking garage in a great 1991 Seinfeld episode. McCool wrote up his experience in The Scientist:
I went all out. I wrote my report as "Dr. Martin van Nostrand," the physician-alter ego of another Seinfeld character, and listed more show-inspired names as bogus coauthors. I made an email account for "Dr. van Nostrand" and created a fake institution where the authors worked: the Arthur Vandelay Urological Research Institute. In the acknowledgements section of my report, I thanked phony physicians including Tor Eckman, the bizarre holistic healer from "The Heart Attack," giving him a "Doctor of Holistic Medicine (HMD)" degree.
This isn't the first attempt to expose questionable journals by submitting ridiculous studies. A 2013 effort saw scientists submit made-up papers to more than 300 open-access journals.
MedCrave, the parent company of this journal, put out a statement this month saying that it is not a predatory publisher. In any case, its editors should probably flag any future scientific studies that cite George Costanza, J Peterman, or George Steinbrenner.
