[Coral-List] predatory journals and coral science in India

[Douglas Fenner]

Nick,
    I used whether the English was good or not as a way of telling whether
the passage was plagiarized or not.  Plagiarism was the misdeed, not bad
English, bad English was a clue that a passage had not been plagiarized.  I
don't label journals fraudulent BECAUSE they have poor English, poor
English is one of the clues (I provided several others) that can be used to
try to figure out which are fraudulent.  They are fraudulent because they
claim to do peer review but do not do so, or if they do, do it so
inadequately that people who don't know what they are doing or even engage
in blatant plagiarism can easily get published, as long as they pay the
price.  Like a diploma mill, pay me $X and I print out a diploma that says
you have a PhD., even though you never studied anything.
     I can remember when there were journals in a variety of other
languages other than English (there are still scientific journals in
Russian, Japanese and Chinese, and a small number of journals in other
languages).  Yes, the big publishers are definitely in it for profit, no
question, it is a very lucrative business for them, with free work provided
by scientific reviewers and authors.  Most profit-making companies don't
have legions of highly skilled volunteers working for free for them to
increase their profits.
    But in my opinion the reason that most scientific journals have
switched to English is because more people can read English than any other
language.  If you publish in English you will have more readers than if you
publish in any other language.  I think it is the publishing scientists
themselves who have driven this through which journals they choose to
publish in, though journals surely have not been dragged along against
their will, you're probably right that publishing journals in English is
more profitable because there are more readers, and the for-profit journal
publishers aim to maximize their profits, as virtually all businesses do
(or else they don't last long in the competition.)
      My statements about competence were directed at the authors' many
errors in identification of species.  Identifying corals and doing coral
taxonomy is not easy, as anyone who has tried will realize.  It takes a
mountain of work to make a little progress.  But these people have
published mountains of papers (something like 250 papers, I'm told, for
Raghunathan) using a shortcut, publishing when they actually have not
learned enough to identify coral species correctly.  They are not yet
competent to identify coral species, which you can see in what I wrote
about their papers in detail.  Anyone who wants to can look at the papers
to see for themselves.  They are not competent to write good English, but
that is no crime at all.  But if one cannot write good English, it is in
their own best interest to get help.  India is a big enough country to have
lots of people who are very good at English.  If they don't know someone, I
bet their are people outside India willing to help.  Journals need to find
at least a few such people who can review papers and improve them.  I have
volunteered to help these people if they stop plagiarizing, but I will not
help them as long as they continue that. I've volunteered to review coral
articles and books for Zoological Survey of India for free, they have not
taken me up on that.  Yes, there are minor errors in English in many
papers, and some journals don't seem to care, but I think many or most do
(I have not done a survey on that).
       It appears to me that the explosion of predatory journals has
happened because publishing on the internet is so cheap compared to
publishing on paper, that anybody can do it, and fake being a real journal
when they aren't.  Plus, being financed by the people who publish papers
instead of the people who read papers means that publishing can be driven
by authors who want to get something published whether it is any good or
not drive the publishing instead of readers who want to read quality
articles not junk articles.  The government of India itself has made it
very clear that plagiarism and using predatory journals are not acceptable
to them.  Predatory journals that pretend to have peer review but do not,
are motivated by profit every bit as much as major journals, they just
choose to cheat and to lie about what the do.  And clearly, they are
getting away with it.
       Predatory journal publishing is a real threat to legitimate
science.  People who cheat and publish with them are getting promotions and
better pay ahead of honest people who do the hard work to do things right.
Predatory journals depend on the fact that it is not easy to determine
whether a journal is predatory or not.
       Where do you get the figure that only 3% of the global population is
"literate" in English?  And what is the standard for that?  Wikipedia gives
5.52% of the world population as native English speakers (their term, a
standard one in languages, I believe).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
It is the 3rd most common after Mandarin (entire branch) and Spanish.
English is No. 1 rank for total speakers, with 1.121 billion speakers,
which includes both those for whom it is their 1st language and those for
whom it is second.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers
 Of course, those who can write it well are another, smaller group, no
doubt.  I'm not sure that the number of people who can write Mandarin well
is greater than those who can write English well, anybody's guess.
       There is NO question in my mind that having English as your primary
language, the one you learned first and use all the time, is a huge
advantage in publishing science papers over those who don't.  A second
language is much more difficult to learn, and rarely can a person get
really good at it.  Many if not most native English speakers, including
myself, struggle their entire lifetimes to try to get good at writing it.
We learn to speak it when we are young, but struggle our whole life to
learn to write it well.  Is it fair to all the people who don't have
English as their first language to require them to write science papers in
English?  Surely not fair.  Legally, no one is required to do so, as far as
I know.  You can publish in whatever language you want, if you can find a
journal that publishes in that language.  So, do it!  Publish in your own
language.  But people don't.  Why not?  People decide what language to
publish in, likely based on what they can do, and the natural incentives.
You have many more readers if you publish in English.  Even within a
country like India which has a huge number of languages, it is to your
advantage to publish in a language which as many people as possible can
read.  In India's case, that's English I bet.  People choose of their
volition to do that.  It isn't some vast conspiracy of publishers to
victimize people who speak other languages.  You simply can communicate
with more people if you do use English.  And authors all want more people
to read what they wrote.  A natural motivation.  Is it fair that the
language of Science is English and not Mandarin?
       At this point, many more people can read enough English to
understand scientific articles than can write in good English for
journals.  Computer translations are available free on the web, and are
good enough to understand an article (probably), but are unlikely to be
good enough to translate text from another language into English well
enough to be published.  Some humans can do it, it is not a common skill,
languages are incredibly complicated which is why online translations are
not excellent, it takes too much computing power and probably is too slow.
Humans do better.  But that's real work, and a very valuable skill, so they
can charge for it, and that is only fair.  That doesn't leave authors of
other languages a lot of good options.  Trying to get volunteer help from a
friend or colleague might not be too easy, depending on how much text must
be worked on.  I helped Yuri Latipov with his coral taxonomy writings,
because I wanted to be able to read them, and I can't read Russian.  He got
them translated into English by translators there in Russia, but when I
looked at the English translation I could see it needed a lot of
improvement.  I found that trying to improve the English was hard work,
it's not easy, and I gave up before it was really good.  I often understood
the meaning of what was being said, and could tell it wasn't good English,
but it was very difficult to make it into good English.
       If anybody knows a better language to have science in, go for it.
No law against it.  But you'll find you have fewer readers, and few if any
authors are willing to publish in something that isn't read.  Unless they
want to get a higher salary and promotions and they know that the people
giving those out don't know the difference between a predatory journal and
a legit journal.
       By the way, I've never had a journal or editor tell me not to
correct English in an article I review, except one journal that told me
that they had their own professional editors that would do that, so don't
waste your time doing it.  Legit journals certainly have some grammatical
and other errors in them.  But I've read a lot of journal articles and
never read a single article in a legit journal that I can remember that had
a "lot" of such errors.  Nothing close to the number in things written by
some people publishing in predatory journals.  Not close.  Again, neither a
crime nor something to look down the nose at.  But not good for the
journal, and not good for science.  You need to be sure what the author is
saying, and with poor English you often aren't.
        I think it would be hard to find anyone in higher education that
would say a "glut" of money is going into higher education.  That said, it
was said many decades ago that Harvard University had a larger endowment
than many countries' whole economies.  I wonder if they worry about whether
that is ethical.  The cost of education has been rising in the US much
faster than inflation.  As has the cost of health care.  That's not
sustainable.  And it doesn't help increase the education of the public.
High journal prices have been a major problem for large university
libraries.  Indeed, journals have a monopoly on the information contained
within them, and publishers know that.  Monopolies lead to charging what
the traffic will bear, sometimes called "gouging".  Society journals are an
outstanding exception, prominently including the journal published by the
International Coral Reef Society.  Join!
      Beall no longer keeps his list of predatory journals online.  From
what I've read, the publishers of journals on that list harassed him so
much he quit.  Read some of the articles I've pointed to, I've never read
any of them saying that his list was due to bias.  Others have taken it up
and put their lists online.  The fact is, most of us don't know which
journals are predatory, there are now so many predatory journals, and they
do a great job of imitating legit journals.  Most criminals do not want to
get caught, and some are experts at hiding and looking innocent.  You can
be sure they don't want anyone "outing" them by publishing a list of
predatory journals that lists their journal.  Bad for business.  But the
lists do science a favor, we need to know which journals are legitimate and
which are predatory (which actually have peer review and which don't and
will publish anything for a price).
          Cheers, Doug


On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 4:26 AM Nick Wehner via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Relying on the mastery of English to determine if a publisher is
> “predatory” is a bit foolish. Let us not forget that Beall’s List was quite
> often described as ethnocentric and racist for these very reasons. That
> list has since been disavowed and removed by the University of Colorado.
>
> English is the “language of science” nowadays. International journals tend
> to publish in English simply because doing so makes the most profit*:
> historically, the greatest scientific funding was coming from
> English-speaking countries. These same countries had a glut of money going
> to higher education, which publishers quickly realized they could turn into
> profits. Centralizing all publication under one language was/is the
> cheapest option, so those publishers could make the greatest profits by
> *not* translating anything to-or-from English — they only accept English
> work, and they only publish English work. Want to translate a work into
> another language with your own skills? You have to pay the publisher for
> that right. As a result, there is a HUGE knowledge gap between the
> English-literate world and everyone else. Only 3% of the global population
> is literate in English. Whether researchers like it or note, their actions
> have (and continue to) contribute to this growing knowledge divide.
>
> So, you’re saying that a journal (which is essentially forced to publish
> in English) which produced in a non-native English-speaking country, is
> disadvantaged when it comes to writing scientific-level English? You don’t
> say! Who would have thought? Being literate in only English myself, I
> thought writing a scientific paper all by myself in Mandarin would be a
> walk in the park…
>
> Major “non-predatory” journals like Marine Policy and Marine Pollution
> Bulletin (both published by Elsevier, so that’s about as “legit” as I can
> think of) are full of grammatical errors. Peer-reviews are told to evaluate
> only the science, *not* the grammar. So again, stating that peer-reviewers
> aren’t competent because they don’t fix these errors? That’s exactly what
> major native-English publishers tell them to do! Furthermore, translation
> services (especially scientific translation) are incredibly expensive. I
> have a $250k for my major project: I do not have it in my budget to
> translate information into Spanish, let alone Mandarin, Japanese, and
> Bahasa Indonesian as I should be. How are small journals based in India
> supposed to afford what I, a super-privileged white guy in America, cannot?
>
> Predatory journals are absolutely a problem, but they are much more a
> symptom of the absolutely disgusting scholarly ecosystem. Until our elders
> stop basing hiring and promotional decisions on where (or how much) one
> publishers — rather than on the quality or impact one’s work has to the
> field and society — predatory journals will be around to take advantage,
> just as the rest of the scholarly publishing system does.
>
> Until we all start publishing in Esperanto to Volapük, those of us
> privileged enough to be natively-literate in the “language of science”
> should not be using the mastery of our language to label publications as
> fraudulent. Especially when said publications do nothing to hide the fact
> that they do not employ obviously native-English speakers. Translation is
> not cheap, especially scientific translation.
>
> * For those of you who would like a primer on how capitalism has ensured
> knowledge is distributed unequally, I urge you all to read the report
> "Untangling Academic Publishing: A history of the relationship between
> commercial interests, academic prestige and the circulation of research” (
> https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.546100 <
> https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.546100>).
>
> -N
>
> Nick Wehner
> Director of Open Initiatives
> OCTO | Open Communications for The Ocean
> https://www.octogroup.org | https://www.openchannels.org |
> https://marxiv.org
> nick at octogroup.org | nwehner at protonmail.com
> Mobile: +1-206-745-2138
> Spokane, Washington, USA (UTC-8)
> Learn about the importance of making your research freely-available with
> MarXiv from Oceans Deeply: https://oct.to/marxivod
>
> > On Jan 26, 2019, at 5:29 PM, Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> >
> >    A couple of articles have come out recently that discuss predatory
> > journals, the first of the two below is in The Economist.  Both
> illustrate
> > that these problems are not restricted to India.  Indeed, we also know
> that
> > it does not apply to many in India, but on the other hand it does apply
> to
> > some in the US and elsewhere.  Incentives to use predatory journals
> appear
> > to be surprisingly common.
> >
> > Some science journals that claim to peer review papers do not do so.  The
> > Economist.
> >
> >
> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/06/23/some-science-journals-that-claim-to-peer-review-papers-do-not-do-so?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/somesciencejournalsthatclaimtopeerreviewpapersdonotdosopublishanddontbedamned
> >
> >
> > Payouts push professors towards predatory journals
> > Nature Briefing
> >
> >
> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00120-1?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=659097a4a4-briefing-dy-20190115&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-659097a4a4-43423877
> > --
> >
> >     I have posted before about articles and books published by the small
> > group of people in India which have been publishing coral species they
> say
> > are in India, including species found only in the Caribbean, and also in
> > some publications engaging in plagairism.
> >     I have made the leaders of the Zoological Survey of India (where they
> > work) aware of these problems, sending them copies of my posts
> documenting
> > this.  Initially they responded, saying they would investigate and take
> > action if they found misdeeds.  They have posted on the ZSI website a
> > document about plagairism, claiming that they are highly ethical and then
> > laying out a program of consequences in line with what the Indian
> national
> > government had done with universities there.  They told me they were
> > setting up a committee to investigate.  I can find nothing about the
> > committee or any investigations on the ZSI website, they have told me
> > nothing more and no longer respond to emails, and my contacts in India
> know
> > of no actions being taken.  Perhaps they think it will all just blow
> away.
> > I think institutions that reward such behaviors with pay and promotions
> > find that the huge numbers of papers produced impress funders such as the
> > government and others (who don't know the difference between legitimate
> > peer-reviewed journals and predatory journals), so maybe the
> administrators
> > who tolerate or even promote this, and certainly incentivize it, are
> > themselves rewarded for this unethical behavior.  According to the
> articles
> > above, that seems to be a pattern in some institutions in the US as well.
> >      Sources in India tell me that students are taught in universities
> > what plagiarism is and that it is wrong and will be punished.  There is
> no
> > excuse for plagiarism.
> >      Below I document additional problematic papers published by this
> > group.  This makes it so I think no one can trust their results, any of
> > their results.  Which is a huge part of the India coral species
> literature
> > it appears, because they produce so much.  It will make the task of
> > figuring out which coral species are actually in India much more
> difficult,
> > since it will take a mountain of work to try to figure out which records
> > can be trusted, and which not.  Many records are likely to remain
> > uncertain, not supported by evidence, but not refutable because pictures
> of
> > those species were not included in the papers, or the pictures were not
> > clear enough.  Plus, the taxonomy is actually based on skeletons, not
> live
> > corals, and identification of living corals is unreliable if done by
> people
> > who don't know what they are doing.
> >
> > The material below is long, but it just is the tip of the iceberg of the
> > huge number of publications these people have produced.  Virtually every
> > paper either engages in plagiarism or has incorrect identification of
> > species, or both and all are in predatory journals or in-house ZSI
> > publications that clearly have no competent review (of either English or
> > coral taxonomy and identification).
> >
> > Cheers,  Doug
> >
> > Mondal, T. and C. Raghunathan. 2016.  New records of five species of
> > scleractinian corals to Indian waters from Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
> > Global Journal of Science Frontier Research: C Biological Science 16:
> >
> > The journal is a predatory, “fake” journal.  Fake journals often have
> > “International” or “Global” in their titles.  They do not have any
> > reviewers that are native English speakers, so they don’t catch obvious
> > poor English.  Likely they have no reviewers at all review these articles
> > All you have to do is pay the money and provide copy and they publish.
> > Sort of like diploma mills, pay your money and get a diploma (without
> > having studied anything)  They did such a poor job that the genus and
> > species names were run together, such as “*Isophylliasinuosa*”.
> >
> > “*Acropora lovelli*” is unlikely to be this species, the axials are
> tubular
> > and corallites low on the branch are not immersed.
> >
> > “*Acropora willisae*” in the photo is a nice colony of *A. granulosa*.
> >
> > “*Mycetophyllia lamarckiana*” is *Symphyllia*.  *M. lamarckiana* is a
> > Caribbean species, it is NOT in the Indo-Pacific.  A competent coral
> > taxonomist would know that.
> >
> > “*Isophyllia sinuosa*” is *Symphyllia*.  *I. sinuosa* is a Caribbean
> > species, it is NOT in the Indo-Pacific
> >
> > The name of “*Porites cumulates*” was misspelled, it is “*Porites
> cumulatus*”
> > (Microsoft word changes it to *Porites cumulates*).
> >
> > The English is very poor in the introduction and discussion as well so
> they
> > were not plagiarized.  The English was so poor it is obvious that no
> native
> > English speaker proofread it before it was published.  The English in the
> > descriptions is suspiciously good, they were likely copied from another
> > source as the authors have done in almost all their publications.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., C. Raghunathan, and K. Venkataraman.  2014.  A note on
> > Acroporidae corals of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India.  Research
> Journal
> > of Science and Technology 6: 25-29.
> >
> > The journal is a predatory, “fake” journal.  From the title of the
> journal,
> > they will take anything in science.  They could not possibly have editors
> > and reviewers which know enough about all branches of science to
> > competently review articles on all subjects.  Another clue is that often
> > their title has two or more unrelated topics in it, such as
> “International
> > Advanced Open Journal of African Art and Quantum Electrodynamics.”  I
> > exaggerate, but not a lot.
> >
> > They do not state that Wallace (1999) was used in identification, an
> > obvious omission when a large number of *Acropora* species are reported.
> >
> > The English is very poor in the introduction and discussion so they were
> > not plagiarized.  The English was so poor it is obvious that no native
> > English speaker proofread it before it was published.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., C. Raghunathan, and Ramakrishna.  2011.  Notes on three new
> of
> > scleractinian corals from Andaman Islands.  Journal of Oceanography and
> > Marine Science 2: 122-126.
> >
> > The journal is a predatory, “fake” journal.  Notice it is volume 2.  Most
> > fake journals are new and haven’t been publishing for long.
> >
> > The English in the introduction and discussion is very poor, so it is
> > unlikely to have been plagiarized.  Last sentence in the discussion is
> > “Further surveys are required in near future to get more apprehensive
> data
> > on different types of species.”  (A second language is very difficult to
> > get really good at writing, so it is necessary to have a native speaker
> > check the writing.  Obviously none of these journals have such reviewers,
> > probably because they have no reviewers at all.  The writers need to get
> it
> > checked themselves.)  I get “apprehensive” just looking at these
> articles.
> >
> > The description of the skeleton of “*Montipora gaimardi*”, the color, and
> > differences with other species were copied verbatim from Veron (2000).
> > There are no quote marks around it and the Veron reference was not given
> at
> > the end of the copied text, it was plagiarized.  It says that the
> > coenosteum has fine ridges.  However, the photograph of their sample
> shows
> > widely spaced corallites with no ridges between them.  Compare with
> photos
> > of skeleton in Veron, 2000 and www.coralsoftheworld and it is clear this
> is
> > not that species.  The coral in the photo may be *Montipora digitata*.
> The
> > description is not a description of their coral, rather a copied
> > description of something else.
> >
> > The description of skeleton of “*Podabacia sinai*”, color, and
> differences
> > with other species were plagiarized from Veron (2000).  The description
> is
> > not of their skeleton, but a copied description of something else.  The
> > photo of the whole skeleton shows many or most corallites are inclined
> > towards the colony edge like *P. crustacea* and unlike *P. sinai*.  Also,
> > this species has not been reported outside the Red Sea so far.  This is
> > likely to be *P. crustacea*.
> >
> > The description of skeleton of “*Podabacia lanakensis*”, color, and
> > similarity to other species were plagiarized from Veron (2000).  The
> > description is not of their skeleton, it is a copied description.
> >
> > The paper does not cite Hoeksema (1989) which reviews the fungiids.  An
> > obvious omission.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., C. Raghunathan, and K. Venkataraman.  2012.  New record of
> five
> > scleractinian corals to Indian water from Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
> > International Journal of Advanced Biological Research 2: 699-703.
> >
> > Another predatory “fake” journal.  Note the journal title has
> > “International” and “Advanced” in it.  Fake journals often have those
> words
> > in them, as well as “open”.  Notice it is volume 2, a new journal.
> >
> > Poor English in the introduction and discussion, so likely not
> plagiarized.
> >
> > The description of *Favia rosaria* was plagiarized from Veron.  It is
> > plausible that the living coral in the photo may be *Favia rosaria*,
> > however skeletons are required for secure identification, particularly in
> > faviids.
> >
> > The description of *Platygyra contorta* was plagiarized from Veron.  The
> > photo of the live colony might be this species or not, skeletal
> examination
> > is required.
> >
> > The description of *Leptoseris gardineri* is long and has excellent
> > English.  The authors clearly did not write it, they are not capable of
> > English that good.  Where they copied it from I don’t know.  There are
> many
> > details in the description that you can’t possibly gather from the photo
> of
> > the living colony, it cannot possibly be a description of that colony.
> >
> > The photograph of “*Leptoseris gardineri*” is most likely some other
> > species of *Leptoseris*.  At the very least it is not adequate to confirm
> > that species.
> >
> > The description of *Goniopora albiconus* was plagiarized from Veron word
> > for word (all the plagiarized sections in all these papers have no quote
> > marks nor the reference following the quoted material).  The photograph
> > does appear to be *G. albiconus*.
> >
> > The description of *Psammocora nierstraszi* was plagiarized from Veron.
> > The photo appears to be a live colony of this species but isn’t clear
> > enough for a positive ID.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., C. Raghunathan, K. Ventkataraman.  2014.   Scleractinian
> corals
> > of Loha Barrack Crocodile Sanctuary, Andaman and Nicobar Islands.  Global
> > Journal of Science Frontier Research: C Biological Science 14:
> >
> > Predatory, “fake” journal.  Poor English, not likely plagiarized.  Long
> > list of species names, no way to check if they are correct.  Since they
> are
> > based on the work of the authors of these other papers, this list and all
> > others they produce are highly unreliable and untrustworthy, but may have
> > some species right, no way to tell.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., Raghunathan, C., Venkataraman, K.  2015.  Report on Eleven
> > Newly Recorded Sclearactinian Corals to Indian Waters from Andaman and
> > Nicobar Islands.  Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 23:
> 1980-1989.
> >
> > If this journal is not a predatory “fake” journal (which I doubt), at the
> > very least it does not provide competent review of coral articles, as you
> > can see from the information below.
> >
> > The language in the introduction and discussion is poor English,
> obviously
> > the journal did not have a native English speaker review the article.
> >
> > The initial part of the description of *Acropora rosaria* came from Veron
> > with modification, the last few sentences were copied verbatim.  The
> > initial part has some poor English.  The countries in which the species
> are
> > found had to have been derived from the maps in Veron (2000) as that data
> > is not available virtually anywhere else.  That is the case with all of
> > these papers, these authors did not go around the world recording these
> > species.  There is no indication in the paper where they got that
> > information from.
> >
> > The description of *Acropora acuminata* was clearly derived from the
> Veron
> > text since it copies several unusual words and phrases exactly, though
> > other wording is changed.  The last two sentences were copied from Veron
> > where his one sentence was divided into two sentences.  The last sentence
> > of Veron’s description is “The skeletons have a permanent dark colour.”
> No
> > doubt omitted because these corals don’t.
> >
> > The description of *Acropora meridiana* follows the same pattern as the
> > previous two species.  It is obvious that they are trying to make enough
> > changes so it doesn’t qualify as plagiarism.  They are not describing
> their
> > coral, they are paraphrasing and then copying Veron’s description,
> without
> > attribution of the source.  The photos are insufficient to identify this
> > coral.
> >
> > *Acropora cervicornis*.  When are these authors going to realize that
> > Caribbean corals are NOT in the Indo-Pacific?  The photo is of a staghorn
> > shaped coral, but there are several species in the Indo-Pacific it could
> > be.  But one thing is certain, it is NOT *A. cervicornis*.  The last two
> > sentences were copied directly from Veron without attribution, so
> > plagiarized.  All the countries listed where it is located are in the
> > Atlantic Ocean except for this report from India, which is obviously
> > incorrect. That should have been a red flag to the authors, but
> apparently
> > they were not watching.  Careless.
> >
> > *Acropora akajimensis*.  Almost the entire description is plagiarized.
> The
> > photos are not good enough to verify this species.
> >
> > *Anacropora spinosa*.  Almost the entire description is plagiarized,
> > including the sentence that reads “Corallites are elongated, crowded,
> > irregular and are usually not strongly tapered.”  That statement appears
> to
> > be erroneous in Veron (2000) itself and was probably intended to read
> > “Spines are elongated….and are usually not strongly tapered.”  The
> > corallites are nearly immersed, not crowded and not irregular.  The
> > photographs do not look to be this species at all, the branches are way
> too
> > short and there are no spines, plus they are attached to a massive base.
> > This is probably a *Montipora* colony.
> >
> > *Astreopora scabra*.  One sentence of the description was copied from
> Veron
> > without attribution.  The description says that the corallites are
> conical,
> > but the photos show they are immersed, with perhaps a tiny projecting
> rim.
> > This coral is *Astreopora listeri*.
> >
> > *Favites stylifera*.  The last sentence is copied from Veron word for
> > word.  The rest was copied from Veron with modifications that show that
> the
> > authors don’t really know what they are doing.  Veron’s “corallites are
> > irregular in shape…” becomes “The shape is irregular.”  The authors don’t
> > seem to realize that the purpose of the description is to convey the
> > specimens they have, not to parrot an authority.  They are clearly trying
> > to paraphrase so they aren’t plagiarizing, but aren’t very good at it.
> >
> > *Favia fragum*.  Another whopper.  This is a Caribbean species, it is NOT
> > in the Indo-Pacific.  The last couple of sentences are copied word for
> > word, the previous sentences copies with some re-arrangement.  As in all
> of
> > these species, the list of countries was obtained from Veron’s map and
> the
> > source was not given. (unfortunately, that is a common practice, many
> > people and organizations have copied Veron’s maps or taken his lists of
> > countries and published them without attribution of the source.  Sorry,
> > that’s plagiarism no matter who does it.  There is even a very prominent
> > researcher in a developed country who has gone to lengths to conceal the
> > source of his information, saying that it came from a “publicly available
> > source” that is only named in supplemental material, when it could only
> > come from Veron.  What is the purpose of that evasion???  Could only be
> not
> > acknowledging the source of the data, because that would imply that Veron
> > should be listed as a co-author?  If someone finds a source of my data
> and
> > publishes a whole study based on it and doesn’t even talk to me let along
> > offer co-authorship, and only cites a secondary source of my data, is
> that
> > ethical?????  I think not.  If they did it to you, what would you
> > think???)  All the locations listed are in the Atlantic other than the
> > Andaman and Nicobar Islands, unique outside of the Atlantic for having
> > these corals.  This paper is unique in having erroneously reported them
> in
> > India.  The photographs appear to be *Favia pallida*.
> >
> > *Stylophora wellsi*.  Again, the sentences near the end of the
> description
> > were lifted directly from Veron, but the beginning sentences were
> modified
> > slightly from Veron’s wording to make it look like they weren’t copied.
> > The photo look like a young colony of *Stylophora pistillata*, and the
> > corallite details cannot be checked.
> >
> > *Porites mayeri*.  This species cannot be identified from the photo of
> the
> > living coral.  It could be any of several massive species of *Porites*.
> > There is no way to verify this identification.  *Porites* are the hardest
> > of all corals to identify, these authors have not demonstrated competence
> > to do so.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., C. Raghunathan.  20??  New record of two scleractinian corals
> > to Indian waters from Ritchie’s Archipelago, Andaman and Nicobar islands.
> > Biosystematica
> >
> > The description of *Halomitra clavator* says at one point that “Septa
> have
> > distinctive knob-shaped teeth.” And then at another spot in the same
> > paragraph it says “Primary septa have well developed triangular
> > dentition.”  The photos show this is actually *Halomitra pileus*,
> according
> > to Bert Hoeksema, the world fungiid expert.
> >
> > The photos of “*Agaricia grahamae*” are clearly not of that species, a
> > quick glance at a closeup picture of that species’ skeleton on
> > www.coralsoftheworld.org shows that clearly.  Rather it is a photo of
> > *Coscinarea*.  *Agaricia grahamae* is a Caribbean species, not present in
> > the Indo-Pacific.  Interestingly the paper lists countries it is known
> > from, all of which are in the Caribbean.  That should have been a hint to
> > the wise.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., Raghunathan, C., Venkataraman, K.  2016.  Diversity of
> > Scleractinian corals in Great Nicobar Island, Andaman and Nicobar
> Islands,
> > India.  Proceedings of the Zoological Society, Kolkata 69: 205-216.
> >
> > A long list of species without any way to verify the accuracy of the
> > identifications.  *Turbinaria stellulata* is listed under the genus “
> > *Tubastrea*”.  The names are similar, but the corals are wildly different
> > in appearance.  This would be an easy mistake of someone who didn’t know
> > that they are very different corals, and fits with other evidence of the
> > authors’ low competence at identifying corals.  If I remember, they made
> > the same mistake in that book they wrote, the first one I publicized a
> > problem with.
> >
> > Poor English indicates text was not likely plagiarized, but also that it
> > was not reviewed by a native English speaker.  Low quality.
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., C. Raghunathan, and Vendataraman, K. 2015.  Report of newly
> > recorded eight scleractinian corals from Middle and South Andaman
> > Archipelago, India.  Global Journal of Science Frontier Research: C
> > Biological Science 15:
> >
> > Same predatory “fake” journal as some of their other articles.  I note
> that
> > at the bottom of the page, it says “(US)”.  Predatory journals commonly
> > establish some kind of fake headquarters in the states for legitimacy.
> > They also often list editors that are not sent any papers.
> >
> > The introduction and discussion have poor English, indicating they were
> not
> > copied and that there was no reviewer who was a native English speaker.
> >
> > *Acropora azurea*.  The description is mostly copied from Veron.  This
> > species has nariform appressed corallites, but the photographs show
> tubular
> > appressed corallites.  This is not *A. azurea*, likely it is *A. nana*.
> >
> > *Favia vietnamensis*.  The description was copied from Veron with
> > modification.
> >
> > *Turbinaria irregularis*.  The photograph shows corallites shorter than
> on *T.
> > irregularis*.
> >
> > *Psammocora vaughani*.  Synonymized with *Psammocora nierstraszi* by
> > Benzoni, Stefani, Pichon et al. (2010)    Benzoni, F., Stefani, F.,
> Pichon,
> > M. and Galli, P. (2010). The name game: morpho-molecular species
> boundaries
> > in the genus *Psammocora* (Cnidaria, Scleractinia). Zoological Journal of
> > the Linnaean Society 160(3):421-456.  Veron et al (2018)
> > www.coralsoftheworld.org  say that there taxonomic issues which they are
> > studying and it is currently unresolved.
> >
> > *Coscinaraea wellsi*.  The description uses Veron’s words, but breaks
> > sentences up, and one sentence is incomplete “The columellae are with
> > deep,”  If there was a reviewer (unlikely), they missed that.
> >
> > *Halomitra meierae*.
> >
> > *Lobophyllia flabelliformis*.  The description does not say anything
> about
> > anything that looks like tentacles such as what Veron says: “The mantle
> is
> > covered with elongate papillae that may resemble tentacles.”  The
> > photograph does not show any papillae.  The coral illustrated in this
> paper
> > is *Lobophyllia hataii*.
> >
> > *Mussismillia braziliensis*.  This species was previously known only from
> > Brazil, as indicated in the text.  The photo is far too poor to establish
> > anything.  Likely it is a *Favites*.  *M. braziliensis* is NOT in the
> > Indo-Pacific.  This, like the claim that Caribbean species are in India,
> is
> > a major mistake and indicates that the authors have little knowledge of
> the
> > biogeography of tropical marine provinces.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., Raghunathan, C., Venkataraman, K.  2014.  A note on
> acroporidae
> > corals of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India.  Research Journal of
> Science
> > and Technology 6: 25-29.
> >
> > Another predatory “fake” journal.  They cannot possibly have reviewers
> for
> > all specialties in science and technology, likely they do no review at
> all.
> >
> >
> >
> > Reddiah, K.  1977.  The coral reefs of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
> > Records of the Zoological Survey of India 72: 315-324.
> >
> > A checklist of coral species names is given, but there is nothing to
> verify
> > the species with.  Some of the names used are now considered synonyms.
> The
> > one exception is *Mussa angulosa*, which is a Caribbean species and is
> not
> > in the Indo-Pacific.  This might be *Lobophyllia*.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Mondal, T., Raghunathan, C., Venkataraman, K.  2011.  Addition of
> thirteen
> > scleractinians as new to Indian water from Rutland Island, Andamans.
> Asian
> > Journal of Experimental Biological Science 2: 383-290.
> >
> > Likely another predatory “fake” journal.
> >
> > *Acropora cuneata*.  The second to 4th sentences in the description are
> > copied word for word from Veron, without attribution.
> >
> > *Montastrea annularis*.  Another report of a Caribbean species which is
> NOT
> > in the Indo-Pacific.  The picture appears to be *Galaxea astreata*.  The
> > description was plagiarized directly from Veron (2000).
> >
> > *Colpophyllia natans*.  Another report of a Caribbean species which is
> NOT
> > in the Indo-Pacific.  The picture is likely of *Symphyllia* and looks
> > nothing like *C. natans*.  The description is good English the authors
> are
> > not capable of writing that, it is surely plagiarized from somewhere.
> >
> > *Siderastrea radians*.  Another report of a Caribbean species which is
> NOT
> > in the Indo-Pacific.  The picture is certainly not this species, looks
> like
> > it might be *Coeloseris mayeri*.  The description is plagiarized from
> Veron
> > (2000).
> >
> > *Psammocora obtusangulata*.   The first sentence and at least 3 other
> > sentences were plagiarized from Veron (2000), the other sentences were
> > plagiarized from Veron and Pichon (1976)’s description of *Psammocora
> > contingua*.  That’s creative, plagiarize descriptions of two different
> > species and put them together.
> >
> > *Cantharellus doederleini*.  The description was plagiarized from Veron
> > (2000).
> >
> > *Acanthastrea maxima*.  The photo appears to be *Scolymia vitiensis* (now
> > called *Parascolymia vitiensis*).  The description was plagiarized from
> > Veron (2000).
> >
> > *Scolymia cubensis*.  Another report of a Caribbean species which is NOT
> in
> > the Indo-Pacific.  The description was plagiarized from Veron (2000).
> The
> > photo may be *Scolymia australis*.
> >
> > *Echinomorpha nishihirai*.  The photo is not this species.  The
> description
> > was plagiarized from Veron (2000).
> >
> > *Goniopora eclipsensis*.  The photo is not this species.  The photo
> shows a
> > flat colony, the description says small branching cylindrical columns.
> Did
> > the authors not notice this difference or did they think that the tall
> > (unbranching) polyps were “cylindrical columns”??  Either way indicates
> > incompetence.  The description was plagiarized from Veron (2000).
> >
> > *Gonipora fruiticosa*.  Unrecognizable photo.  The description was
> > plagiarized from Veron (2000).
> >
> > *Pocillopora elegans*.  The first two sentences were plagiarized from
> Veron
> > (2000).
> >
> >
> > Douglas Fenner
> > Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
> > NOAA Fisheries Service
> > Pacific Islands Regional Office
> > Honolulu
> > and:
> > Consultant
> > PO Box 7390
> > Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
> >
> > Global warming will happen faster than we think.
> >
> > https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07586-5
> >
> > Nations falling short of emissions cuts set by Paris climate pact,
> analysis
> > finds
> >
> >
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/nations-falling-short-emissions-cuts-set-paris-climate-pact-analysis-finds?utm_campaign=news_daily_2018-11-28&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2515903
> >
> > Climate change poses major threat to the US, new government report
> concludes
> >
> >
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/climate-change-poses-major-threat-us-new-government-report-concludes?utm_campaign=news_daily_2018-11-26&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2511504
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list



-- 
Douglas Fenner
Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

How to win public support for a global carbon tax

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00124-x

Global warming will happen faster than we think.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07586-5

Nations falling short of emissions cuts set by Paris climate pact, analysis
finds

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/nations-falling-short-emissions-cuts-set-paris-climate-pact-analysis-finds?utm_campaign=news_daily_2018-11-28&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2515903