{"id":2040,"date":"2025-12-03T15:01:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/?p=2040"},"modified":"2025-12-03T15:20:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:20:50","slug":"medical-frymbial-or-how-did-we-get-here-with-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/?p=2040","title":{"rendered":"Medical Frymbial&#8211;or, How Did We Get Here With AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><u><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41598-025-24662-9&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cerin.reardon%40emory.edu%7Cfba7f03d559147f838d308de329a7d32%7Ce004fb9cb0a4424fbcd0322606d5df38%7C0%7C0%7C639003836256889991%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=%2Bk2CrR0a5upB85xUV7YbAaaRI8eDbEgkHZE8hHMNGcI%3D&amp;reserved=0\">Bridging the gap: explainable ai for autism diagnosis and parental support with TabPFNMix and SHAP<\/a><\/u> &#8212;<\/em>an article seemingly written with AI assistance and then presumably reviewed with AI assistance&#8211;was published by Scientific Reports (from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/\">Nature Group<\/a>) on November 19th, 2025. It took nine days for the editor to update the article with a note about the curious content. The centerpiece of the article was Figure 1, featuring an improbable bicycle seat, an equally improbable leg hole table seat, and the exhortation Factor Fexcectorn!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/files\/2025\/12\/41598_2025_24662_Fig1_HTML.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2041\" src=\"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/files\/2025\/12\/41598_2025_24662_Fig1_HTML.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"428\" height=\"641\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/files\/2025\/12\/41598_2025_24662_Fig1_HTML.png 685w, https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/files\/2025\/12\/41598_2025_24662_Fig1_HTML-200x300.png 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 428px) 100vw, 428px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This article has generated a lot of interest at\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpubpeer.com%2Fpublications%2FE1A0A9AC672336E92673154575091E%235&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cerin.reardon%40emory.edu%7Cfba7f03d559147f838d308de329a7d32%7Ce004fb9cb0a4424fbcd0322606d5df38%7C0%7C0%7C639003836256924586%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=8h33TPS6hfl8%2Fg%2BghsnXL3j1SSbaCO9rE%2B5pX0dQvbE%3D&amp;reserved=0\">PubPeer<\/a><\/u>, the online journal club, where contributors have noted that in addition to the bizarre figure, the article is based on a model that is not well described, is formatted as if written by a chatbot with bulleted text, and includes many citations that do not support the referenced sections (and some citations that may not exist!).<\/p>\n<p>The journal claims to have \u201crigorous policies to govern every stage and aspect of our peer review process, from initial submission through to revisions, decisions and appeals\u201d and sends papers to external reviewers once they have been initially screened by a member of the editorial board, per their <u><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Fsrep%2Fjournal-policies%2Fpeer-review%23peer-review&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cerin.reardon%40emory.edu%7Cfba7f03d559147f838d308de329a7d32%7Ce004fb9cb0a4424fbcd0322606d5df38%7C0%7C0%7C639003836256944963%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=L4Vyg3zhE%2BkpegBRsm2c4PmCY4ploQaDt%2FcsxW50uEc%3D&amp;reserved=0\">peer-review policies<\/a><\/u>. A response from the editor regarding this particular article is provided at\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnobreakthroughs.substack.com%2Fp%2Friding-the-autism-bicycle-to-retraction&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cerin.reardon%40emory.edu%7Cfba7f03d559147f838d308de329a7d32%7Ce004fb9cb0a4424fbcd0322606d5df38%7C0%7C0%7C639003836256964193%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=pvyKwxVGPigYPQ7uR04gmWPrfDpAS5zQ%2BATnGyxAmLI%3D&amp;reserved=0\">nobreakthroughs<\/a><\/u>,a Substack curated by a former CNET Science Editor: \u201cWhilst the details of peer review are confidential, we can confirm that the article underwent two rounds of review from two independent peer reviewers, supporting an accept decision. We have also done an assessment of the handling of other papers with the same handling editor and are confident that they have a robust record and that this was a case of human error.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The current article processing charge or charge to the author for the privilege of publishing for an article in Scientific Reports is $2690.\u00a0 You can read more about open access publishing at Emory here:\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/libraries.emory.edu\/research\/open-access-publishing\/emory-oa-fund\">https:\/\/libraries.emory.edu\/research\/open-access-publishing\/emory-oa-fund<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n<p>Naturally, this article has generated a lot of buzz on\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnature.altmetric.com%2Fdetails%2F184726491&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cerin.reardon%40emory.edu%7Cfba7f03d559147f838d308de329a7d32%7Ce004fb9cb0a4424fbcd0322606d5df38%7C0%7C0%7C639003836256983246%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=BPEamGQ3lEj%2B4V%2FsRN%2BOkc%2FAWlaEZB1PBGVZQRyTJVo%3D&amp;reserved=0\">Altmetrics<\/a><\/u> and while it bears repeating that there\u2019s no such thing as bad publicity, in this case maybe not so much.<\/p>\n<p>This is a good reminder to examine all evidence critically, even if it&#8217;s published by a renowned journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bridging the gap: explainable ai for autism diagnosis and parental support with TabPFNMix and SHAP &#8212;an article seemingly written with AI assistance and then presumably reviewed with AI assistance&#8211;was published by Scientific Reports (from Nature Group) on November 19th, 2025. It took nine days for the editor to update the article with a note about <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/?p=2040\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8372,"featured_media":2041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-2040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ai"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/files\/2025\/12\/41598_2025_24662_Fig1_HTML.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2040"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2050,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040\/revisions\/2050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/whscl-news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}