A Science Journal Invokes ‘the Creator,’ and Science Pushes Back; Wired.com, 3/3/16

Madison Kotack, Wired.com; A Science Journal Invokes ‘the Creator,’ and Science Pushes Back:

"After a couple days of getting batted around in social media and comments sections, the journal retracted the whole paper. No editors from PLoS ONE responded to requests for comment.

Since PLoS ONE is open-source, it’s tempting to wonder if this kind of mistake calls into question the quality of all open-access scientific journals? PLoS ONE‘s website describes its editorial and peer-review practices, but also says that it can publish faster than old-school journals because it leaves out “subjective assessments of significance or scope to focus on technical, ethical and scientific rigor.”

Yet somehow Creationism got past peer review.

On the other hand, the old big-dog journals have their problems, too—plagiarism, errors, and so on. “I don’t think this will mean anything for open access journals, and it shouldn’t, because it happens at top journals, too,” says Jonathan Eisen, chair of PLoS Biology‘s advisory board and a big-time advocate for open-access (though unaffiliated with PLoS ONE)."