Academics Worry That Predatory, Pay-to-Publish Journals Hurt Science - HowStuffWorks

"They warn that the growing phenomenon of open-access, pay-to-publish scientific journals, in which researchers cough up fees to get their work into print, is compromising the quality of scientific literature. They fear that many of the publications, which provide access to information online without subscriptions and depend upon accepting articles to make income, have an incentive to publish studies regardless of whether they're credible and scientifically sound. They also complain that some have screening processes that are too weak to prevent a lot of dubious findings from getting into circulation."