The interaction between predatory journals and mainstream social science

From a recent post at Retraction Watch:

Authors should be very much aware of all aspects of publication ethics, which, despite their importance and career-threatening consequences, are rarely taught in any depth at even the most research-intensive universities. However, even if adequate training were given to all postgraduates as potential authors, many would still fall for predatory scams and may even be alerted to the attractiveness of guaranteed publication in a matter of days for just a few hundred dollars. . . .

The “just a few hundred dollars” thing reminded me of the ludicrously innumerate claim that scientific citations are worth $100,000 each. That statement (literally, “It’s possible to put actual monetary value on each citation a paper receives. We can, in other words calculate exactly how much a single citation is worth. . . . in the United States each citation is worth a whopping $100,000.”) was made by a mainstream social scientist—a professor at a legit U.S. university who has over 200,000 citations on Google scholar.

If you were to literally believe the claim from that renowned scientist, then, yeah, a few hundred bucks for a publication is an absolute bargain. Of course that $100,000 number is a joke, good enough for a Ted talk or an NPR appearance or an article in PNAS but not serious science.

My point in juxtaposing these items is to point out the way in which the mainstream social science establishment provides intellectual cover, as it were, for predatory publishing.