When Peer Review Fails: Bad Science Papers of the Week

No one here at EvC has mentioned this yet, so I'd like to bring attention to a recent paper that was published by PLOS ONE, entitled "Biomechanical Characteristics of Hand Coordination in Grasping Activities of Daily Living."A glance at the title of the paper reveals nothing particularly strange. However, one need only read the abstract to come across this:"The explicit functional link indicates that the biomechanical characteristic of tendinous connective architecture between muscles and articulations is the proper design by the Creator to perform a multitude of daily tasks in a comfortable way."Of course, the broader scientific community took to Twitter in a valiant effort to understand how such a paper could have been published in a peer-reviewed journal.Fortunately, PLOS ONE has retracted the paper, immediately apologized, and appears to be going in a frenzy in an attempt to clean up this mess. See here for some discussion and comments regarding PLOS ONE.I'd like to use this thread to:1. Discuss any bad science papers that somehow make it to print.2. Stimulate broader discussion of the peer-review process and how it can be improved.

Wut? Dewd, I hold rather unorthodox views when it comes to the origin of biochemical complexity, as the record of my past threads will demonstrate. That doesn't mean I shouldn't point out sloppy science papers, does it? Anyways, you can get back to trolling the internets. Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.