2024/12/20 by José Luís Ortega · 1 voice
Decision Sciences · Social Sciences · #Innovation, Sustainability, Human-Machine Systems #Misinformation and Its Impacts #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · pdf · doi:10.31235/osf.io/ve4um
openalex publication_date 2024/12/20 · openalex created_date 2025/09/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
This study aims to observe what differences there are between pseudoscientific and scientific disciplines according to different bibliometric parameters such as citation, funding acknowledgments, composition of journals’ editorial boards, authorship, integrity, and social impact. An experimental model has been designed to pairwise compare the performance of three pseudoscientific communities as treatment groups (Chiropractics, Psychoanalysis and Integrative medicine) against a control group of three similar scientific fields (Physical therapy, Clinical psychology and General medicine). 83k articles from scholarly journals associated with these disciplines were extracted from Scopus. To avoid a size factor, journals from each pairwise group (control vs. treatment) were selected with similar impact measures (i.e., CiteScore). The findings reveal that pseudosciences tend to be more isolated and more resistant to external ideas and contributors. There is a geographical/cultural pattern in the distribution of authors and organization types. Whereas Chiropractics and Psychoanalysis are Western disciplines, Integrative medicine is strongly supported by Asian governments (China, India, South Korea). In all the cases, there is an important presence of non-scholarly entities involved in pseudoscientific studies, in front of a great presence of governmental and university actors in scientific disciplines.