eLife’s Bad Model Defies Burial

It’s easy to exploit eLife, as Netflix and some motivated authors have shown us — and there’s little scientific review, criticism, or evidence can do to stop it, because there is no accountability at eLife anymore.

Recent coverage in Science of the story of a Netflix documentary about prehistoric burials based on evidence in three preprints using eLife’s “Reviewed Preprint” model brings us a June 2024 paper critiquing the preprints.

I’ve covered this extensively since very early on — more than a year ago, actually.

This isn’t the first peer-reviewed paper critiquing the preprints, with the authors of a November 2023 paper writing about the preprints (bolding mind):

The peer reviews were unanimous in considering the evidence inadequate in its present form. Despite this, these versions remain available and communicated to the press and social media without yet integrating any of the referee’s comments.

Here we argue that the evidence presented so far is not compelling enough to support the deliberate burial of the dead by H. naledi nor that they made the purported engravings.

There was also a March 2024 editorial in the South African Journal of Science by local paleontologists (bolding mine):

The manuscripts were criticised by the reviewers, who wrote long, detailed, meticulous reviews of all aspects of the data, claims and interpretations. . . . The team responded to the reviews by thanking the reviewers but argued that they maintained their original interpretations, although they are yet to present a detailed scientific rebuttal of the criticisms, nor revise the manuscripts. This means that the original, unreviewed versions are taking the place of reviewed manuscripts and the authors, not the editors, are deciding what quality of research is considered acceptable.

The authors of the editorial — showing a smidge more insight than the Science reporter, to be honest — also note that by manipulating the timing, which eLife has known has been possible since Day 1, the authors and their corporate pals were able to generate a large amount of mainstream media coverage to coincide with the release of the documentary, without risk of being caught out.

There’s really nothing new here, as my coverage last July and again this April found what appeared to be a coordinated approach to dropping these preprints in preparation for the release of a related Netflix documentary about the supposed burial plots found in caves in South Africa.

In my opinion, the reporter from Science fails to adequately cover the commercial motivations behind the preprints, the apparent collusion with Netflix by the authors to coordinate preprint posting with press releases, and the likely ill-gotten gain shared by Netflix and the authors.

As the authors of the November 2023 paper noted, open reviews of the initial preprints were scathing:

• “. . . does not meet the standards of our field.”
• “. . . the study does not apply or cite the basic principles of archaeothanatology.”
• “. . . the manuscript in its current condition is deemed incomplete and inadequate.”

Yet, the preprints were up, which was all Netflix and the authors apparently wanted or needed to get a glowing review in the New York Times for the documentary — even though the science was inadequate and possibly completely, even intentionally, misleading. The lead author — Lee Berger — was listed on IMDB as the star of the Netflix documentary. The documentary was a “surprise Top 10 hit” on the streaming service after it was released, beating Boss Baby.

As I wrote at the time:

The disrespect for reviewers is palpable with this approach, as is the disrespect for authors and the relevant community. . . . Reviewers shouldn’t have to spend hours reviewing materials that a knowledgeable editor would have bounced back for a revision on the authors’ time.

Reviewers should also feel that if they submit a substantive critique that calls a study into question — and they are joined by every other reviewer in having profound concerns — that the journal might do something about it.

It’s ultimately a disservice to a worldwide scientific community for eLife to remain oblivious to the critiques, evidence, and obvious conflicts of interest here. The community is screaming foul play, and eLife is ignoring their cries.

There are fees for “Reviewed Preprints,” but no accountability at eLife, and that’s insulting to everyone involved.

Now that yet another paper critiquing the preprints has been published, there’s little reason to expect anything will change. Nothing did after the initial scathing reviews in eLife, after the November 2023 critique, nor after that March 2024 editorial.

It’s all falling on deaf ears at eLife.

One author of the original preprints offers this weak tea defense of what he’s found himself involved in:

I do not think Foecke et al.’s critique is fair. Our team published a preprint, open for comments from colleagues and the public. . . . Foecke et al. assumed that the current version of the preprint is the version of record, which is inaccurate.

Let me get this straight — you published three preprints making scientific claims; these received scathing reviews via eLife at the time; peers have twice and now thrice published detailed critiques in journals; you have never submitted a revision to address these critiques; and you eke out a pitiful defense of, “Well, they were just preprints”?

Someone’s participation trophy is showing . . .

An editor at eLife is even more disingenuous, telling Science:

We’re extremely proud of what we’ve done with this paper. . . . It looks like science working fantastically to me. It’s important to have transparent scrutiny.

Scrutiny is great, as long as there’s no accountability, I guess.

Because, despite the “transparent scrutiny” roundly and uniformly calling the preprints bunk, and because eLife is doing nothing about it, the preprints have done their job — helping to promote a profitable Netflix documentary and enrich at least one author.

And the preprints remain up and unrevised more than a year later.

I’m going on about this because it’s insane that we allow this kind of licentious publishing in our space.

Just last week, I covered how a preprint posted in July 2023 was pulled within 48 hours, only to be published in a journal from the same publisher less than a year later and withdrawn from that journal within a few weeks. The preprint and paper came from a set of authors with commercial and ideological motivations, undisclosed conflicts of interest, and disclosed conflicts that should have stopped things in their tracks at the journal. In the end, at least this publisher cared when they realized they’d posted or published bad information.

This is “better late than never” accountability.

The folks at eLife don’t seem to care about accountability at all. More than a year after three preprints were posted to eLife and used to promote a Netflix documentary and with all the commercial conflicts of interest in place, we have multiple damning critiques to add to damning initial reviews and consistently bad press, yet eLife is doing nothing about any of this, and the authors are left to stall or ignore the situation while their documentary still streams and generates residuals.

• Subtext — Elsevier cares more about quality and accountability than eLife, a darling of some in the OA community.
  • Let that sink in if you’re a reflexive basher of Elsevier.

eLife’s “Reviewed Preprints” model has fatal flaws, meaning eLife has fatal flaws now.

The main question is whether anyone will they give these things a proper burial.