The thing I find disheartening is that if fraudulent results are being cited, it must mean that the mechanism of "standing on the shoulders of giants" is not working. One would expect that these papers would be contributions that citing scientists could benefit from and use in their own work with impact. For example if scientist A truly developed an O(N) sorting algorithm, then a scientist B might use it in their work to derive some other result.
I guess in some fields of science the effective dependency graph of academic work is very flat, and the true results get plucked and developed by industry (being true results it is actually possible to meet the higher reproducibility bar there). And the citations don't actually reflect the true dependencies, but some political/social graph instead. Too bad.
> And the citations don't actually reflect the true dependencies, but some political/social graph instead. Too bad.
I think this gets to the major concern with Academia today, as it becomes somewhat of a self-reinforcing feedback loop. Curry citations with political savvy, get awarded grants due to citations and political savvy, show that you are productive due to citations, grants, and political savvy - earning yet more political capital.
This will probably become my go to explanation for why Academic CS research has largely become decoupled from industrial application and industrial research. While political savvy is important in a large corporation, eventually you need to produce results.
I guess in some fields of science the effective dependency graph of academic work is very flat, and the true results get plucked and developed by industry (being true results it is actually possible to meet the higher reproducibility bar there). And the citations don't actually reflect the true dependencies, but some political/social graph instead. Too bad.