Scope
The ''Journal of Cosmology'' is an online publication website. The journal publishes original hypotheses and discoveries inReliability
The quality of peer review at the journal has been questioned. It has been called a predatory journal by Jeffrey Beall. The journal promotes fringe science, fringe viewpoints and speculative viewpoints on astrobiology, astrophysics, and quantum physics. Skeptical blogger and biologist PZ Myers said of the journal "... it isn't a real science journal at all, but is the... website of a small group... obsessed with the idea of Fred Hoyle, Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Wickramasinghe that life panspermia, originated in outer space and simply rained down on Earth." The journal has responded that the paradigm "life on Earth came from Earth" is like a religious belief.History
Disputes with other scientists
Scientists who have posted accounts of personal attacks by the journal's staff members include Susan Blackmore, David Brin, and PZ Myers.Hoover paper
In early March 2011, the journal drew widespread controversy for the publication of a paper by Richard B. Hoover a retired NASA scientist, with claims of evidence in meteorites that origins of life, life on Earth could have come from space, in this case debris carrying life from a comet to Earth. The journal dismissed the criticism as "a barrage of slanderous attacks" from "crackpots and charlatans", calling their own journal courageous for resisting the "terrorists" whose actions they equated with the Inquisition. NASA distanced itself from Hoover's findings, and issued a statement saying that the paper had been previously submitted in 2007 to ''International Journal of Astrobiology'' which did not accept it for review. A number of commentaries on the paper were also published. In an open letter to the editors of ''Science (journal), Science'' and ''Nature (journal), Nature,'' Rudolph Schild proposed to establish a commission to investigate the validity of the Hoover paper, which would be led by three experts appointed by ''Journal of Cosmology'', ''Science'' and ''Nature''. :A copy of the original can be found at Schild said he would interpret "any refusal to cooperate, no matter what the excuse" from ''Nature'' or ''Science'' as "vindication for the ''Journal of Cosmology'' and the Hoover paper, and an acknowledgment that the editorial policies of the ''Journal of Cosmology'' are beyond reproach". They subsequently issued another statement in which they stood by their publication process and suggested that criticisms were "slander and histrionic tirades", and comparing their critics to "lunatics... unleashed to throw filth", suggesting that their own actions were part of a 2000-year struggle of science against religion. Since their critics had "refused to cooperate" in a review, they reaffirmed the study to be "beyond reproach". The James Randi Educational Foundation awarded Hoover the tongue-in-cheek Pigasus Award, for repeatedly announcing, "[a]long with the crackpot ''Journal of Cosmology''", widely dismissed claims that he had found signs of life in Mars rocks.NASA lawsuit
On 17 January 2014, NASA reported that a List of rocks on Mars, martian rock, named "Opportunity (rover)#2014, Pinnacle Island", that was not in an Opportunity (rover), ''Opportunity'' rover image taken on Sol 3528, "mysteriously" appeared 13 days later in a similar image taken on Sol 3540. One possible explanation, presented by Steven Squyres, principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, was that the rover, in one of its turning motions, flicked the rock from a few feet away and into the new location. In response to the finding, Rhawn Joseph published an article in the ''Journal of Cosmology'' on 17 January 2014, concluding that the object is in fact a living organism resembling apothecia. Rhawn Joseph then filed a writ of mandamus on 27 January 2014 in United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Federal Court, demanding that NASA examine the rock more closely. NASA already had examined the rock on 8 January 2014Abstracting and indexing
The ''Journal of Cosmology'' is abstracted and indexed in Polymer Library and ProQuest, ProQuest databases. From 2009 until 2011 it was indexed in the Astrophysics Data System.References
Further reading
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