There are plenty of serious comments to make about this. Academia Medicine appears to be a legitimate on-line journal, of a certain sort. That said, there’s no conceivable reason for me to have gotten this email. Yes, I subscribed to Academia dot edu (free version) because I needed a paper and this was the only place I could find it.

The more important point I want to make is that even if the journal turns out to be recognized (doubtful) and indexed (probably) anything that gets published there is highly suspect. What sort of researcher is going to apply to be on the editorial board? Not one who’s got an active research program, that’s for sure. They aim for a turn around time–from submission to publication–of four weeks. Who, or more accurately what, is going to assign submissions to reviewers? Why single blind? That itself introduces bias–we’re talking about a journal reporting the results of people who do medical research. Not like this isn’t a highly competitive field (read cut-throat).

Enough seriousness. Let’s have some fun with this.

“Based on your publication history and research interests…”

Let us briefly review my publication history and research interests.

Hang on while I figure out if I still have a CV on my computer. I may have migrated it to an SD. Nope. External hard drive

I have a grand total of six academic publications (not counting published abstracts). Four of the six have nothing to do with my dissertation research, but are instead co-authored by John (known here at Big Food as “Mr. Big Food”), and others. Those four are from 1999-2003, and deal with a neurocomputational model we were working on that had to do with visual processing from retina to LGN to V1. The other two are from 2006-07; bone growth recovery in second-generation protein malnourished malnourished rats. (Would have been in interesting project to finish had I not been put under house arrest by my dissertation committee, and then responded appropriately.)

My most cited publication, “Experimental Philosophy Meets Experimental Design: 23 Questions,” has never been published anywhere but on the internet. But it really does get cited from time to time. That was from 2007.

Beginning in late 2013 and continuing through April 2014, I published 17 articles in my little local weekly newspaper. Each article was on an old book.

Jumping ahead to 2021 we have my next publication, Miss Missy’s School: A Pack of Farm Dogs Starts a School.

I had three publications in 2022, an essay co-authored with John, “Don’t Throw Away the Tinfoil Hats Just Yet: A Libertarian Defense of ‘Unwarranted’ Conspiracy Theories,” in the book Dissident Philosophers: Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy. This is a sad tale. The editors solicited essays from philosophers who are swimming against the tide. They imagined the target audience was smart, but not necessarily academics. Unfortunately, they went with an academic publishing house. It’s only available in hardcover ($104) or kindle ($45). Too bad, it’s got some great essays in it.

A newspaper article/biography about a local author from the 1930s who is all but forgotten.

Late 2022 I had a short story, “Sam’s World” come out in the literary journal, Thema.

My current research interest is folklore, and right now specifically Andrew Lang and the fairy-tale.

“Based on your publication history and research interests…” I never should have gotten this email. The shotgun approach to solicitation should have at least had a time filter on it: last publication not greater than X years. It should have scanned for current affiliation. There are people less qualified than I–mostly those who do not read and write English. But still.

Wonder how the applications will be screened?