Academic journals have been caught up in a massive hoax involving 20 fake papers.

Researchers published fake and convoluted papers on 'dog rape culture', 'a conceptual penis' and even re-wrote a chapter of Mein Kampf.

Their aim was to expose how 'absurdities' get published in legitimate peer-reviewed academic papers due to a lack of critical review.

In total the team of three researchers wrote 20 hoax papers on a field of study loosely defined as 'grievance studies'.

These papers – seven of which were accepted and four published online – were based on just 'nutty or inhumane' ideas that they ran with.

The authors claim their prank shows that higher education's fixation with identity politics has created 'absurd and horrific' scholarship, according to an in-depth piece by Wall Street Journal.

Researchers published fake and convoluted papers on 'dog rape culture', 'a conceptual penis' and even re-wrote a chapter of Mein Kampf (stock image)

WHAT WERE SOME OF THE FAKED PAPERS ON? One paper, published in Gender, Place & Culture, claimed to be based on a year observing sexual misconduct among dogs in a US park. The paper said that parks were 'petri dishes for canine 'rape culture'' and said people needed to be aware of the way dogs were treated depending on their gender. The year before they had publised a paper called 'The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct,' in the journal Cogent Social Sciences. Another paper published in the journal Fat Studies claimed that body building is 'fat-exclusionary'. They published a paper in the Journal of Poetry Therapy was about feminist spirituality meetings. It was written by an algorithm. Another paper published in peer-reviewed journal 'Affilia' was a rewrite of a chapter from Mein Kampf which was accepted despite going through a double peer review. The authors claim their prank shows that higher education's fixation with identity politics has created 'absurd and horrific' scholarship. Advertisement

The three researchers involved in the deception were Peter Boghossian from Portland State University, mathematician James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, who is editor-in-chief of current affairs magazine Areol.

Their aim was to expose how easily morally fashionable political ideas are published as academic research.

One paper, published in Gender, Place & Culture, claimed to be based on a year observing sexual misconduct among dogs in a US park.

The paper said that parks were 'petri dishes for canine 'rape culture'' and said people needed to be aware of the way dogs were treated depending on their gender.

It was written by an author called Helen Wilson, who claimed to have a doctorate in feminism studies. The real authors were James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian.

'I think that certain aspects of knowledge production in the United States have been corrupted,' Dr Boghossian told WSJ.

The year before they had published a paper called 'The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct' in the journal Cogent Social Sciences.

Their scribblings included the phrases ‘gender-performative, high fluid social construct’, ‘exclusionary to disenfranchised communities’, and ‘isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity’.

They even associated male anatomy with climate change.

Another paper published in the journal Fat Studies claimed that body building is 'fat-exclusionary'.

Talking about the hoax, Dr Lindsay said each paper 'combined an effort to better understand the field itself with an attempt to get absurdities and morally fashionable political ideas published as legitimate academic research'.

They believe that people are so keen on identity politics that they will accept papers despite 'outlandish' data.

Last year Dr Lindsay's team also published a paper written by an algorithm in the Journal of Poetry Therapy.

Another paper – which was just a rewrite of a chapter from Mein Kampf – was published in the journal 'Affilia'. It was accepted despite going through a double peer review.

'A tremendous amount of garbage gets published regardless of method because a) It's hard to do good work, and b) There's tremendous pressure to publish', tweeted Kieran Healy, an associate professor of sociology at Duke University

This is not the first time academics have published fake papers. Twenty-two years ago, a respected New Tork University physicist called Alan Sokal published a hoax paper to the journal Social Text (stock image)

As well as having papers published, the team were also asked to peer-review journals.

'A tremendous amount of garbage gets published regardless of method because a) It's hard to do good work, and b) There's tremendous pressure to publish', tweeted Kieran Healy, an associate professor of sociology at Duke University about the hoax.

'This means lots of stuff ends up in print anyway, even if it's dull, stupid, boring, or wrong. This is not a surprise', he said.

This is not the first time academics have published fake papers.

Twenty-two years ago, a respected New York University physicist called Alan Sokal published a hoax paper to the journal Social Text.

He wanted to prove people would publish 'an article liberally salted with nonsense' if it sounded good and flattered current ideological preconceptions.

The paper, which was titled 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity', was accepted.

The trio behind the latest hoax say their work was research in itself.

'For us, the risk of letting biased research continue to influence education, media, policy and culture is far greater than anything that will happen to us for having done this', Dr Lindsay said.