It does, however, change the validity of the "peer reviewed" status the paper has received, and thereby undermines the entire reason this paper has gotten so much attention.
If the journal is not credible, has published unreliable science in the past, has a stated agenda, and does not have an above-board peer-review process, then it is no more worthy of trust than the World News Daily.
Undermining the credibility of the journal a paper is published in is fair game when the credibility of the journal is the only reason any credibility is assigned to the paper.
I think the fact that it has any credibility at all is more due to the fact that the author works at NASA.
Again, I'm not saying that the paper is any good. I'm just saying that people should refute the claims in the paper instead of attacking the delivery method.
This was done as well. However, one should look at all the available evidence to inform one's analysis. Printing in a third rate journal is the first clue that something is very wrong.
> I'm just saying that people should refute the claims in
> the paper instead of attacking the delivery method.
At the risk of merely echoing what's been said countless times: (perceived) journal quality is simply a reliable heuristic for judging paper quality. Sure, some stuff published in Nature is crap, and some third-tier journals publish important research every now and then.
But in 90% of all cases, the paper-journal quality correlation works rather well.
If the journal is not credible, has published unreliable science in the past, has a stated agenda, and does not have an above-board peer-review process, then it is no more worthy of trust than the World News Daily.
Undermining the credibility of the journal a paper is published in is fair game when the credibility of the journal is the only reason any credibility is assigned to the paper.