I’ll bet you didn’t know that America’s favorite yellow pacifier-sucking baby and chain-smoking teacher were serious scientific researchers. Recently, a nonsensical study authored by these fictional characters was approved for publication by not one, but two scientific journals—the Journal of Computational Intelligence and Electronic Systems and the Aperito Journal of NanoScience Technology.

Predatory scientific journals are a serious issue—these publications offer to publish just about any scientists’ (or fictional characters’) work for a fee without actually conducting peer review. Yet once the work is “published” by a reputable sounding publication, authors are able to point to their published research and promote their research—no matter how fundamentally flawed—to the media and public.

Peer review certainly isn’t perfect. And even reputable journals can publish some questionable studies—just look at the American Heart Association’s publication of a deeply flawed study linking BPA to higher blood pressure. But when fictional characters can publish random jibberish and call it “published scientific research,” it highlights just how deep these problems in scientific publishing run.