To be honest the distinction between a sham scientific society and a real one feels blurry to me. I was advised to join IEEE hoping that at some point they'll give me an award or title for my CV. But you pay thousands of $ over a career for this.
The claim is that these societies represent members' interests. Maybe that's partly true, but the main example I know of from the IEEE is that they lobby against publishing reform that would make science better and reduce costs wasted on publishing.
They're also bureaucracies that serve themselves foremost. It takes the membership dues of around 10,000 members just to pay the $1.1m salary of the executive director.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02980-w
Dan Goodman
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2026-09-26 10:56:39 UTC
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