That article both misses the point and seriously mischaracterizes the bogus papers. It's also illustrative of the problem that these people are trying to demonstrate: that these are fields of study that are taken seriously from a scholarly perspective, but that are in fact ideological echo chambers. It also ignores the very real censorship that is becoming increasingly common on college campuses. But when the Slate piece says that "[t]hese examples haven’t hoodwinked anyone with sophistry or satire but with a simple fabrication of results," it is clear that its author hasn't actually read any of them.

Take the dog park one, for example. First, the journal didn't even verify who the author was: it was submitted under a false name and false program. A simple Google search would've revealed this to be bogus, but what touts itself as an academic journal failed to even do that basic level of investigation. Meanwhile, the paper itself is obviously bullshit just by reading the introduction. The stated purpose of the paper is to use the fact that people at dog parks don't intervene when their dogs get it on to show that people don't care about sexual assault in other humans. But in the introduction, there's this part:

Of course, the following caveat applies. Because of my own situatedness as a human, rather than as a dog, I recognize my limitations in being able to determine when an incidence of dog humping qualifies as rape. In particular, from my own anthropocentric frame, it is difficult if not impossible to ascertain when canine sexual advances are un/wanted, or when they are rapes rather than performances of canine dominance, which introduces considerable unavoidable ambiguity in my interpretations of this variable.

Thus the author flat-out states that their methodology is completely made up, but the journal publishes it anyway. I don't understand how you can then turn around and say that this was somehow not a meaningful criticism.