Problems with plagiarism at the sixth World Conference on Research Integrity, to be held in Hong Kong, China, in June 2019
Nebert, Daniel (nebertdw)
Mon 2/11, 9:17 PM
This ironic news item was just a small paragraph in a recent issue of Science magazine, but the story underscores where science is — and has been going — for some years now. There was a time when virtually all scientists were ethical, trustworthy, and above reproach. However, this news item was pubished by the planning committee of the sixth World Conference on Research Integrity (which is scheduled to be held in Hong Kong, China, in June 2019). Members of the committee were surprised to receive an abstract that was obviously not an honest article, but rather full of apparent plagiarism. This surprise induced them to explore further.
After closely examining all 430 abstract submissions, the members determined 11 additional cases of “suspected plagiarism”. When they contacted the authors of each of these 11 abstracts — two of which, ironically, were about plagiarism — authors of six of those abstracts did not respond, one withdrew their submission, one blamed the staff (i.e. ‘it wasn’t the coauthors of the abstract who had done the plagiarizing), and two replied by claiming they “had permission to use other people’s work.” Only two gave “acceptable” explanations.
The organizing committee of the 6th World Conference reported this sad, pathetic news last week on the Retraction Watch blog. 🙁
DwN
Science 18 Jan 2o19; 363: 209