Plagiarism Scandal in Gravitational Physics Research

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pervect
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I recently was pointed at a rather interesting article:

http://arstechnica.com/articles/cul...-data-slip-into-the-scientific-literature.ars

about recently discovered widespread and long-lasting (5 years) plagarism in the field of gravitation physics.

According to Dr. Sarioglu, two of the authors of this paper were graduate students with a prodigious track record of publication: over 40 papers in a 22-month span. Dr. Karasu, who sat on the panel that evaluated their oral exams, became suspicious when their knowledge of physics didn't appear to be consistent with this level of output. Discussions with Dr. Tekin revealed that the students also did not appear to possesses the language skills necessary for this level of output in English-language journals (METU conducts its instruction in English).

This caused these faculty members to go back and examine their publications in detail, at which point the plagiarism became clear. "All they had done was literally take big chunks of others' work using the 'copy and paste' technique," Dr. Sarioglu said, "steal from here and there to cook up an Intro which is basically the same stuff in all their manuscripts, carry out some really trivial calculations such as taking derivatives of some simple functions, and write up the results in the format of a paper." The department chair was informed and started an internal investigation; the university's Ethics Committee has since become involved.

One of the affected papers mentioned in this article is http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0611014
 
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how widespread is plagiarism in physics? if you had a wonderful idea could you go to your theoretical physicist "coworker" and get his opinion or would you only discuss it among trusted friends... it sure would suck to share an idea with a fellow thinker and get stabbed in the back... what's happened to the intellectual code of honor?
 
SpitfireAce said:
how widespread is plagiarism in physics? if you had a wonderful idea could you go to your theoretical physicist "coworker" and get his opinion or would you only discuss it among trusted friends... it sure would suck to share an idea with a fellow thinker and get stabbed in the back... what's happened to the intellectual code of honor?

I wouldn't know for a fact, but I'd say it is common to see, maybe not to this extent though. Believe it or not Physicists are human.:rolleyes: Human beings are always tempted to lie and cheat to get ahead. It is indeed sad that this type of activity goes on in physics, but is it really surprising?
 
40 papers in a 22 month span, that seems ridiculously high to me, even if they were plagiarising you got to give them some kudos for that rate of output!