> That people get proper credit is less important in scientific research than elsewhere, not more. It's obviously bad incentives, but with science it's most important that the information is accurate and gets out. Doesn't sound like the guy made it less accurate by republishing it with his own name on it.
If you reward the people who plagiarize over the people who actually did the work, there is no more motivation to do the work and the scientific endeavor as a whole suffers.
But why is this more important in science than in any other field? I'm just saying that they're saying it's especially important, but it's actually, at best just as important or possibly less important, because it's more important in science that accurate information get out than in other fields, whether or not it's plagiarized.
EDIT: I think the important part of your quote is The peer-review process depends on the ethical behavior of reviewers.. For better or worse, the formal peer review is central to the current scientific process in most fields. Reviewers are incredibly strong gatekeepers, if they can't be trusted that's a big problem. So maybe sort-of thanks to those guys for pointing out yet another flaw with it?
EDIT2: and as /u/jonchang pointed out above, the plagiarizers actually made up data, which is even worse.
Agreed. I find that open letters annoy me even when the author is completely in the right. I think the issue is that often the 'open letter' isn't really targeted at the ostensible addressee, but rather at the public.
At this institute:
http://www.stellamarismediterraneo.org/
Even without knowing Italian, from the "quality" of their website it should be clear enough the "high" level of such institution.
The IMHO preoccupying thing is that the use of "Fanelli C" is not much different from using "Smith J", as a matter of fact there is another "Fanelli C" , actually Fanelli Carlo, which is an ematologist in Bologna (and that has also published medicine research) that may be mistaken for the "corresponding author" of this plagiarized paper.
> As you must certainly know, stealing is wrong. It is especially problematic in scientific research. The peer-review process depends on the ethical behavior of reviewers.
That people get proper credit is less important in scientific research than elsewhere, not more. It's obviously bad incentives, but with science it's most important that the information is accurate and gets out. Doesn't sound like the guy made it less accurate by republishing it with his own name on it.
I also find the "open letter" tone here a bit annoying and petulant. If this guy admitted what he did, why publish this without mentioning his name, and with just general platitudes like this? No one is on the side of someone who does this.
EDIT: Maybe I was unclear here, my last paragraph was intended to to indicate that no one would be on the side of the plagiarizers, and that I didn't like the indirect "you can figure out who we are talking about" nature of the letter. I think it would have been more effective to write this as, "Recently our work was stolen by such-and-such, we think it was terrible, etc."