Hacker News

Why did this journal retract two 1940s papers by Max Planck?

211 points by DR_MING ago | 27 comments

aleph_minus_one |next [-]

> The specific reason for the retractions was copyright violation, so there was nothing wrong with the actual papers from a scientific standpoint.

There is a reason why the German portmanteau word "Zensurheberrecht" ("Zensur": censorship; "Urheberrecht": the related concept to copyright in German law) exists.

adrian_b |root |parent |next [-]

The so-called copyright violation was that Max Planck had published the same article in 2 journals, which was not unusual at that time, because different journals had different readerships, so publishing in more journals was necessary if you wanted to reach more people.

So supposedly he plagiarized himself.

The second retracted article was even less justifiable, because the modern editors or their automated system had believed that 2 articles were the same, but they were not, they only happened to have the same title.

Ovah |root |parent |next [-]

While commonly taught in academic settings, I disagree with the notion that it's possible to self plagiarize. It's your own words and not stealing from somebody else.

CrazyStat |root |parent |next [-]

Agreed. The concept of “don’t reuse your old work when you’re supposed to be creating new work” may be valid, especially in training environments, but it shouldn’t be called self-plagiarism or treated like plagiarism.

ghaff |root |parent [-]

It's not really a great term but, at the same time, calling it fraud--which it sort of is in some contexts--feels kinda strong.

dpark |root |parent [-]

The problem is that journals become a way to fill a CV and justify tenure and grants rather than a way to disseminate information.

If your goal is to share information, you want quality articles in multiple places so that people can get to them. If your goal is to use journal publishing count as a professional metric, then double publishing becomes unethical.

The modern equivalent would be to declare it unethical to share an article on both Reddit and HN.

ghaff |root |parent [-]

I sorta agree to a point. It did used to be the case that cross-posting was generally a bad idea from an SEO perspective. Where I'm working now the theory seems to be, by all means, publish on your own site and we'll republish what makes sense to do so.

ghaff |root |parent |next |previous [-]

It's not just academic. If I've been paid for writing something original for a magazine or newspaper and I give them a piece that wholly or largely is just a copy of something I've written in the past (and has been published elsewhere), that's actually not kosher and they'll call you on it if they find out. Personally, I will reuse sentences and paragraphs from time to time but not entire pieces without an explanatory note.

brookst |root |parent [-]

Work for hire seems like a different ballgame than original work in an interative discipline

rayiner |root |parent |next |previous [-]

It seems like a rule designed by journal editors to protect their turf, or PhD committees to make it easier to count original works towards degree requirements. What could possibly be the justification?

nbernard |root |parent |next [-]

Indeed. When publishing in a scientific journal, you usually (have to) give them an exclusive licence on your article.

bluGill |root |parent |previous [-]

It also protects readers who may encounter the second years latter and not realize it is the same data and thus they think it is a second study reenforcing something. If they are experts in the field they likely know, but if this is a case where a different field overlaps they will want to have citations without as much knowledge of what is important.

catoc |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Agreed. And even etymology agrees:

Plagiarize comes from plagiarius, latin for ‘kidnapper’.

You cannot kidnap yourself

fabian2k |root |parent |previous [-]

it's really a bit of a different concept in scientific publishing, not actually plagiarism. The problematic part is publishing the same results twice, because it increases the burden on reviewers and inflates your publication count. It's also just messier if the results are in multiple places since it makes it harder to follow where those results were used and cited.

Vespasian |root |parent |previous [-]

Also that can't be the whole story because Planck died in 1947 and in Germany (then and now) Copyright ends 70 years after the death of the author.

aap_ |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Never heard this, but very accurate. thanks :)

adolph |root |parent |previous [-]

> German portmanteau word "Zensurheberrecht" ("Zensur": censorship; "Urheberrecht": the related concept to copyright in German law)

The recent podcast about Machiavelli by Dwarkesh had an interesting part about how the Catholic Inquisition, printmakers and authors collaborated in censorship to establish an early version of copyright. Link to the specific section:

https://youtu.be/U1FrhkLQnCI?t=6644

mellosouls |previous [-]

Discussed a couple days ago:

Springer Nature has removed two studies by Max Planck (science.org) 389 points, 196 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48686834

jrimbault |root |parent [-]

I notice how the title by Ars Technica is much less baity than Nature: "Why have papers by one of history’s most famous physicists been retracted?" vs "Why did this journal retract two 1940s papers by Max Planck?"

gpvos |root |parent |next [-]

For starters, Ars shouldn't write "this journal" when it's about another publication than themselves.

talon8635 |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Using “this X” in the title is the definition of bait to me. They could, in as many characters, say the journals name. But they don’t specifically in order to bait you into clicking to find out which journal.

squidbeak |root |parent |next |previous [-]

It's still clickbait and a good example of how infantile these publications are today. Ars and Nature really should be above all these bullshit headline games, but the fact they aren't explains a large part of their general degradation.

WesolyKubeczek |root |parent |previous [-]

It’s almost like Nature doesn’t expect its readers to know who this Max Planck guy is. :-)

zugi |root |parent [-]

Exactly, it seems that HN can assume a certain level of scientific knowledge among its readers that Nature can't.

mhurron |root |parent |next [-]

Well it would seem that the AAAS shouldn't assume that about HN readers.

The previous posted article was posted on science.org, managed by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) not Nature, which is a British publication.

The organization that did the removal was Springer Nature, parent of the publisher of Nature. It was reported in several places, the one linked here was on a site affiliated by a completely different organization.

Also, science.org is open to everyone, their articles are written and titled for any level of knowledge and any background. Ars and HN are very specific in their target audience and write to that. Even then the comments will be filled with complaints if things aren't written in a manner approachable to anyone.

gpvos |root |parent |next |previous [-]

If Ars can, then HN definitely can.

phalangion |root |parent |previous [-]

Nah. It’s all part of the clickbait. You want to know which physicist, so you click