Monday 28 February 2011

Franklin G. Miller on Plagiarism in Bioethics

The Hastings Center's public online commentary site, Bioethics Forum, a few days ago published this piece by Franklin G. Miller on plagiarism in bioethics. Miller touches on his own recent experiences as a victim of plagiarism (which I published a post about recently), as well as presents some general thoughts on how the field of bioethics should relate itself to this phenomenon. His account ends with the following statement:
It is a sad state of affairs if bioethicists of all people can’t adhere scrupulously to the norms of scholarship, especially the most elementary ethical rule of refraining from misappropriating the work of fellow scholars.
If you have read my post on bioethics and plagiarism, you know that I couldn't agree more, and that – in my view – journal editors need to be particularly proactive in preventing plagiarised research to reach the stage of scholarly publication.