From one of my favorite blogs, Retraction Watch, which I don't get the chance to read nearly as often as I'd like to.
When science writer Vito Tartamella noticed a physics paper co-authored by Stronzo Bestiale (which means “total asshole” in Italian) he did what anyone who’s written a book on surnames would do: He looked it up in the phonebook.
What he found was a lot more complicated than a funny name.
It turns out Stronzo Bestiale doesn’t exist.
In 1987, Lawrence Livermore National Lab physicist William G. Hoover had a paper on molecular dynamics rejected by two journals: Physical Review Letters and the Journal of Statistical Physics. So he added Stronzo Bestiale to the list of co-authors, changed the name, and resubmitted the paper. The Journal of Statistical Physics accepted it.
27 years later, Bestiale is still listed as co-author on several papers. He also has a Scopus profile that lists him as an active researcher at the Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Vienna.
And, as the article notes, it's not an isolated incident. But you should read it, yourself. Retraction Watch is an inoculation against the diseased superstition of romantic scientism, doing what science is supposed to do but, as is shown by its all too numerous articles noting retractions from even the most august of names in science journalism, including Nature, is more a question of wishful thinking than actual practice.
Next thing you'll be telling me is that science is not objective, and therefore is not the pathway to absolute truth.
ReplyDeleteWhen everybody knows science is a missive from the Unmoved Mover, who alone can give us uncontroverted truth because he/it(?) is unmotivated by even cosmological considerations.
Well, it would explain a lot, anyway.....