by John Bohannon
Iran has now taken a stand on the plagiarism scandal that has engulfed two government ministers after substantial portions of their research articles were discovered to be verbatim copies of other scientists’ published work. According to a member of the Iranian parliament who was part of the government investigation, copying in this case isn’t plagiarism because the results are "a genuine scientific work." (He said it here, in Persian.) Meanwhile, a junior Iranian scientist who wrote two of the papers says he was responsible but also denies it counts as plagiarism.
The scandal erupted 3 weeks ago with a report by Nature that Iran’s science minister, Kamran Daneshjou, was first author on a 2009 article in the journal Engineering with Computers that plagiarized a 2002 article published by South Korean researchers in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, as well as a 2003 conference paper by U.S., U.K., and Chinese researchers. Since then, the scandal has expanded to include two more papers for which Daneshjou was lead author that included copy-and-paste sections, and yet another authored by the country’s transportation minister, Hamid Behbahani. All four papers have been retracted by the journals.
I couldn’t reach Daneshjou (e-mails sent to him bounced); he has said nothing publicly on the matter. His co-author and former Ph.D. student, Majid Shahravi, appears to be taking all the blame. But in an e-mail exchange with me over the weekend, Shahravi argued that “no plagiarism occurred” because all of his results and conclusions are novel, even though some of the text appeared first in others’ papers.
Shahravi, listed as second author, says that he wrote the paper himself based on experiments from his Ph.D. thesis. He submitted the papers with Daneshjou as first author, he says, because not doing so would have been “impolite.” He says he used Daneshjou’s e-mail account to communicate with the editors of the journals that published the papers. (He claims that all of Daneshjou’s Ph.D. students do this with his permission.) The reason that Shahravi copied passages from previously published work, he says, is simply “that I am not fluent in English.” You can read his self-defense in full below.
After an investigation into the matter, the Iranian government concurs with Shahravi. Earlier this week, Iran’s Mehr News Agency published this interview with Saadollah Nasiri Gheydari, a member of parliament and the government’s higher education commission. “The model used and the results obtained in the article by the Korean author are completely different from those in Dr. Daneshjou's paper,” he concludes. “The only issue here is that the Ph.D. student of Dr. Daneshjou has used some of the writings of the Korean author, which is of course poor judgment. But as I said, this article is a genuine scientific work and by no means represents scientific theft.”
Opinions about the plagiarism scandal among Iranian scientists are sharply polarized. Seyyed Hasheminejad, an engineer at the Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran, says plagiarism occurred and puts the blame squarely on Daneshjou’s ex-Ph.D. student. “[Shahravi] must be punished ... in order for him to understand the seriousness of his actions." Others are not so convinced about the science minister’s innocence. “[Daneshjou] was the corresponding author on the papers,” says an Iranian physicist based in Germany who requested anonymity to avoid harassment of his family in Iran. “He should have known the content of his paper, and ... he cannot escape the responsibility.”
—John Bohannon
Email to John Bohannon From Majid Shahravi:
Dear Dr John Bohannon
The following composition is my comprehensive response that refutes any plagiarism.
1. Firstly, I have been PhD students during the 2004-2009 and I graduated in Feb 2009 while my PhD supervisor was Dr. Daneshjou. The text published in the paper, was some results presented in my PhD thesis. It presents the advantages of SPH comparing with other primitive methods such as Lagrangian one. It should be noted that this paper published two month after I defended my PhD thesis.
2. About the paper published, I should noted that, firstly, I have got the results from both Lagrangian and SPH methods, then I showed the results to Dr. Daneshjou. Dr. Daneshjou compared these results and confirmed that SPH is more precise especially for brittle material than the primitive methods. He also emphasized that, a new paper can be published as SPH is a new method to calculate critical ricochet angle. Then, I attempt to write a new paper considering Dr. Daneshjou’s comments. In other word, he considered my scientific results based on SPH method and then recommended to publish a scientific paper. Therefore, in order to observe honesty behavior, (especially as he cooperated with me in SPH method) I add his name as an author.
3- About the insertion of Dr Daneshjou’s name as a first author, I should tell that it was impolite to insert my supervisor’s name as a second author. About Corresponding Author, I should tell that all the students as well as me, use Dr. Daneshjou’s Email in order to submit and revise our papers. In other word, it was me who sent email to the journals editorial boards via Dr. Daneshjou’s E-mail
4) I should clearly noted that: I (Majid Shahravi) accept(s) all authorities corresponded to this paper. Because, Dr. Daneshjou did not participate during of editing and writing of this paper. As expressed in case 2, he only confirmed the advantages of SPH method comparing with Lagrangian one.
5) Some told the other papers I have presented have some similarities with the one I talked about. It should be noted that the similarities are predictable as all the papers are published in result of PhD thesis.
6) In this section I want to discuss some discrepancies between the results done by this paper and those corresponded to Korean authors:
All the scientific expression followed is in my authority as I write the paper, and I am who reply to all enquiries:
A) Of course, I have used some text from Abstract and Introduction section of Korean authors, because it is common to use Abstract and Introduction in problem specifications. There are a lot of similarities between these two papers in Abstract and Introduction. However, it does not matter as it is conventional in papers in order to pose the main question.
B) About the SPH method and its advantages comparing with Lagrangian one I should tell that no matter even only one word about SPH method has not presented in Korean paper. However, the main weight of my paper is devoted to SPH method and I have concluded that this method leads to the more precise results comparing with the results of Lagrangian method. This is due to the fact that the Lagrangian method use the Erosion principal, that can not be satisfied be mass conservation law. This shortcoming is cancelled in SPH method as it consider.
The work done by Korean author in 2002 uses the Lagrangian method with other software and he conclude that Lagrangian method is more precise than analytical methods. I do not know, which results are similar to Korean author. In my view , the main topic of my paper about the SPH method confirms the originality of the paper. The new results presented in Figs. 14,15,16 and 17 is another confirmation to the originality of the paper.
C) There are some other discrepancies even in Lagrangian method between the Korean results and my results:
Firstly, the types of mesh generation are different. As depicted from Fig. 2 of Korean author, the elements are not quad . However, the Fig. 2 of my paper shows the structured quad elements. All the researchers who work in FEM know that using the Quad elements leads to more precise results. Therefore, the Lagrangian results presented in my paper is more precise than Korean authors. Secondly, I have been surprised as some told my Figures in Lagrangian simulation are the same as Korean authors. This is not true as I used LSDYNA software but the Korean author used DYTRAN. In order to clarify this matter, you can compare the Figs. 5 (g,h) of Korean author with the Fig. 6 (g,h) of my paper.
The discrepancies are also can be seen comparing the Figs. 6(g,h) of Korean with the results of Fig. 7 of my paper. It should be also noted that the presented results are more precise than the results of Korean author as I used the Quad elements in mesh generation.
D) I claim that no work has done from 2002 till now that can estimate the long rod critical ricochet angle using SPH method. This is a main reason that made the present paper be published in scientific journal. Again, I should emphasize that probably, there are some papers that study on critical ricochet angles but not by SPH method.
E) There was no Gasgun setup in Iran that can examine long rod in high velocity. Therefore, in order to validate my results I had to employ the experimental results of Korean author with citing his paper in references. All the researchers know that using the experimental results with citing the papers is conventional.
This was so wonderful for me whenever some told about the similarity between the table of target and projectile specifications in my paper and the one presented by Korean author. This is my question: How can I use the Korean experimental results with other specifications? How can I use other materials in replace of steel and tungsten, and then compare the results with Korean Authors? Was it possible?
Again I emphasize that, I have cited this reference in the paper.
F) In the present paper, I cited the Korean paper and all 31 references that they referred them. For example the Fig. 1 of present paper and Fig. 1 of Korean authors are extracted from reference 7 [Rosenberg paper]. Then both me and Korean authors have used the same figures from the same references. Consequently, I have observed the trustworthiness as Korean authors do.
G) There are other discrepancies in the results presented in Figs 22 and 23 that show residual length and also the target perforation using both Lagrangian and SPH methods. The Korean authors did not present these results.
In spite of all the political and scientific news about the present paper, the conclusion is followed as:
Firstly, in my view no plagiarism is occurred, but a new scientific method is presented in the present paper.
The number of paper pages is 16. The sections that are similar to Korean papers are from the main text not the results. This is due to the fact that I am not fluent in English.
There is no figure from the results of the present paper that is similar with Korean results.
Again, I should indicate that I (Majid Shahravi) accept(s) all authorities corresponded to this paper. I also added the name of Dr Daneshjou as an author, since, he was my supervisor in PhD thesis and also he helps me in SPH method.
SPH method is more precise to calculate critical ricochet angle especially for brittle material than the primitive methods. No one has worked on this scientific topic. This is the main reason of originality of present paper.
Again, I declared that certainly I had no intention to use other authors’ works.
Regards
Majid Shahravi, PhD
I strictly want you to change your title. The title (the word IRAN at the title) is quite offensive and it is clear that it is racially biased. You obviously have the right to critique and blame those people who commit plagiarism. But no one has the right to use the name of our country Iran when a single Iranian is accused of doing something wrong. You should notice that Iran is the name of a country and a nation and this is not the name of a specific scientist, government, or minister. As an Iranian I am really upset to see that some people want to abuse these stories to blame all the Iranians as a nation. The title supports this guess that this is a political game. I urge my countrymen who live in the US to take legal actions against those who want to offense Iran’s respect.
Another battle like the one on using the terms Gulf or Persian-Gluf is going on while the main issue is neglected. Hey guys, we should comment on Plagiarism and not on the title of the paper. Please do not miss understand, the world is watching us. The content of the paper is quite positive and it does not generalize the Plagiarism on the whole Iranians!
Kindly correct your title. You are unintentionally humiliating all of us, Iranians. Iran and Iranians have been decent in all their history. This fake government and all its relevant are not behavior-speak for all (majority) Iranians. Please Take out IRAN, at least from the title.
The title is wrong. The government of Iran is cheater not Iranian scientist. Please change the title.
Dear Sirs there in the esteemed magazine,
Kindly correct your title. You are unintentionally humiliating all of us, Iranians. Iran and Iranians have been decent in all their history. This fake government and all its relevant are not behavior-speak for all (majority) Iranians. Please Take out IRAN, at least from the title.
All the regards and thanks.
We, Iranian scientists, should learn a lesson from this disaster. Besides, there is one warning for us. "Iranian scientists do not possess good English skills". What Mr. Shahravi tells in his letter, that due to his weakness in English he used the same introduction as the Korean paper, is a new issue. We should think about that! If we go back to the history, we had three languages, Arabic for science, Persian for literature, and Turkish the language of kings and army. It worked well! Since Pahlavi's era we were forced to use only Persian for all. I think what we see here is a consequence of using the Persian language in the scientific communities. I do not mean that we have to use Arabic again. In fact, we should have English as the first language at the universities.
I think the word Iran does not work out for this article. A few people have cheated but the title generalizes that to a scandal for a country. Iran's scientist have suffered more than anybody else from these kind of irresponsible acts taken by Ahmadinejad's cabinet. They (Daneshjoo and his student) have certainly cheated, that is clear. Daneshjoo even has also cheated to his PhD student by putting his name ahead of him as the first author but it is not fair to scale up such a manner to Iranian scientists and researcher. What it has to do with them? Does anyone knows how many of them have been retired illegally during the last 5 years after Ahmadinejad took the power?
Ehsan,
New Zealand
I am a PhD student of at the Dept. of Electrical Eng., University of Southern California, and I am Iranian. Several papers are published by Iranian scholars inside and outside Iran each year. One could hardly find such a theft in their papers. It is also the case for other scholars from US, Europe or any other place. Indeed, for academicians all over the world, integrity criteria are the same, and it is obviously offensive to use the term Iran in your title.
Please do correct your title, or Iranian scholars, who are indeed contributing to scientific activities all over the world, will react such a claim that Iranians do not consider verbatim copying as theft, at least by a petition.
I am an Iranian student. I must mention that ahmadinejad is not the president of Iran
please change your title.I love my country (Iran and Iran isn't equal ahmadinejad or Kamran daneshjoo. so change your title Please.
Using "Iran" in such a title is not fair
Sir, your title isnt fair. please change it..
I am an Iranian student. I must mention that ahmadinejad is not the president of Iran and Iranian people he is the president of military government and so his minster Cumran Daneshjoo is not minster of iran. Iranian Scientist hate scientific theft, and I am sure that Cumran Daneshjoo is not a scientist he is a thief in both election as head of election staff and or as scientist.
Please do not call those cheaters Iranians. We hate their guts. They are not Iranians. They are a disgrace for humanity. Please don't use the name of Iran. Use their personal dirty names
In Persian version of this letter he had written all of these, but also he had claimed that he is accused of plagiarism because the Nature editor (Declan Butler) is a Zionist man and this is a political game.
This statement is not the official stance of Iranian government, so the title quoting from "Iran" sounds a bit racially biased. While I totally condemn this plagiarism case, I also suggest you to change the title to a fair one.
please correct the heading
not Iran but Majid Shahravi. we in iran Are aganits plagiarism.
DEAR SIR,
I AM AN IRANIAN AND THOSE CHEATERS ARE A BIG SHAME FOR US BUT YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PUT THE NAME OF IRAN!! AS A CHEATER AS YOU DID IN THE TITLE.
I WOULD KINDLY ASK YOU TO CHANGE THE NAME OF IRAN IN THE TITLE TO THE NAME OF THE PERSON WHO HAS VIOLATED THE COPYRIGHT LAW.
YOUR APPROACH SHOULD BE SCIENTIFIC AND HERE IRAN IS NOT THE ONE WHO SAID THAT NONSENSE SENTENCE, THAT PERSON AND THE MINISTER OF THE GOVERNMENT ARE THE ONES SO PUT THEIR NAME
REGARDS
The title that you have chosen for this valuable post is not fare. you have generalized an illegal and unethical action of two Iranian scientists and have concluded that their statement is the idea of the majority of Iranian researchers.
Iranian academic society is deeply sorry and even ashamed for this scandal by Dr Danesdhjoo and his assistant, and strongly apposes them.
I, as an Iranian Graduate Student, believe that plagiarism is Scientific Theft and should be stopped!
hundreds of Iranian scientists ad researchers are working all around the world and their publications has never been accused to be copied from someone else.
I would like to kindly ask you to revise the topic. What Dr. Daneshjoo says is not the opinion of Iran. it is only his personal point of view!
More recently, Majid Shahravi has written an open letter, apologizing about the plagiarism case. Unfortunately, only in Persian:
http://alef.ir/1388/content/view/55329
I translate part of it:
... Since I have used the text of that (Korean) article in my paper without informing my supervisor (as my English is not good), although the copied paste is mainly in the Introduction (Problem Definition), I hereby apologize my Supervisor (Kamran Daneshjou, Science Minister) and the scientific community.
The so called "first author" has apparently been happy and prepared to share the credits and advantages of the paper but not ready to take responsibility for the blames. He has obviously abused his student both when writing the paper and now that things have gone bad. This irresponsible and immoral behavior should be added to the list of his wrong doings.
I thought blood of young Iranians poured on the streets of Tehran would send the message to the world that this government is not representative of Iranians. Apparently this has not been enough.
As for the blatant denials, we are totally used to lies of this magnitude from the government in Iran. It has become something of a comic nature.
I think the title is extremely misleading and making stereotypes. Having "Iran" in the title seems totally inappropriate. "Iranian" scientist like all other scientists are against all kind of plagiarism and are faithful to the routines of scientific works and collaborations.
Furthermore, this guy is a member (or student of a member) of a fraud government which are shameless liars and kill people in broad daylight. What can you expect from them when they lie to their own people about what people did themselves (fraction of votes etc.)?
I would appreciate if you kindly change the title from "Iran ...." to " 'name of the guy' ..." immediately.
Thanks.
One important question is the extent to which this issue is systemic and due to mis-understandings around plagiarism, and to what extent these are isolated instances from a few bad apples. Given the recurrence and the multiplicity of the cases, it seems likely that this is more common than these public cases and partly due to the fact that people are not taught about the principals of citation and plagiarism (or at least were not, while I was in Iran, a decade ago).
John, please note that the title issue is hitting a raw nerve because of the major misperceptions of Iran in the western media and stereotypes that put iran, iranian, and iranian government into the same bucket and associate with this bucket a whole set of negative things, from terrorism to nuclear threat, fraud, etc. Any article that reinforces this stereotype will be seen by the majority of Iranians (who have nothing to do with the motivations of those stereotypes) as an attack on their personal and national identity.
The statement made by the author (Shahravi) is totally misleading and irresponsible. I am sure there is plenty of people in Iranian scientific communities who are fluent in English from which the author could have asked to help in writing (or translating from Persian to English) the manuscript. Not knowing the language is not a good excuse to just “copy and paste” a text from another published material even though they cited the original reference. Moreover I can not understand in what way not acknowledging Mr. Daneshju’s name as first author would be impolite!
I'm surprised to see the title (of all things) generating heated debate. The use of "Iran" in the title refers to the government of Iran. It is standard journalism practice to use the name of a country (France, US, China, etc.) as shorthand for the country's leadership in headlines. I certainly didn't mean to imply that the "Iran" and "the Iranian people" are the same, let alone "the Iranian regime". Please let me know what you think about the article itself...
John Bohannon (the author)
As more global scientific, medical and technical publishers implement iThenticate and CrossCheck, expect to see an improved quality of research. As for this example, the rebuttals to acquisitions of plagiarism are inadequate and embarrassing to those who presented them. Not only do the arguments fail to show that the authors did not plagiarise, they offer an admission of overall sloppily prepared research.
The "Iran" in the title resembles all Iranian scientists. Please change the "Iran" into the name of the responsible persons, I mean : Daneshjou and Shahravi. Thank you.
Dear John,
Using "Iran" in such a title is not fair. It is better to say:
Student of Iranian Minister: Verbatim Copying Not “Scientific Theft”
Regards.
The idea of copying articles not being plagiarism is not the way all Iranian think. The writer of that specific article stated that it is not "scientific theft" not Iran itself.
The title is such a racist, politically motivated, unfair statement. Yes we all are against those people who copied those papers. In fact, these so-called professors are members of the illegal government who stole peoples' vote. So that does not make them IRAN because Iran has already risen against them. Please fix the title and do not forget there are many Iranians who publish highly-qualified papers in top-ranked journal, which are truly the results of their own original research.
I don't agree with the title also, It isn't fair to extent it to all the Iranian scientist, this title gives such impression. Please use a suitable title.
Best,
The correct title would be: "The cheating MINORITY in Iran: We are the best, following the example of our dear cheating double face incompetent president."
The "Iran" in the title resembles all Iranian scientists. Please change the "Iran" into the name of the responsible persons, I mean : Daneshjou and Shahravi. Thank you.
please change the name of Iran in the title,researchers of Iran are not responsible for his cheating.
I don´t agree with the title, please change it.Iranian are not agree with these fraudelant people. Their cheating is an exception and Iranian scientists are all honest.
Plagiarism is becoming nearly impossible to hide. There are search engines constantly comparing the text of published articles in online databases. You can read about that here:
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2009/03/avoiding-plagia.html