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More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

nature.com

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Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#11
See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard

I don't see anything wrong with this if the parents want to share credit with their kids. In any case, there are many cases where authorship is shared with people who didn't contribute, if universities are taking it at face value that's on them. Also, who is to say that the kids weren't onvolved in some way, maybe just as a person to bounce ideas off of.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#12
post #7

Since I'm reading Patrick O'Brian again, I can't help but be reminded of the practice of false muster - keeping well-connected boys on the books of warships as midshipmen fraudulently, so as to accrue more service time and seniority. Nepotism and zero-sum games just go hand-in-hand.

I don't see the connection to zero-sum. You can have nepotism in non-zero-sum games too. That might describe the traditional practice of handing down a trade to the next generation, where the bakers and blacksmiths trained their kids to do it and they took over the business when the old man retired. Maybe people only complain when the nepotism is in a zero-sum context, where someone else is losing.

[deleted]

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#13

See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard I don't see anything wrong with this if the parents want to share credit with their kids. In any case, there are many cases where authorship is shared with people who didn't contribute, if universities are taking it at face value that's on them. Also, who is to say that the kids weren't onvolved in some way, maybe just as a person to bounce ideas off of.

> In any case, there are many cases wherr authorship is shared with people who didn't contribute

Given the reality of living in a world where references lead to enrichment, this should be considered fraud in every case. The authorship system hinges on trust. Abusing that trust for family gain is wrong.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#14

See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._D._C._Willard I don't see anything wrong with this if the parents want to share credit with their kids. In any case, there are many cases where authorship is shared with people who didn't contribute, if universities are taking it at face value that's on them. Also, who is to say that the kids weren't onvolved in some way, maybe just as a person to bounce ideas off of.

If the kids made serious contributions, that is one thing. However, that really doesn’t seem to be the case here.

Nepotism is majorly harmful. If their kids go into academia, they already have a huge leg up from having academic parents. Let alone if they already have a strong publishing record which they did not merit. You really harm those who don’t come from that background, which of course, is how class divide can become a chasm.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#16
I'm not sure this is always bad, as long is it's obvious it's not serious or for the purpose of fraud, or if the individual cited actually contributed in some way. Here's a researcher's dog, whose name was Galadriel Mirkwood, cited as a co-author:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Matzinger#Dog_co-author_...

Who is to say the dog did not contribute to the author's paper and research in some way she found significant? Likewise with the children. There's tons of papers where people are cited for making the most minor contribution, like just suggesting something that reminded the researcher of something else and that's considered a legitimate practice to acknowledge their inspirational or otherwise supportive input. And yeah kids can make useful suggestions into their parents research and should be allowed to be acknowledged when that is the case.

The dog lady was banned from publication until the angry editor died! Overkill IMO as I see no fraud there. Fortunately when she was up for tenure she got it, with the tenure committee finding regarding the dog issue that the coauthorship was legitimate because "It was a real dog [a frequent lab visitor] and they said it had done no less research than some other coauthors had."

In the Korean case the article notes that after an 2018 audit of 82 papers with child coauthors they were able to determine that about half the children named had participated in the research. So at least that half were legitimately credited. The article then notes that currently 549 papers with child authorship have been reviewed, and only 24 were found to have unjustified authorship. Only 24 of 549 papers with child authors! That's only 4% of papers with child authors being unjustified. What percentage of papers without child authors give unjustified credit? Is it more than 4%? Perhaps! And certainly so for the field of ghostcredited pharmaceutical papers, a known huge problem. It's possible that papers with child authors are even less likely to have unjustified authorship than papers in general.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#17
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that’s a common practice. In Russian Emprie nobility’s kids were listed as soldiers when their mothers have been still pregnant. If a girl was born, the imaginary soldier was reported dead.

please proof - just curious

I remember this from 19th century novel "The Captain's Daughter" by Alexander Pushkin[0]. While the book is fiction, the practice isn't presented as something extraordinary for the mid-18th century and may very well be true. I haven't looked for non-fictional sources.

The second paragraph of the novel reads as follows:

Матушка была еще мною брюхата, как уже я был записан в Семеновский полк сержантом, по милости майора гвардии князя Б., близкого нашего родственника. Если бы паче всякого чаяния матушка родила дочь, то батюшка объявил бы куда следовало о смерти неявившегося сержанта, и дело тем бы и кончилось.

Oddly, in both English translations linked to by the Wikipedia article the mention of pregnancy and handling of the girl situation is just dropped.

In my very imperfect translation:

"My mother was only pregnant with me when through the help of a near relative of ours, Prince B., himself a Major of the Guards, I was already enlisted in Semyonovsky regiment as a Sergeant of the Guards. Were my mother, contrary to the wishes, to give birth to a girl, my father would've notified the regiment of the death of an absent sergeant and that would've been it."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Captain%27s_Daughter

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#18
When I was in grad school our department had a meeting every morning where we could get together to discuss the latest papers which we called "Morning Coffee" (or also Astro Coffee). These discussions were pretty fruitful and regularly would inspire new papers.

After writing a new paper based on one of these discussions one of the professors decided to commemorate the contribution of Morning Coffee to the paper and added "M. Coffee" as an author. At some point word got out that M. Coffee was not a real person. From what I understand the journal got very upset. Nevertheless, the original author list still stands:

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001ApJ...556L..59P/abstra...

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#19

I'm not sure this is always bad, as long is it's obvious it's not serious or for the purpose of fraud, or if the individual cited actually contributed in some way. Here's a researcher's dog, whose name was Galadriel Mirkwood, cited as a co-author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Matzinger#Dog_co-author_... Who is to say the dog did not contribute to the author's paper and research in some way she found significan…

because any sort of gaming of metrics in science should be discouraged.

Re: More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

#20

I'm not sure this is always bad, as long is it's obvious it's not serious or for the purpose of fraud, or if the individual cited actually contributed in some way. Here's a researcher's dog, whose name was Galadriel Mirkwood, cited as a co-author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Matzinger#Dog_co-author_... Who is to say the dog did not contribute to the author's paper and research in some way she found significan…

I do think it’s misleading to acknowledge the sorts of contributions children and dogs might make with co authorship. I do agree that often small contributions are rewarded with authorship, but really I think these are best credited in the acknowledgment section of the paper. Otherwise there is not a good way to distinguish between a substantial contribution and an ethereal one.
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