Legal Threats Backfire

Last week, a young radiation biologist by the name of Benjamin J Hayempourwas featured on the blog Retraction Watch. Hayempour had just had a paper retracted for its 'unexplained close similarity' to another paper - a phrase that many people would consider a euphemism for 'plagiarism'. Plagiarism is so common that it's a bit boring. If one plagiarized paper had been all there was to the story, Retraction Watch might not have run it; it certainly wouldn't have got much traffic. However, Hayempour went and made the story at lot more interesting - by having his lawyer threaten Retraction Watch with a lawsuit. This was probably the worst move he could possibly have made. Within hours, a mob of readers had trawled Hayempour's other publications and uncovered numerous other "close similarities". Instead of one retraction, he might well end up with several. And I'm happy to join this mob, because ...