....it is my understanding that such "courtesy authorships" are now considered unethical at least within psychology. I now avoid accepting authorship on papers where either my contribution or a co-author's is either minimal or nonexistent.
----- Yes, 'gift authorship' is still relatively common practice in some of the biomedical disciplines and, yes, it is considered unethical. One need only consider the case of Gerard Schachten who had the misfortune to attach his name to the paper of the Korean researcher whose paper on cloning was found to have falsified data. Schachten who was one of the first to call for an investigation of the paper was later charged with research misbehavior (see Wade, 2006) because of his unearned authorship in the paper. Duplicate publication is probably one of the most common forms of 'minor' research misconduct (it is not normally considered scientific misconduct by ORI or NSF). In some disciplines (e.g., surgery) the rate of publication is as high as 10%.(see Schein, 2001). References Schein, M. (2001). Redundant publications: from self-plagiarism to “Salami-Slicing”. New Surgery, 1 , 139-140. Wade, N. (2006). University panel faults cloning co-author. The New York Times , February 11, p. A12. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
