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Dave Bacon is a theoretical ski bum who is also a pseudo 
Nature article on El Naschie. (See also The Case of M.S. El Naschie, Continued.)
Opening scene from the Nature article, the greatest of all euphemisms, "retirement" starts off the show
The editor of a theoretical-physics journal, who was facing growing criticism that he used its pages to publish numerous papers written by himself, is set to retire early next year.Scene two, the story so far:
Five of the 36 papers in the December issue of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals alone were written by its editor-in-chief, Mohamed El Naschie. And the year to date has seen nearly 60 papers written by him appear in the journal.Scene three: tensions rise. Peer reviewed or not peer reviewed, that is the question:
Most scientists contacted by Nature comment that El Naschie's papers tend to be of poor quality. Peter Woit, a mathematical physicist at Columbia University in New York, says he thinks that "it's plain obvious that there was either zero, or at best very poor, peer review, of his own papers". There is, however, little evidence that they have harmed the field as a whole.And then, my very favorite, scene four, a defense and a skeptical Nature reporter:
El Naschie, who was born in Cairo and now splits his time between England and Germany, rejects any charges of sloppy peer review. "Our papers are reviewed in the normal way expected from a scientific international journal published by a reputable international publisher," he told Nature in an e-mail signed by P. Cooper, who claimed to be a spokesperson for the editorial board of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals. Elsevier, which publishes the journal, is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, which holds that good editors "ensure that all published reports of research have been reviewed by suitably qualified reviewers"."in an e-mail signed by P. Cooper"? Priceless. But the villain, the villain, what does it have to say for itself:
On 25 November, Elsevier's director of corporate relations, Shira Tabachnikoff, wrote an e-mail to Nature saying: "Dr El Naschie's retirement as Editor-in-Chief of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals will be announced to readers in the first issue of 2009. Elsevier and Dr El Naschie have been in discussion for quite some time about the details of his retirement and the transitional arrangement for papers under review."No mention of what these actual procedures are. Maybe the procedures involve monitoring blogs for signs of abuse. That would be cost effective, if maybe a bad way to interact with your free laborers. Do the procedures perhaps involve having editors threaten legal action? Hm, I would think that a corporation which is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics might want to begin by apologizing for the behavior of one of its editors, no? But maybe that's just me.In a separate e-mail Tabachnikoff wrote: "[We are] committed to supporting our editors in maintaining high standards for both the editorial and peer-review process. At times there may be discussions about particular scientific issues and fields, even at the level of individual editorial decisions. That is a part of the normal process of scientific publishing."
In other related news, amazingly the journal "Chaos, Solitons, and Self-publishing Editors Fractals", has a higher impact factor than all mathematics journals. We can therefore declare, with absolute definitive authority, that all of the mathematics is of less quality that "Chaos, Solitons and Fractals."
Comments
Honestly I have a problem with journals published by a for-profit corporation to begin with unless it's something like "IBM Technical Notes" or something like that. I tend to think non-profit societies are the better place for journals, but I also think peer review in general is in a very slow decline, particularly with the advent of the arXiv. Some string theorists were supposedly publishing exclusively on the arXiv over a decade ago.
Posted by: Ian Durham | December 2, 2008 9:31 PM
Perhaps this is a good place to mention that Springer deleted the arxiv references from a paper Sean and I recently published in ICALP. I corrected this on the proofs and they neither replied nor made the changes.
It made me realize that referencing journals at all is just a polite fiction that most of us subscribe to. Really we should only reference the arxiv, since that's what we actually read.
Posted by: aram | December 3, 2008 11:56 AM
Aram,
Good grief. That's ridiculous. And unethical. I wonder if Springer is a member of "Committee on Publication Ethics"?
Posted by: Dave Bacon | December 3, 2008 6:42 PM
Oops - I spoke too soon. After I complained a third time, cc'ing a random senior editor, I got a reply saying that it was not their policy, but a technical error and that they'd be happy to print an erratum for our article.
Posted by: Aram | December 4, 2008 9:28 AM
Aram you should make them print the erratum. I mean sure you won't make any friends at Springer, but still that would be one awesome erraturm. One you could show the grandkids :)
Posted by: Dave Bacon | December 4, 2008 11:40 AM
http://elnaschiewatch.blogspot.com
just want to let you know about my blog
Posted by: Jason | February 14, 2009 3:58 AM
Der ZEIT Artikel über Hr. Mohammed S. El-Naschie, den größten Physiker unserer Zeit wurde nun endlich entfernt. Es ist eine Schande wie die Neider Hr. El-Naschie immer wieder den Nobelpreis vorenthalten. Es muss mit seinem Einsatz für Israel zu tun haben oder damit, dass er Muslim oder Araber ist. Seine Theorien sind bahnbrechend und jeder der das nicht findet ist doof. Und wird verklagt. Die ZEIT hat jetzt eingesehen, wer hier den Längeren hat. Hr. El-Naschie lässt sich doch nicht von einer renommierten deutschen Wochenzeitung diktieren, was wahr ist und was nicht. Er ist der Erfinder unzähliger nach ihm benannter Theorien! Er hat in sich schon irgendwie immer recht! Und das kann er auch mit Geld und Einfluss gegenüber der ZEIT durchsetzen. Und Hr. El-Naschie hat als Leidtragender nun irgendwie im Nachhinein logischerweise auch das Recht, den Autoren Hr. Drösser mit Hitler zu vergleichen. Zum Beispiel hier in diesem Blog: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-self-organizing-quantum-universe
Wie auch immer. Das Gute hat gesiegt. Nieder mit der Wahrheit, der Pressefreiheit und dem LHC! Jeder der das anders sieht ist ein Nazi!
Es lebe das Selbstplagiat und der Wissenschaftsbetrug!
Posted by: Otto Rössler | February 26, 2009 6:06 PM
You are talking about John Baez and someone mentioned Mohamed El Naschie so let me tell you that. It is really more than depressing to see in which publicity and media society we are living. Some wrote a great deal and I am sure with good intention. Unfortunately whether they realize it or not, they relied entirely upon hearsay. I am afraid they are being used without their knowledge to publicize what a determined little clique want the world to believe. If you are interested in facts then here are the facts. Mohamed El Naschies work was plagiarized by a group who wrote a paper published about a year or so ago in Scientific American. The group leader is Dr. Renate Loll. She works with the Nobel laureate Gerard ‘tHooft in Utrecht. She is originally German and worked in Max Blanc Inst. near Berlin. She knows Prof. El Naschie very well. Many years ago El Naschie gave a lecture in her Max Blanc Inst. in Germany. That is the first connection. The second connection is that El Naschie is a very close personal and scientific friend of Gerard ‘tHooft. Without his knowledge many scientists, students and collaborators of El Naschie wrote angry letters and comments to Scientific American complaining about Loll. This was quite embarrassing for Renate Loll and many of her friends came to her rescue. It was also embarrassing for Nobel laureate Gerard ‘tHooft because Renate got 1.2 million Euro prize for this work in addition to a 2.4 million Euro grant research money for the Inst. of Gerard ‘tHooft. In a cloak and dagger action decision was taken to punish and discredit El Naschie. That is how the whole thing started. The one man internet army John Baez was called to direct the attacks and a meticulous plan was drawn involving Nature, the Inst. of Physics, UK and finally Die Zeit in Germany. All this failed to reach the ultimate goal and now they are baffled as to how El Naschie could sustain all these attacks and stay stedfast. If you check you will find that Die Zeit first modified their article, then withdrew it. In addition El Naschie won a case in Munich against Die Zeit and another case in Hamburg is about to be won. It is established beyond any doubt that Christoph Drosser, the journalist of Die Zeit was lying. He was lying to help his friend also a German named Quirin Schiermeier who works for Nature. Nature has realized that they have been conned. They withdrew their article from the internet. There is a case pending in the High Court in London. El Naschie is a victim of a colossal defamation campaign led by all the above. Now to the facts about him. He is a scientifically and financially totally independent person since he was 30. He is now 66 and has run the journal for two decades. He neither needs promotion, nor fame nor in fact money. He got his Diploma in structural engineering from the University of Hannover. He got his Ph.D. from University College London in 1974. He was a student of Lord Henry Chilver who was the science advisor of Margaret Thatcher. He was invited to join Cambridge. He never applied nor needed to apply for a job anywhere, including Cambridge. He has published about 900 papers and his average productivity dropped when he became the Editor in Chief of Chaos, Solitons & Fractals which he founded. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals is still being produced and carries the name of Mohamed El Naschie and his papers are still being published. Scientific questions of the merit of his work should be discussed in scientific papers, not on blogs devoted to gossip. None the less, here we are. We live in a world it seems controlled by gossip. I am in Google, thus I am. It is really sad, extremely sad and the most sad point about it is that the truth nowadays is a function of repetition and publicity. John Baez notorious article about El Naschie disappeared and so did all the other articles. However from this evil defamatory article, millions of other articles mushroomed and the truth is totally lost. Then a year or two later these gossips land on your desk and you try to rationalize the irrational but all that you have done was really planned for you to do without your knowledge. I hope these facts do not depress you as it does depress me and I hope you check everything for yourself. Do not jump into conclusions. Just remember what Hitlers propaganda minister said. When you make a lie, make it so big that most people will say it is impossible for it to be a lie. Mohamed El Naschie was a great guy for twenty years running the journal which he founded for all that time. All of a sudden, after the publication of Renate Loll’s paper, everything changed and John Baez and his Zoran Skoda, the self appointed guardian of science has nothing else to do lately except defame El Naschie, his collaborators and students.
Best regards,
Posted by: Brad | June 17, 2009 1:29 PM
The comment signed by Otto Rossler makes the point of the previous comment. It is not from Otto Rossler. The comment is from a well known internet criminal and a perverted insect called Jason. He runs a pornographical blog devoted to obscenity and defamation. All what is written in German is lies and it is not from Rossler. He simply hijacked the name of a well known chaos scientist, namely Otto E. Rossler. Do you now see the point. Lies, pornography, kidnapped identity and then you are talking about a Pontiff? My dears, good luck and chow.
The Real Pontiff
Posted by: The Real Pontiff | June 17, 2009 1:36 PM
Mmmm, tasty sock puppets.
Posted by: Dave Bacon | June 17, 2009 8:25 PM
El Naschie sock puppet "The Real Pontiff" thinks or pretends to think I wrote the comment above signed "Otto Rössler". I didn't, and I don't know who did.
Posted by: Jason | June 17, 2009 11:40 PM
I did, of`course!
Posted by: Otto Rössler | June 20, 2009 8:56 AM