NRLgate -
Plagiarism by Peer Reviewers
Complaint Letter to the editorial board of the Evolutionary Computation
journal
This page is part of the NRLgate Web site presenting evidence of
plagiarism among scientific peer reviewers involving 9 different peer review
documents of 4 different journal and conference papers in the fields of
evolutionary computation and machine learning.
This page contains a the Complaint Letter to the editorial board of the
Evolutionary Computation journal.
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E-mail --- September 15, 1996
TO: Editorial board of the Evolutionary Computation journal
CC: Editor-In-Chief and Associates Editors
FR: John R. Koza <NRLgate@cris.com>
This letter is a complaint concerning plagiarism by scientific peer reviewers
in 9 peer review documents for 4 different journal and conference papers
in the fields of genetic algorithms and machine learning.
This letter calls for a impartial investigation that will lead to definitive
determination of the facts by means of binding arbitration between the journal's
editorial board and myself conducted under the auspices of the American
Arbitration Association by a mutually agreeable retired federal judge.
A first example of plagiarism occurs in the 2 peer reviews that I
received from the International Machine Learning Conference (MLC) for my
submitted paper applying genetic programming to empirical discovery. In
the space of two very short reviews (only 138 and 218 words), there is lock-step
agreement between peer reviewers (whom I will call "A" and "B")
including
- joint use of quotation marks around the same insignificant 3-word prepositional
phrase when no apparent reason exists for directly quoting the words in
the first place,
- identical punctuation errors involving use of ellipsis,
- similarly worded responses located in the same spot within the paper
review form,
- significant fractions of both of these very short reviews devoted to
complaining about an incidental 3-word operational detail involving the
Ethernet,
- identical characterization of the 3-word reference to the Ethernet as
"spending" a significant amount of paper's space (the paper was
3,118 words),
- neglecting the same section of the paper review form and using the same
word in so doing,
- opening sentences by both reviewers that gratuitously provide identical
information that was not requested by the paper review form (an unresponsive
form of behavior observed in only 1.6% of a database of 316 contemporary
peer reviews from this field),
- substitution by both reviewers of an identical term of their own in
lieu of the author's chosen term,
- similarities in hostile and antagonistic tone not usually seen in scientific
peer reviews,
- identical verbs and nouns employed in similarly located and similarly
constructed sentences,
- the unlikly coincidence of two reviews using the same trio of phrases
to give similar advice, and
- a joint avoidance of the actual intellectual content of the submitted
paper.
Numerous lock-step similarities indicate that reviewer B had the entire
text of reviewer A's already written review in front of him when he constructed
his sycophantic review document. Even a few such similarities in a 138-word
and 218-word review would alone be sufficient reason to warrant investigation;
however, there are 16 lock-step similarities in these 2 reviews.
A second example of plagiarism occurs in the 2 reviews that I received
from the Machine Learning Conference for a different paper applying genetic
programming to optimal control strategies. There are numerous instances
of lock-step agreement between peer reviewers (whom I will call "X"
and "Y") including
- an almost identical 3-part explanatory sentence containing almost identical
phrases and appearing at the same spot in the reviews,
- an identical complaint about the absence of a definitional item,
- enclosure in quotation marks of the same words when no apparent reason
exists for directly quoting the words,
- identical semantically unusual way of couching a complaint,
- unlikely coincidence that 2 reviewers would both make the same demonstrable
error claiming the absence of a definition that is demonstrably contained
in the submitted paper,
- unlikely coincidence that 2 reviewers would both make the same mistaken
claim concerning the existence of a "standard" or "usual"
version of a particular problem,
- unlikely coincidence that 2 brief reviews would both contain the same
quaint and infrequently used word (whose frequency is only 1-in-64,109 in
a database of contemporary peer reviews),
- unlikely coincidence that 2 reviewers would abbreviate the paper's title
and that they would both abbreviate it to the same 6 words,
- identical unresponsiveness in opening sentences that provide similar
unrequested information,
- substitution by both reviewers of an identical term of their own in
lieu of the author's chosen term,
- similarly constructed sentences used to express similar thoughts, and
- specific nouns and verbs employed in similarly located sentences.
A third example of plagiarism among reviewers appears in reviews
#1, #2, and #3 of my paper submitted to the Evolutionary Computation
journal (ECJ) on applying genetic programming to electrical circuit design.
The fact that one ECJ peer reviewer had the entire text of another already-written
review in front of him when he wrote his review is textually established
because REVIEWER #2 INADVERTENTLY REFERRED, IN HIS REVIEW, TO A SPECIFIC
COMMENT MADE BY REVIEWER #1 IN HIS REVIEWAlso, the imported comment
contained a distinctive scientific term that was used in a colloquial (and
incorrect) way.
There is also evidence on the face of the documents that reviewer #1 for
the Evolutionary Computation journal made his already written review
available to reviewer #2 by electronic means. . This improper transfer is
shown by the abnormal pattern in the > symbols in the left margin of
the review documents that I eventually received from the journal. (In e-mail
systems, these automatically produced >'s distinguish "received
text" from the recipient's reply to the "received text").
The telltale electronic >'s are abnormal for reviewer #1's responses
to the questions on the ECJ's paper review form. The >'s show that reviewer
#1's responses to the questions on his paper review form had been dispatched
earlier as outgoing e-mail to reviewer #2. Reviewer #2 paraphrased this
"received text" in order to make his review look different and
then "replied to" reviewer #1. Reviewer #2 sent his plagiarized
review (along with reviewer #1's already-written review) as an e-mail "reply"
(thereby causing the telltale >'s to appear in an abnormal way for review
#1).
Further confirmation of the fact that one peer reviewer had the entire text
of another already-written review in front of him when he wrote his review
comes from a comparison of the opening few sentences of ALL 5 SECTIONS
of the paper review form for ECJ reviews #1 and #2. Although I had been
puzzled by ECJ reviews #1, #2, and #3 since I first received them from the
journal, it was only recently that I considered the possibility of plagiarism
(as opposed to bias) among the reviewers and analyzed these documents side-by-side
on a section-by-section basis. As soon as I did this, the numerous similarities
in the choice of words, phrases, sentence structure, and thoughts in ALL
5 SECTIONS of these ECJ reviews became apparent.
The time sequence of the plagiarism indicated by the telltale electronic
>'s is consistent with the time sequence indicated by the aforementioned
Freudian slip in which ECJ reviewer #2 made a specific reference in his
review to the contents of review #1.
In addition, there are numerous other lock-step similarities among ECJ reviews
#1, #2 and #3, including
- unlikely coincidence that two independent-acting reviewers would both
make the mistaken assertion that the paper lacked a specific item even though
the paper actually devotes almost 2 pages to the item,
- unlikely coincidence that reviewers #1 and #3 would complain about "advertising"
and would do so using the same words and phrases,
- unlikely coincidence that both reviewers #1 and #2 would be agitated
about the paper's evading what they claimed to be an important issue concerning
"constraints" and "bounds,"
- unlikely coincidence that both reviewers #1 and #2 would abbreviate
the paper's title and that they would both abbreviate it to the same 8 words,
- unlikely coincidence that both reviewers #2 and #3 would refer to the
submitting author directly by name, in their reviews,
- unlikely coincidence that reviewers #1, #2, and #3 all shared an hostile
and antagonistic tone,
- unusual non-automatically-created time-and-date lines on the 3 review
documents (suggesting that the actual times and dates may have beee embarrassingly
contemporaneous), and
- unusual appearance of 8 blank spaces before the word "Facilitate"
in 2 review documents.
A fourth example of plagiarism occurs in 2 of 4 reviews that I received
from the Tools for Artificial Intelligence conference for a paper that applied
genetic programming to pursuer-evader games. There is plagiarism among TAI
reviewers T2 and T3.
The newly created WWW site (URL address below) presents most of the detailed
evidence and may be viewed by members of the editorial board of the Evolutionary
Computation journal.
It is conceivable that ECJ reviewers #1, #2, #3, and that MLC reviewers
A, B, X, Y, and that TAI reviewers T2, and T3 of the 4 different conference
and journal papers involved here are 9 different people. The existence of
4 separate groups totaling 9 plagiarizing reviewers would not make the offense
of plagiarism any less serious, it would just mean that there are a surprisingly
large number of separate groups of wrongdoers within the relatively small
fields of evolutionary computation and machine learning.
However, reviews A, X, #2, and T2 of the 4 papers are inter-linked by numerous
similarities (indicating that they were probably written by the same person).
Moreover, reviews B, Y, #1, and T1 of the 4 papers are inter-linked by numerous
similarities (again indicating a common authorship). In addition, there
are linkages between reviews T3 and #3. These linkages suggest a single
group of 3 different plagiarizing peer reviewers, rather than 9 different
wrongdoers.
There were only 2 people in the world who were reviewers for MLC and ECJ,
for MLC and TAI, and for ECJ and TAI. The small overlap of the pools of
reviewers for the Machine Learning Conference, the Evolutionary Computation
journal, and the Tools for Artificial Intelligence conference (supported
by other evidence) points to the identities of the plagiarizing reviewers.
The diagram below presents plagiarism as horizontal dashed lines (with added
arrows when the time sequence of the plagiarism can be established from
the documents themselves) and presents likely common authorship of reviews
as vertical lines. (It appears in clickable form on the home page of the
WWW site).
TWO REVIEWERS........THIRD
IN COMMON WITH.......PEER
MLC, ECJ, TAI........REVIEWER
...B..<---..A
...|........|
...Y..<---..X
...|........|
...#1.--->..#2..---..#3
...|........|........ |
...T1.......T2..---..T3
MLC reviewers B and Y and ECJ reviewer #1 misspelled a certain technical
word 9 times out of 9 within reviews B, Y, and #1. It is worth mentioning,
in passing, that one of the only two people in the world who were in common
with MLC, ECJ, and TAI misspelled this same word in two different PUBLISHED
conference papers (for conferences where the author himself directly prepares
the CAMERA-READY PAGES for printing in the proceedings).
Common authorship between the 138-word MLC review B and the 31-word TAI
review T1 is established by the fact that both B and T1 directly quote the
same 3 words from both submitted papers. However, the 3 quoted words did
not appear anywhere in either paper! Instead, the actual phrase in the papers
(which differed by one word from the quoted phrase) was directly and correctly
quoted in MLC review A. In reviewer B's hasty plagiarism of review A, he
mistyped the correct direct quotation from review A into his review. Months
later, he reused his own earlier misquotation in his review of my paper
for the second conference.
MLC reviews A and X, ECJ review #2, and TAI review T2 are linked by several
similar whole paragraphs as well as by the appearance of certain infrequently
used words and features (whose rarity is established by means of a computerized
database of contemporary peer reviews). Reviews A, X, #2, and T2 are further
linked by both words and a similar paragraph to 2 different SIGNED documents.
It is worth mentioning, in passing, that the 2 signed documents were therefore
apparently written by the second person belonging to the group consisting
of the only two people in the world who were in common with MLC, ECJ, and
TAI.
[It is also worth mentioning only 4 reviewers on TAI's "List of Reviewers"
were involved in the field in evolutionary computation; that all 4 were
all from the Naval Research Laboratory; that 3 of the 4 reviewers of my
TAI paper rated themselves on the paper review form as being very familiar
with the topic of my submitted paper (and made EC-specific comments about
the paper); that 4 of the 8 accepted papers on evolutionary computation
at the TAI conference happened to have been authored by the 4 reviewers
from the Naval Research Laboratory; and that one of the accepted NRL papers
was on the same subject as my submitted TAI paper, namely pursuer-evader
games (evasive maneuvers).]
During the process of inserting synonyms and changing words, the receiving
reviewer(s) frequently imported various punctuation errors, scientific mistakes,
and other features from the mother review that he was mechanically paraphrasing.
The number of careless errors in these different plagiarism events suggests
that this improper activity may not be a matter of "only 9 times in
a lifetime." Thus, in addition to these 9 reviews involving 4 different
conference and journal papers, I am currently analyzing the significant
similarities between some other reviews of other papers submitted to conferences
in other years (including MLC).
The plagiarism involved here did NOT involve "cutting and pasting"
entire sentences of one review in order to construct a second review. Conscious
effort was expended with the specific goal of disguising the wrongdoing.
The second reviewer used the first already written review as a template
for thoughts, choice of words, punctuation, grammar, and the placement of
items within his paper review form. However, in each case, the second reviewer
paraphrased and freshly retyped the first review in order to try to make
his review look different (by synonym insertion and other perturbations).
The transformation of one already written review into its paraphrased form
required conscious effort (albeit somewhat mechanical) expended by a person
who knew he was acting improperly at the time he did it. Of course, the
supplying of one already written peer review document to another peer reviewer
also required conscious action executed by a person who knew he was acting
improperly at the time he did it.
My specific complaint to the editorial board of the Evolutionary Computation
journal, at this time, is that the journal passed off plagiarized peer review
documents to the submitting author (me) as if these peer reviews were the
work of legitimate and independent scientific peer reviewers.This passing
off of fraudulent documents was conducted by electronic transmission means.
My complaint is directed to the journal because it is the entity to which
I submitted my paper and it is the entity that is responsible for the fraudulent
documents that were issued in its name. I was entitled to honest and ethical
treatment when I submitted a scientific paper to a scientific journal..
I did not get that.
Plagiarism among peer reviewers is an offense that goes to the heart of
the integrity of the scientific peer review process.
Documents A, B, X, Y, #1, #2, #3, T2, and T3 establish that serious scientific
misconduct has occurred. Up to 9 different persons (but probably 3) violated
the trust reposed in them by the Evolutionary Computation journal,
the Machine Learning Conference, and the Tools for Artificial Intelligence
conference.
SOMEONE created these plagiarized documents.
The obvious question is who.
The identity of the trusted persons who created these plagiarized peer review
documents needs to be definitively established. These identities are, of
course, known to the founding Editor-In-Chief and the North American Associate
Editor of the Evolutionary Computation journal who handled my submitted
paper and who also originated the electronic transmission containing the
review documents that I received by-email from the journal. The information
about the identities of the plagiarizing reviewers is part of the records
of the journal and the property of the journal.
Plagiarism can sometimes be established judicially merely from the face
of the documents (e.g., plagiarism of literary and musical works, software
piracy, judicial determination of authorship and authenticity of questionable
documents, etc.). Of course, additional evidence may be desirable or necessary.
Since the founding Editor-In-Chief and the North American Associate Editor
happen to have both used e-mail addresses at Codes 5510 and 5514 of the
Naval Research Laboratory in Washington in the electronic transmission of
these fraudulent documents to me, much of the relevant additional documentary
evidence that needs to be discovered for this case happens to be also necessarily
preserved as government documents in accordance with statutory requirements
and government record retention policies.
An unmistakably strong deterrent message must be sent to the scientific
community in the fields of genetic algorithms and machine learning --- namely:
THERE IS ZERO TOLERANCE FOR PLAGIARISM AND DISHONESTY IN THE PEER REVIEW
PROCESS.
To accomplish this, I propose that the task of making a definitive determination
that an offense has been committed and making a definitive identification
of the wrongdoers be put into the hands of a person who
- is trained and experienced in making findings of fact and judgments
BASED ON EVIDENCE,
- has no emotional, professional, or personal connection to any of the
parties,
- has no motivation other than finding the truth and has no inclination
to participate in the suppression of the truth,
- has no interest in the business or financial aspects of the journal
or conferences involved,
- is trained and experienced in being scrupulously fair in the process
of reaching a decision to whomever may be identified as the accused and
is also experienced in being scrupulously fair to the victim of the wrongdoing,
and
- whose decision will be accepted as being fair and impartial.
Since my complaint is against the journal, this proposal can be implemented
by a motion at the editorial board of the Evolutionary Computation
journal that the journal submit these issues of scientific integrity between
the journal and myself to binding arbitration by a mutually acceptable retired
federal judge under the auspices of the American Arbitration Association
. My proposal is to let this matter be settled by an impeccably impartial
person based solely on facts and evidence. I am initiating this proposal
for arbitration primarily for the plain reason that the journal has no established
complaint resolution procedure for dealing with scientific misconduct. The
scientific community believes it has "high standards" in its peer
review process. However, the reality is that there is no mechanism for ongoing
supervision of these standards. More importantly, there is no established
mechanism for deciding on the merits of a complaint that is based on facts
and evidence. Misconduct can occur in any area of human activity. The people
from governmental, commercial, and educational institutions who do peer
reviewing in the fields of evolutionary computation and machine learning
are not fundamentally different from all other human beings in that regard.
An unsupervised, unaccountable, secretive process involving perceived significant
temptations, built-in conflicts of interest, operating in a lawless environment
with a "circle the wagons" culture is guaranteed to produce
ethical violations. The question is not "if," but "when,"
and "where" and "who." Wrongdoers do not usually voluntarily
confess to their misconduct, particularly if it is serious. So why then
is there is no established mechanism for supervision or accountability?
In particular, why should the victim of wrongdoing bear the burden of proposing
a one-off complaint resolution procedure and winning adoption of it from
a group that typically will include the wrongdoers? Certainly, maintenance
of high standards cannot depend on the generous willingness of wrongdoers
to voluntarily accept accountability for their own actions.
The sole goal for a scientific journal in this matter (and all matters)
should be determining the truth. The existence of plagiarism involving 9
reviews for 4 different conference and journal papers means that if the
Evolutionary Computation journal has any aspirations to scientific
credibility, it is going to be necessary to clear the air with the truth.
If certain individuals have acted in a way that the journal believes was
inconsistent with its standards, the journal should step forward and say
so. The journal should say that if misconduct has occurred, the journal
wants the particular individuals who committed the misconduct to be identified;
that the journal considers these particular individuals responsible for
their own conduct; that the journal considers their conduct to be improper;
and that the journal disassociates itself from any such misconduct by these
particular individuals. The journal has the choice, at this moment, of speaking
up and saying that it is in favor of the truth. My proposal to let this
matter be settled by an impeccably impartial person based solely on factual
evidence gives an advantage only to whichever side's position is firmly
based on hard documentary evidence and the truth.
I cannot imagine what argument can possibly be raised to an impartial determination
of the truth concerning serious offenses of plagiarism at a scientific journal.
If there has been no misconduct in the scientific peer review process in
the fields of evolutionary computation and machine learning, I am sure the
entire editorial board of the Evolutionary Computation journal will
be eager to see an impartial judge establish the erroneousness of the charges
and to clear the air concerning incorrect charges. If there has been misconduct,
I am also sure that the journal will want to see that a strong deterrent
message be sent, that truth be brought out, that justice be done, and that
this entire matter be settled with finality. If there has been misconduct
in which the founding Editor-In-Chief and North American Associate Editor
were merely the innocent and unknowing transmitters of the plagiarized review
documents that were provided to them by an arms-length group of 3 colluding
reviewers from amongst the 32 geographically dispersed members of the editorial
board, I am sure that both of these editors will be eager to see the responsibility
squarely placed on the wrongdoers who are dishonoring the journal with which
we all have been associated.
I believe there is only one satisfactory remedy for the problem of peer
reviewing in the fields of genetic algorithms and machine learning --- the
truth.
The editorial board may be interested in knowing how this issue of plagiarism
has arisen. As is well known, I have previously complained that the peer
reviewing process in the fields of genetic algorithms is overconcentrated
in a small group of like-minded people who had acquired a disproportionately
and inappropriately large voice in the process. Since I viewed the problem
as one of bias and overconcentration, it had not occurred to me (until the
last few months) that plagiarism between peer reviewers might be involved.
In the last few months, events caused me to start reexamining various peer
review documents in my files. This reexamination of past reviews for possible
plagiarism was triggered specifically by the stream of e-mail messages that
have been circulating amongst this journal's editorial board since December
1995 voicing the fierce opposition of the journal's editors against 2 ordinarily
mundane requests.
The first request was that the editor make an accounting (without identifying
any particular paper reviewed by any particular reviewer) to the journal's
governing editorial board consisting of the number of reviews, by year,
that each reviewer wrote in each of the first 3 years of the journal's operation.
This requested high-level gross accounting is for the 125 submitted papers
handled during the first 3 years (i.e., approximately 375 reviews). My paper
was but 1 of 125 papers. Everyone on the editorial board already knows that
50% of the 32 members of the advertised editorial board accounted for only
about 5% of all the reviews made for this journal for this 3-year period.
Anyone familiar with the remaining 50% of the 32 people on the editorial
board can readily figure out that only a relative few of the remainder of
the 375 reviews will be accounted for by an additional hefty fraction of
this remaining 50%. The final small sliver of the editorial board may, conceivably,
have produced all of the remaining reviews; however, that seems unlikely.
Thus, the issue raised by the requested tabulation is that there is uncertainty
as to the origins of somewhere around 300 of the 375 reviews for the 125
submitted papers.
In addition to the editorial board's lengthy internal controversy over this
high-level gross numerical tabulation, there has also been a second multi-month
electronic controversy over the even more mundane proposal to publicly thank
the people who have reviewed for the journal over the years (by listing
them as a group by name, without any numbers, as is commonly done by most
other journals and conferences). It is astounding that there could be months
of heated controversy over a proposal to thank people who have voluntarily
given their time and effort to a scientific journal. After all, the names
of the people that the reading public thinks are doing all of the journal's
reviewing (i.e., 32 members of the journal's advertised editorial board)
have always been publicly disclosed in precisely this widely practiced manner.
Obviously, the only new names on such a thank-you list would be those reviewers
who are not on the journal's editorial board. These other people (who have
not received the gratification of being on the editorial board) are, at
the moment, totally unthanked and unacknowledged.
A numerical tabulation, by name and by year, issued to the journal's governing
board manifestly has nothing to do with privacy, so the asserted concern
about privacy cannot really be a bona fide issue with anyone. A public thank-you
of a group (without any numbers) has even less to do with privacy or anything
else since the names of the people that the reading public thinks are doing
all the journal's reviewing have always been routinely published (indeed,
advertised).
So why have these 2 ordinarily mundane tabulations aroused such prolonged
controversy and excited such disproportionate sensitivity by the journal's
editors?
I learned one thing from some 14 years of direct personal experience in
dealing with government employees accustomed to operating secretively in
closed and unaccountable environments: When mundane information requests
are fiercely resisted on manifestly preposterous grounds, the trail almost
always leads to a slippery slope that needs to be followed.
Ordinarily, the worst that either of these 2 requested mundane tabulations
could possibly show is the already well-known and undisputed fact that there
has been overconcentration in the reviewing process. Overconcentration is
bad, but it is not a crime. Consequently, the editors' "drawing the
line in the sand" on these 2 mundane requested tabulations suggested
the existence of a slippery slope leading somewhere other than mere confirmation
of a well known fact. So what could possibly lie at the bottom of the slippery
slope about which the journal's editors are so disproportionately sensitive?
The editor's unreasonable position created the inference that the editorial
board would be shocked if it ever saw the list of the people who have been
doing the reviewing for this journal. This shock might perhaps be triggered
by the manifest lack of academic credentials of the people who have been
doing the lion's share of the reviewing for this journal. Or, it might be
triggered by the manifest lack of arms-length independence from employment
supervisors of the people who have been doing most of the reviewing for
this journal. Alternately, this shock might be triggered by the totally
inappropriate station of the people who have been doing most of the reviewing
for this journal. And, most likely, the board's shock might be further increased
by knowledge of the exceedingly small number of names disclosed by these
tabulations. Indeed, an exceedingly small number of names creating these
300 unaccounted review documents would necessarily excite the board's interest
concerning --- to put it delicately --- the circumstances of their creation.
Indeed, the existence of the aforementioned pattern of plagiarism by scientific
peer reviewers of the Evolutionary Computation journal and the MLC
and TAI conferences raises the question of whether the "circumstances
of creation" of these 9 plagiarized peer reviews for my 4 submitted
papers was something that happened "only 9 times in a lifetime."
If this plagiarism had occurred in "only" 9 times, surely these
plagiarized review documents would have been constructed far more care and
deception.
I previously complained about "overconcentration" and the existence
of a "reviewing factory" in the peer review process in the fields
of evolutionary computation and machine learning. I have previously tried
to pursue my personal complaints about the reviewing process both indirectly
and directly using every possible available avenue. I called upon the community
to candidly face up to the problem of overconcentration (whose existence
and undesirability has always been privately acknowledged by almost everyone).
I now realize that a mere administrative overconcentration involving a "reviewing
factory" may not have been the underlying problem at all. Instead,
the question is whether there is a "plagiarism factory."
It should be recognized that a complaint about plagiarism is very different
than a complaint about bias in that it cannot be easily obfuscated with
difficult-to-understand issues of scientific opinion. In a case about plagiarism,
the central issue is the circumstances of creation of the documents, not
the opinions expressed in the documents. It is a matter of analyzing documents,
time stamps on e-mail, and other physical evidence.
The subscribers and readers of this journal (few that they are), the submitting
authors (who are apparently drying up), the members of the editorial board
who have unqualifiedly lent their good names to this journal (but who have
had precious little involvement with its operations), and the publisher
who has soldiered on beyond the call of duty in supporting the journal's
financial losses are all entitled to know the truth about the scientific
misconduct at this journal. Certainly potential future submitting authors
to this journal (and upcoming conferences in the fields of genetic algorithms
and machine learning) are entitled to know whether their submitted papers
are going to be reviewed by the same 9 (or 3) people who wrote reviewers
A, B, X, Y, #1, #2, #3, T2, and T3.
Finally, everyone involved should be very clear about the following: I do
not think there is anything wrong about complaining about dishonesty. I
am not going to be made to feel self-conscious about insisting on the truth.
I do not think it is any shame to me to have been the victim of wrongdoing.
And, I am not going to be apologetic about the fact that I am going to persist
in seeking the truth in this matter until there is an honest resolution.
John R. Koza
WWW: http://www.cris.com/~nrlgate/
PLEASE REPLY TO E-MAIL: NRLgate@cris.com
CC: Distribution list
P. S. The 3 to 9 wrongdoers involved (whomever they may be) could
salvage a small amount of honor and avoid further protraction of this matter
for themselves, the community, and me by stepping forward now and by (1)
acknowledging the fact that they colluded and plagiarized scientific peer
reviews of papers concerning genetic programming; (2) resigning all their
positions at all journals and conferences; and (3) stating publicly that
they will not engage in peer reviewing activity for conferences, journals,
books, or funding proposals for the next five years. A non-quibling acknowledgment
of the truth and an unconditional termination of all of their reviewing
activity would enable them to concentrate fully on their future research
activities.
Author: John R. Koza
E-Mail: NRLgate@cris.com
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