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Plagiarism in books

Lewis Wolpert, a biologist at University College London, has admitted to including unattributed excerpts from papers by other authors in his most recent books. You’re looking very well, a book about the implications of an aging population, which was released in 2011, has been found to contain more than 20 passages that were lifted from academic articles and from sites like Wikipedia, without any indication that they were written by other authors. Faber & Faber, publishers of the book, decided to take the title off the market. Parts of it had been copied from the article “Evolutionary theories of aging and longevity,” by Leonid Gavrilov and Natalia Gavrilova, which appeared in the periodical The Scientific World in 2002. The plagiarized authors told the British newspaper The Guardian that they were pleased when they learned that some excerpts of their paper had been published in Wolpert’s book. But, they emphasized, “We would be even happier if our paper were referenced.” In a note, Wolpert acknowledged his mistake and blamed it on “carelessness.” The investigation began in April 2013, after Faber & Faber canceled the launching of a new title by Wolpert when they discovered that parts of it had been plagiarized. On that occasion, the publisher released a note suggesting that Wolpert’s age (84) may have contributed to the mistake. Asked to comment on the plagiarism discovered in the 2011 book as well, Faber & Faber declined to respond.

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