Comments on: Jane Goodall’s plagiarism apology

By: Jane Goodall’s Troubling Error-filled New Book ” Seeds of Hope” , Plagiarized And With Quotes From Wikipedia | Ann Novek--With the Sky as the Ceiling and the Heart Outdoors

Fri, 28 Mar 2014 03:14:41 +0000

[…] that her intent was to pass off the ideas of others as her own.” Writer Marjorie Ingall argued that Goodall (or the book’s co-author, Gail Hudson) “didn’t commit the most hellacious sin […]

By: Apologies of Famous Plagiarists | The End.

Apologies of Famous Plagiarists | The End. — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 22:52:26 +0000

[…] Jane Goodall to primates everywhere (http://box5894.temp.domains/~sorrywat/2013/03/21/jane-goodalls-plagiarism-apology/) […]

By: smc

smc — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 03:33:56 +0000

The kind of plagiarism we are talking about here, seems like something Goodall could not possibly have caught herself, simply by reviewing the manuscript.

By: smc

smc — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 03:31:59 +0000

I definitely think the wait and see is appropriate. What would not be appropriate is if we wait…and see nothing more.

By: sumac

sumac — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:19:22 +0000

I don’t think Goodall committed the “fraud of publishing a book under her name that she did not actually write.” The co-author is acknowledged (as “with”) right on the cover, in fairly large print. Co-author arrangements take a lot of different forms, and we don’t know what form this one took.

As Marjorie says, we’re waiting to see how this plays out.

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 22:57:45 +0000

I fear that your fondness for Goodall has led you to a level of forgiveness that is unwarranted. Her name is on the book as author; she is, therefore, responsible for its contents. And, as you acknowledge, she has failed to accept that responsibility. The time for her to review the book was before its publication, not after she and her co-author have been caught committing plagiarism. This is more a “sorry I got caught” than a genuine apology, and you aren’t normally be so accepting of such.

And throwing the co-author under the bus with a cry of “it’s not my fault; I didn’t write the damn thing” would indeed be deplorable, not only for the reasons you suggest, but because it would call for another apology — this one for committing the fraud of publishing a book under her name that she did not actually write.