The age-old problem of attribution in science—in other words, the practice of citation—has resurfaced with a vengeance in a couple of recent fracases.
What's new about these cases is that they're being played out online in full gory detail and in real time. For the first time, large sections of the community can get involved in judging the evidence for themselves, and in having their say. It's very illuminating.
2 is helping no one, and they are running the risk of making themselves irrelevant through nonparticipation.
In the second case, researcher Neil Greenspan, 3 describes how the perceived novelty and importance of a specific study were significantly enhanced by omission of prior work. The subject matter of the paper, published in Science, is the development of an antibody with two specificities. While not disputing the validity or interest of the study, Greenspan takes issue with a portrayal ...
