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The Financial Times Deutschland carries this story today:

Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU) has to defend himself against accusations that he had cheated on his doctoral thesis. According to the “Sueddeutsche Zeitung” (Wednesday) there are some passages in Guttenberg’s thesis which match literally formulations by other authors, and which have not been acknowledged.

The thesis is in several places “a brazen plagiarism” and “deception”, the paper quoted the Bremen law professor Andreas Fischer-Lescano, who had discovered the duplications during a routine examination. Fischer-Lescano teaches at the University of Bremen Public Law, European and international law.

…….

Guttenberg submitted his doctoral work in 2006 at the Law Faculty in Bayreuth. In 2007, he was then awarded the highest degree – summa cum laude doctorate in law (PhD).

The thesis is now under investigation by the Ombudsman for scientific self-regulation of the University of Bayreuth.

But this is an investigation concerning a serving Minister. I can predict with the greatest of confidence that the establishment will close ranks and that the investigation will come to the conclusions that:

• no scientific misconduct is involved,
• the lack of references were merely an oversight and an honest mistake, and
• the degree award is not tainted in any way and
• no further action is required except the insertion of an addendum acknowledging the plagiarised authors

Related:

Guttenberg’s slick image slips away

German Defense Minister Agrees to Inquiry Into Military Incidents

Tags: Defence minister, Education, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Scientific misconduct, thesis, University of Bayreuth

This entry was posted on February 16, 2011 at 10:26 am and is filed under Behaviour, Education, Germany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.