Self-Plagiarism in AAAS Science Article about Pubpeer’s President, Brandon Stell

In publishing ethics, self-plagiarism or text recycling is subject to a correction or retraction. This paper examines a high-profile case of ethical exceptionalism in the publishing status quo. Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, a science writer for the magazine Science, published by The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), was the first reporter to publicly reveal the identity of Brandon Stell, the President of The PubPeer Foundation, which owns PubPeer, a science whistle-blower website. The AAAS is a Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) member publisher. Couzin-Frankel published two articles, one of which self-plagiarized (i.e., the use of text written by the same person but not properly cited, or acknowledged) about 25% of text in the other article. Couzin-Frankel has also employed nested self-citation, which is the citation of a separate part of a paper such as a table or text box, to give the impression of a separate publication. These aspects call into question how strictly information is vetted and edited at AAAS’s Science. Despite alerting the AAAS, this heavily self-plagiarized paper has not been corrected or retracted. How then do the AAAS and COPE justify the continued publication of both texts?