Why did this journal retract two 1940s papers by Max Planck?
Why did this journal retract two 1940s papers by Max Planck?
为什么这家期刊撤回了马克斯·普朗克在20世纪40年代发表的两篇论文？
German physicist Max Planck was one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century, earning the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of quanta. There has never been a whisper of scandal about the man’s integrity or his scientific work. So a pair of science historians were puzzled when they discovered that a scientific journal had inexplicably retracted two of Planck’s papers from the 1940s.
德国物理学家马克斯·普朗克（Max Planck）是20世纪初量子力学的先驱之一，因发现量子而获得1918年诺贝尔物理学奖。关于这位科学家的诚信或其科学工作，从未有过任何丑闻传闻。因此，当两位科学史学家发现一家科学期刊莫名其妙地撤回了普朗克在20世纪40年代发表的两篇论文时，他们感到非常困惑。
The journal in question is Naturwissenschaften, now known as The Science of Nature. The journal typically adds a large RETRACTED notice across digital papers that have been retracted, leaving them available for download. But it has removed the two Planck papers entirely, leaving just a blank page (and empty PDFs) with a brief note saying the articles had been “withdrawn due to article violation.”
涉事期刊是《自然科学》（Naturwissenschaften），现更名为《自然科学》（The Science of Nature）。该期刊通常会在被撤回的数字论文上添加醒目的“已撤回”（RETRACTED）声明，并保留下载链接。但它却将普朗克的这两篇论文完全移除，只留下一页空白（以及空的PDF文件），并附上一条简短说明，称这些文章“因违反规定而被撤回”。
Physics historian Yves Gingras of the University of Quebec in Montreal was browsing the blog Retraction Watch’s list of Nobel Prize winners who have had scientific papers retracted, just out of curiosity. Gingras was shocked to see Planck’s name on the list, and enlisted fellow historian Mahdi Khelfaoui, of the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivieres, to investigate why the two papers had been retracted. They outlined their findings in a preprint posted to the physics arXiv.
蒙特利尔魁北克大学的物理学史学家伊夫·金格拉斯（Yves Gingras）出于好奇，浏览了博客“撤稿观察”（Retraction Watch）上关于“曾有论文被撤回的诺贝尔奖得主”名单。金格拉斯惊讶地发现普朗克的名字赫然在列，于是他邀请了三河市魁北克大学的同行马赫迪·凯尔法维（Mahdi Khelfaoui）共同调查这两篇论文被撤回的原因。他们将调查结果整理成预印本，发布在物理学预印本平台arXiv上。
The journal’s current editor-in-chief, Suzanne Scarlata of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, told Science reporter Sam Kean that she had not known the papers had been retracted prior to Kean contacting her for comment. “That’s crazy,” she said. “I don’t understand why they were flagged. I think it just happened with their algorithm. It’s a mistake they should probably rectify.”
该期刊现任主编、伍斯特理工学院的苏珊·斯卡拉塔（Suzanne Scarlata）告诉《科学》杂志记者萨姆·基恩（Sam Kean），在基恩联系她征求意见之前，她并不知道这些论文已被撤回。“这太疯狂了，”她说，“我不明白它们为什么会被标记。我认为这只是他们的算法出了问题。这是一个他们应该纠正的错误。”
A question of copyright?
版权问题？
Gingras and Khelfaoui suspected that the retractions occurred due to the journal publisher’s “misunderstanding, or ignorance, of past publication practices.” The specific reason for the retractions was copyright violation, so there was nothing wrong with the actual papers from a scientific standpoint. (Both are “philosophical reflections on the nature of scientific knowledge.”)
金格拉斯和凯尔法维怀疑，撤稿是因为期刊出版商“误解或无视了过去的出版惯例”。撤稿的具体原因是版权侵权，因此从科学角度来看，论文本身并没有任何问题。（这两篇论文都是“关于科学知识本质的哲学思考”。）
They were able to retrieve metadata showing that the DOI records for both papers had been created in April 2005, coinciding with the large-scale switch to electronic publishing that occurred across most journals. Over time, those journals also integrated historical studies into their searchable online archives.
他们检索到的元数据显示，这两篇论文的DOI记录均创建于2005年4月，这与当时大多数期刊大规模转向电子出版的时间相吻合。随着时间的推移，这些期刊也将历史研究成果整合进了可在线搜索的档案库中。
Gingras and Khelfaoui suspect the retraction decision was made around this time. “All this clearly suggests that some lawyer at Springer was overshadowing the process and considered these papers as problematic forms of ‘duplicate publications,’” they wrote.
金格拉斯和凯尔法维怀疑撤稿决定就是在那段时间做出的。他们写道：“这一切清楚地表明，施普林格（Springer）的某位律师主导了这一过程，并将这些论文视为有问题的‘重复发表’。”
The first retracted paper (“Meaning and Limits of Exact Science”), was published in 1942, based on a lecture Planck delivered in Berlin the prior year. It was also published as a booklet, in another journal, and included in an anthology of Planck’s essays and lectures. The second retracted paper (“Natural Science and the Real External World”) appeared in 1940. It had not been published or reprinted elsewhere. But a scientist named Aloys Muller published a critique of Planck’s 1931 essay on positivism that year, to which Planck responded in the same journal using the same title just a few months later.
第一篇被撤回的论文（《精确科学的意义与局限》）发表于1942年，基于普朗克前一年在柏林发表的一次演讲。该文还曾以小册子形式出版，刊登在另一本期刊上，并被收录进普朗克的论文与演讲集。第二篇被撤回的论文（《自然科学与真实的外部世界》）发表于1940年。它并未在其他地方发表或重印。但一位名叫阿洛伊斯·穆勒（Aloys Muller）的科学家那一年发表了一篇对普朗克1931年关于实证主义文章的批评，几个月后，普朗克在同一期刊上以相同的标题进行了回应。
Gingras and Khelfaoui suspect the retraction was the result of a “cataloguing ambiguity” since there were two separate papers by different authors in the same journal with identical titles. This would have confused any algorithmic tool used to catch instances of duplication or “self-plagiarism,” for example.
金格拉斯和凯尔法维怀疑，撤稿是“编目歧义”的结果，因为同一期刊中存在两篇由不同作者撰写、标题相同的独立论文。这可能会混淆任何用于捕捉重复发表或“自我剽窃”案例的算法工具。
The real issue is whether publishers of scientific journals should retroactively apply contemporary standards regarding duplicate publication or self-plagiarism to historical papers. The journal publishing norms in the early 20th century were substantially different. The emphasis was on achieving the widest dissemination of knowledge across a fragmented scientific community separated by language and geographical distance, publishing in many different journals.
真正的问题在于，科学期刊出版商是否应该将当代关于重复发表或自我剽窃的标准追溯性地应用于历史论文。20世纪初的期刊出版规范与现在截然不同。当时的重点是在因语言和地理距离而分散的科学界实现知识的最广泛传播，因此会在许多不同的期刊上发表文章。
As a result, the boundaries were heavily blurred between lectures, conference proceedings, booklets, collected essays, published journal articles and so forth. The scientific enterprise has since evolved to the point where it is dominated by large commercial publishing groups that are much more sensitive to protecting copyrights and turning a profit. Duplication/self-plagiarism is also more of an issue now, when publications are a major factor when it comes to hiring and promoting scientists, as well as acquiring research fundings.
因此，演讲、会议记录、小册子、论文集、已发表的期刊文章等之间的界限非常模糊。此后，科学事业发展到了由大型商业出版集团主导的地步，这些集团对保护版权和获取利润更为敏感。如今，当出版物成为招聘、晋升科学家以及获取研究经费的主要考量因素时，重复发表/自我剽窃的问题也变得更加突出。
Applying these contemporary standards can be problematic for the “digital circulation of historical texts,” the authors concluded. The journal’s publisher, Springer Nature, killed an editorial Scarlata planned to run addressing the issue. Springer Nature also declined to comment for the Science article, merely telling Kean through a representative that “detailed information about specific retractions is usually confidential and can only be shared with the relevant authors.”
作者总结道，将这些当代标准应用于“历史文本的数字传播”可能会带来问题。该期刊的出版商施普林格·自然（Springer Nature）撤销了斯卡拉塔计划发表的一篇讨论此问题的社论。施普林格·自然也拒绝就《科学》杂志的文章发表评论，仅通过代表告诉基恩：“有关具体撤稿的详细信息通常是保密的，只能与相关作者分享。”
Given that Planck died in 1947, he can’t get a direct answer either. Both papers are now in the public domain in most countries, so it’s not like copyright violation is even an issue anymore. It’s still possible to access both papers via the Internet archive. But as Gingras and Khelfaoui argue in their preprint, removing the two papers distorts the historical record. “Whoever did it, I don’t care,” Gingras told Science. “Just put them [back] in the database.”
鉴于普朗克于1947年去世，他也无法得到直接的答复。这两篇论文在大多数国家现已进入公有领域，因此版权侵权甚至已不再是一个问题。目前仍可以通过互联网档案（Internet Archive）访问这两篇论文。但正如金格拉斯和凯尔法维在预印本中所言，移除这两篇论文歪曲了历史记录。“不管是谁干的，我不在乎，”金格拉斯告诉《科学》杂志，“只要把它们（放回）数据库里就行了。”