Unethical Academics by Two Chairs of CU Denver Dept of Integrative Biology

The photo above is a screenshot of https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Zqc_02sAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate taken as this blog article was published. Our goal is to promote ethical behavior, so hopefully the current page will not look like the screenshot.

In academic publishing, the integrity of authorship is a cornerstone of ethical research practice. Prof. Michael Greene, Chair of the Department of Integrative Biology, has an overstated publication record on Google Scholar by including publications authored by scholars who share his name. About half the publications listed on Prof. Greene's Google Scholar page were not written by him.

Prof. Greene was promoted to full professor of Human Physiology even though he has never authored a research paper about human physiology after being hired by CU. However, some of the papers attributed to Chair Greene on Google Scholar are related to human physiology (e.g., hypertension in pregnancy and atrial fibrillation), but were not authored by him. Research integrity dictates that authors only take credit for work that they have performed. Having half of ones publications improperly attributed to them, especially during a period in which they are undergoing review for promotion in a field they have not published in, is sloppy or unethical.

Honorary authorship is a controversial topic. This phenomenon revolves around individuals who are unjustifiably credited as authors on scholarly works, despite their lack of substantial contributions. The implications of unethical honorary authorship extend beyond individual cases, influencing the credibility of the academic community as a whole. John Swallow was Chair of the Department of Integrative Biology when Michael Greene was promoted from Associate Professor of Human Physiology to Full Professor of Human Physiology. It is highly unusual for a researcher to be promoted to full professor after they stop publishing in their field. It is noteworthy that Prof. Greene was promoted around the same time that he gave honorary authorship to his supervisor, John Swallow.

Unethical honorary authorship undermines the very foundations of research integrity. When individuals who have not made meaningful contributions are recognized as authors, it distorts authorship credit and can inflate the perceived impact and accomplishments of a given research team. This practice can lead to misallocation of resources, skewed evaluations of academic performance, and even harm the reputations of diligent researchers who have legitimately contributed to the work. Shortly before being promoted to full professor, Mike Greene gave honorary authorship to his supervisor John Swallow. John Swallow was responsible for guiding the promotion process of Mike Greene.

It can be difficult to detect honorary authorship, which is one of the reasons the practice is so prevalent. Prof. Swallow revealed his honorary authorship of papers when he could not name the organisms that nine papers he supposedly co-authored were about. In some cases, the organism's name was in the title of the paper. The following is testimony made by John Swallow that demonstrates he knows the subject of papers that he authored, but did not know the subjects of papers that he did not author, but was given honorary authorship by subordinates.

Questioner: So in the department that you lead, is it true that a paper in an ISI-ranked journal that never gets cited meets research expectations for two years?

John Swallow: Yes.

Questioner: Okay. You've worked with stalk-eyed flies, correct?

John Swallow: Correct.

Questioner: What's the Latin binomial of the main species you work with?

John Swallow: Cyrtodiopsis dalmanni.

Questioner: Okay. And you have also published on pavement ants, right?

John Swallow: With Greg Beam, yes. I'm not sure where this is going.

Questioner: What's the Latin binomial for that species?

John Swallow: Off the top of my head I don't know.

John Swallow did not know the name of the species that he supposedly published nine peer-reviewed papers about. During a rigorous peer-review process, authors write, respond to questions, and rewrite papers. It is difficult to imagine that John Swallow went through the peer-review process nine times without learning the name of the species he was writing about.