Plagiarism hunter Weber took on Popper’s dissertation

In his blog, Weber emphasizes that “the scientific core of the work is not affected”. Popper responded on Twitter that his work was “independent”. “The question of whether there is plagiarism must be decided by others”.

In Poppers’ dissertation (“Comparative Modeling and Simulation – A Concept for Modular Modeling and Hybrid Simulation of Complex Systems”), Weber wants to identify third-party plagiarism from a Wikipedia entry, from a dissertation that is six months older and from a specialist article by other authors that is nine years older to have. Because Popper submitted his doctoral thesis to the Vienna University of Technology in May 2015, but the new provisions on plagiarism in the University Act came into force in January 2015, “the work should never have been accepted,” says Weber. For him, “mathematicians and computer scientists seem to need clearer citation rules – like the Austrian legal scholars”.

He does not know whether Weber is only interested in improving science or whether he “has other motives. I find it difficult that he seems to be a police officer, prosecutor and judge in one,” Popper emphasized on Twitter. It is interesting for him that Weber focuses on things that are more his topic and not the core of the research. “I’m sure that my work is very good – and above all independent… But: the question of whether there is plagiarism must be answered by others. It’s not up to me.” In a thread, Popper then addresses individual allegations and finally emphasizes: “I try to do my work to the best of my knowledge and belief, I learn something new every day and try to be a halfway pleasant person. If I’ve done something wrong, I’ll be in hell – maybe Stefan Weber won’t be far from me then…:-)”