“WE ARE A BIT WORRIED WHY WE HAVEN'T HEARD ANYMORE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF LEUVEN”

Mister Ilkka Kantola, currently Member of the Finnish Parliament for the Finnish social democratic party, confirmed the story of Stone’s plagiarism in an interview he gave to The Voice. Together with doctor Olli Hallamaa, chair of Luther-Agricola Society, the publisher of his plagiarized dissertation, he answered our questions and gave us some jaw-dropping answers.

The Voice - Is it true that your dissertation was plagiarized by professor Stone?
Yes, it is apparently true that Stone has plagiarized the text of my dissertation largely without any mentioning of my name or my work.

The Voice - Did you know Prof. Stone before, or had you ever heard of him before the plagiarism came to light?
No, I had never heard of Mr. Stone. That is because after having finished with my doctoral thesis, my career turned to be somewhere else than in the academic research. So I did not actively follow what was going on in academic research.

The Voice - Were you in any way in touch with each other before?
I was not in touch with Stone. But now I am aware that he visited the University of Helsinki in 2008, when he was participating in a research seminar and in 2009 when he was opponent at an academic disputation.

The Voice - How was the plagiarism exactly discovered, and by whom?
I became aware of the plagiarism when I got an e-mail from Prof. Michael Dougherty, Ohio Dominican University, United States. Prof. Dougherty told that he had studied my dissertation published in 1994, and he had found out that it had been largely plagiarized by Stone. Immediately I took contact with the publisher of my book. From the Helsinki University Library I got Stone’s article in my hands and made comparison between it and my book. So I found out that professor Dougherty was definitely right. I realized very soon and easily that tens of pages were identical or nearly identical, although my name was not mentioned at all.
Professor Dougherty did very good work producing the evidential material, which showed that big amount of plagiarism, existed. Very soon it appeared that not only one, but four articles published by Stone were for large part of them plain copies of my dissertation. Stone copied my dissertation without mentioning my name.

The Voice - When the plagiarism was made clear, how was it dealt with? Did you come to a kind of settlement with Stone?
Professor Dougherty and Doctor Olli Hallamaa, representing the publisher of my book, have done a lot of work. Together we have sent reclamations to those journals, which have published Stone’s articles. Besides that we have sent a letter to Kings College, London, where Stone worked when publishing some of the articles in question. Our attempt has been to inform the relevant institutions of what has been done by Stone. We have also pointed out that Stone’s behaviour cannot be accepted and these institutions have done their best in correcting the scholarly abuse and revealing the truth.
It is not acceptable that Stone’s articles stay in Scientific Libraries without any mention that a great deal of the text comes from the works of other scholars. For the present, it has become evident that Stone has plagiarized several other researchers, too.

The Voice - Has Prof. Stone apologized to you?
Stone has been regarded as a qualified researcher and professor in academic circles. The case of plagiarism has been a shock for his colleagues. Kings College has taken the case very seriously and started with investigations. The University of Leuven has also taken the case seriously, and started with investigations. Just now we are a bit worried why we have not heard anymore from the University of Leuven. What we have heard about Stone is that he does not consider himself guilty for plagiarizing but only having accidentally missed to mention my name or the name of my dissertation. So, not a real apology has appeared for now.

The Voice - What was the reaction of the public when it came out in the press?
The case was briefly mentioned in a Finnish Newspaper, because I am now a Member of Parliament in Finland. Plagiarism was also illustrated in an article in a newspaper published by my political party, the Social democratic Party in Finland.

The Voice - Do you know anything about what happened to professor Stone after his “disappearance”? Are you in touch now?
I do not know what has happened to Mr. Stone now. I have not been in touch with him

The Voice - What was your personal reaction when you found out about the plagiarism and would you like to say anything else about it?
This has been a very strange, accidental thing in my present life. You feel that your academic research before 1994 has been evaluated scientifically so good that it can be abused when looking for a qualified university professorate. On the other hand, I think this is a very sad case for the part of Mr. Stone and the academic community. I am very grateful for Prof. Michael Dougherty and Doctor Olli Hallamaa for their excellent and professional work in dealing with this case. |