Editor-In-Chief Quits Over 'Active Thermitic Material'

by Erik Larson | April 29, 2009 at 10:59 pm

990 views | 37 Recommendations | 4 comments

Professor Marie-Paule Pileni has resigned as editor-in-chief of the Open Chemical Physics Journal over the publication of the Niels Harrit et al paper, Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe, which she says she was unaware of. In an interview with videnskab.dk (Danish science news service) she said she believes the publication was "political", although she did not provide any evidence of that, or find any fault with the science behind the paper. According to the Videnskab article, "The editor-in-chief’s dramatic departure gives critics additional reason to doubt the article’s conclusions, but Marie-Paule Pileni points out that because the topic lies outside her field of expertise, she cannot judge whether the article in itself is good or bad." However, it has been uncovered by SnowCrash at 911Blogger.com that her background is in “chemical research”, “experimental nanosciences”, “physical chemistry”, “nanometrics” and “structure and reactivity of interfacial systems”. It's strange that Pileni claims the paper’s subject, which is the chemical and physical properties of red-gray chips found in four (6, really) WTC dust samples, "lies outside her field of expertise."

SnowCrash also discovered Pileni has extensive consulting connections to defense research dating to 1987; potentially a major financial conflict of interest when rendering a judgment on the paper’s subject- the implications of which, if the science is solid, are definitely political. However, she did not debunk anything about the paper's science, so how can she claim there's politics involved or not? Is it political to let the facts decide and tell the truth?

The editor in chief of the journal where recently the paper: "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe" was published, resigned, claiming she wasn't informed of the publication. She proceeds to provide not a single solid scientific rebuttal, only administrative bickering and personal political bias against, well.. inconvenient science. One particularly notable comment attributed to Ms. Pileni is this one: "Marie-Paule Pileni points out that because the topic lies outside her field of expertise, she cannot judge whether the article in itself is good or bad.".

Strangely, her areas of research seem to contradict that. I'll quote you an excerpt of her resume:

OTHER ACTIVITIES
1990-1992: Chairperson on workshops related to the French Defense research.
1989-1992: Consultant at the Minister of Recherche concerning the National Defense 1989: Member of the “Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Européenne”.
1987-1988: Member of the ’“Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale” (IHEDN)1984-1986: Member of National exam in Chemistry
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERSHIP
2006: Accounts of Chemical Research, American Chemical Society.
Journal of experimental nanosciences, Publisher Taylor&Francis.
2002: Journal of Physical Chemistry, Board member, American Chemical Society.

CONSULTING EXPERIENCE
1990-1994: Société Nationale des Poudres et Explosifs, SNPE, France (Literally translated: National Society of Powders and Explosives)

LABORATORY MANAGEMENT
2001: Laboratoire des matériaux mésoscopiques et nanomètriques, LM2N.

1992-2000: Structure et réactivité des systèmes interfaciaux, SRI. (Literally translated: Structure and reactivity of interfacial systems)

Note to commenters; If I don't reply within a day, it's because my comments are still being rejected as spam with no option for entering captcha text; it just happened AGAIN on the minders article. I've sent 3-4 messages to tech support and am using the latest version of Firefox, so I don't know what else to do. Thx for commenting.

Regarding the legitimacy of Bentham and the Open Chemical Physics Journal; what “list of international journals” is Pileni talking about? (see 911Blogger.com article for the Pileni quote- i'm loose nuke)

The Open Chemical Physics Journal and 154 other Bentham journals are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals operated by Lund University Libraries:

I did a Google search for "open chemical physics journal" – the first 5 pages contain this many listings in scholarly databases:

Georgetown University Library

Intute: Science, Engineering and Technology

Internetchemie

Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne- Scientific Information and Libraries

Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche- Department of Materials and Devices

University of Saskatchewan Library

ABC Chemistry- Belarusian State University, Minsk, Belarus

Portico.org – “support for Portico is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ithaka, The Library of Congress, and JSTOR.”

J R D TATA MEMORIAL LIBRARY (JRDTML) - INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE

逢甲大學圖書館 Feng Chia University Library

Wageningen UR Library Catalogue

Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research

Brigham Young University- Harold B. Lee Library

Journal Search - Sutherland Shire Libraries

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djermano

at 03:46 on April 30th, 2009

She resigned for being unaware? Seems odd! Clearly she is unaware of a lot of things, or aware because of her conflict of interest.

Rev. Jermano

jordan

at 06:20 on April 30th, 2009

One of the things I like about NP (besides the masthead dinosaurs) is that we get articles like this: juuuuust outside the scope of MSM.

Archie1954 (not verified)

at 12:56 on April 30th, 2009

It is perfectly correct for her to resign. She may not have resigned for the reason she stated but in doing so she saved the journal the potential for having to deal with conflict of interest in the future.

Erik Larson

at 15:39 on May 2nd, 2009

seeing if i can post a comment...

SnowCrash has updated the article at 911Blogger with additional info on Pileni's background and connections to cutting edge research in explosives.

Her statement that she is not qualified to evaluate the paper, and that it has nothing to do with the journal's focus is utterly false- unless she was lying about her experience.