Documented Intellectual Piracy by Joshua Lederberg

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In addition to the purposeful misinformation spread by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in an attempt to re-write the history of U.S. Science, this is NOT the first attempt to support such dishonesty by Joshua Lederberg. Joshua Lederberg's intent is for unmerited personal acclaim. One way to accomplish this is to make personal claims, then either bury contrary evidence or to lay claim for the work of others. It is not often that actual evidence of such theft can be provided.

The document above shows:

1. Unconditional gift of someone else's property (the property of Esther Lederberg has been unconditionally taken away from the rightful owner and given as a gift by someone without a legal claim). However, no evidence is provided that such material has not actually been destroyed or claimed by someone else, such as Joshua Lederberg.
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2. Documents donated by Joshua Lederberg are likely, either by intent or error, to be ascribed to Joshua Lederberg, not to the actual owners. Furthermore, finding such documentation that has been incorrectly ascribed is likely to be very difficult, thus enhancing the facility for dishonest ascription.
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3. In the above note, Joshua Lederberg views the owner's request (Esther Lederberg) as an invalid intrusion upon his prerogative, despite the fact that the documents referred to are admittedly not his property. The actual distribution of property, including intellectual property and photographs, had already taken place legally during their divorce four years prior to this interchange.
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4. In the above note, Joshua Lederberg takes the view that the documentation referred to (including Esther's masters and Ph.D theses) is part of the property that he would keep in his home. (Since he has the right to donate, destroy, or otherwise dispose of the property in his home, he can thus donate, destroy, or otherwise make unavailable, intellectual property that would undermine his false or exaggerated claims.) Bear in mind, it is not clear how much other pirated property of researchers other than Esther Lederberg, has remained in Joshua Lederberg's home, and has never been donated.
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5. The intellectual property that Joshua Lederberg has taken to weaken claims that Esther Lederberg or others have done research that he may have claimed, included personal correspondence from the following researchers:
   • Lucca Luigi Cavalli-Sforza
   • William Hayes
   • François Jacob
   • Bruce A. D. Stocker
   • Elie Wollman
   • etc.

It is important to point out that in point #2 of Joshua Lederberg's reply, Joshua Lederberg explicitly states that the correspondence in question is not his own, yet correspondence not involving him, such as Esther M. Lederberg's and other researchers is part of Joshua Lederberg's archives and may be found referenced in the NLM site. Thus Joshua Lederberg has claimed correspondence that is not his own, under his correspondence.

The tone of the above document by Joshua Lederberg says much. It is not without cause that Arthur Kornberg did not feel that J. Lederberg would fit in his lab, with its family-like friendships. It was not without cause that Barbara McClintock threw J. Lederberg out of her office. Click Kornberg or McClintock at: http://www.esthermlederberg.com/ColleaguesIndex.html .

However, this documented example of intellectual theft is in fact, far more serious than it appears. In fact, not only is this theft or possible hiding of research information restricted to Esther Lederberg's personal papers and property. Indeed, personal correspondence between several prominent researchers means that it is possible that the personal correspondence affects that of such people as François Jacob, Elie Wollman, William Hayes, etc: this correspondence may not exist anywhere else. Thus the piracy in question affects all these researchers as well as Esther M. Lederberg. Even if, fortuitously, copies of these documents exist elsewhere, the originals in question may have had extra manuscript notes appended to them (as can be seen in many documents found in this website).

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