Wired magazine has ended its relationship with author Jonah Lehrer after an investigation into his writings turned up “inexcusable” problems.

New York University associate journalism professor  Charles Seife reviewed Lehrer’s work for Wired. His complete report has been posted at Slate, outlining examples of plagiarism, questionable facts and recycled work.

Earlier this summer, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt removed Lehrer’s Imagine: How Creativity Works from bookstores after the journalist confessed he had manufactured Bob Dylan quotes in the book. Until December 31, the company will refund readers for the book.

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Follow this link to read a Byliner excerpt from his book, a section about a journalist caught fabricating chunks of his memoir. It arrived as a timely piece of writing after Jonah Lehrer‘s recent scandal.

Press play to listen, but we’ve included quotes from the interview below: “Even though we seem to be able to unmask journalistic frauds with greater and greater regularity, is that really improving journalism at all? That’s a funny thing that’s happening. Journalism is self-policing itself probably better than ever, but meanwhile, journalism isn’t getting any better for all of that.”

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If you want a refund from the hardcover book, you can take the book back to the bookstore where you bought it. Digital book  buyers must “submit requests to the retailer from which the eBook was originally purchased.”

In addition, you can mail the book directly to the publisher along with a proof of purchase. The publisher will send you “$30 within 30 days of receipt of book ($26 for book, plus $4 to cover mailing charges).” Here is the address:

HMH
Attn: Trade Sales/KR
222 Berkeley St.
Boston, MA.  02116

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While the WWD reporter wasn’t sure if Gladwell had read the Tablet essay that exposed the fabrication, WWD had this quote from Gladwell: “I am heartbroken. Jonah is a friend. He is a decent and sweet and hugely talented guy, and I cannot imagine what he is going through right now,”

The book has already sold 200,000 copies, but the publisher has stopped the presses. Links to Lehrer’s book have been removed at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

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Lehrer confessed after journalist Michael Moynihan contacted him for a story in Tablet. According to The New York Times, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt “will halt shipment of physical copies of the book.”

The Times’ Media Decoder blog has a statement from Lehrer: “The quotes in question either did not exist, were unintentional misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes. But I told Mr. Moynihan that they were from archival interview footage provided to me by Dylan’s representatives. This was a lie spoken in a moment of panic. When Mr. Moynihan followed up, I continued to lie, and say things I should not have said.”

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Media critic Jim Romenesko discovered that Leher had repurposed copy about how and why people respond incorrectly to a simple arithmetic question about the cost of a bat and a ball. Literary blogger Edward Champion found recycled material in Leher’s recent book as well.

Since Romenesko’s discovery, The New Yorker has updated the post with an Editors’ Note, which reads, “Portions of this post appeared in similar form in an April, 2011, post by Jonah Lehrer for Wired.com. We regret the duplication of material.” (It is also is an October WSJ story, as Romenesko points out). continued…

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He announced the news on his Wired Magazine blog: “Needless to say, I’m very excited. Unfortunately, this means I’ll no longer be a contributing editor at Wired, where I’ve spent the last several years. I’m saddened by this, as I’m a huge fan of the magazine and website and I’ve tremendously enjoyed working with my editors at Wired. This also means that my blog, Frontal Cortex, will be moving to the newyorker.com. You can find all my new posts here.”

Lehrer has published three books: Imagine, How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Follow this link to read his first New Yorker essay, “Why Daydreaming Makes You Smarter and More Creative.”

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If you watch one video today, you should watch the heartwarming video embedded above–a Los Angeles filmmaker visited a cardboard box arcade built by a 9-year-old kid.

The video should remind us all about why we should think like a little kid when we write. Wired contributing editor and author Jonah Lehrer described why children can be “effortlessly creative” in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works:

Picasso once summarized the paradox this way: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” From the perspective of the brain, Picasso is exactly right, as the DLPFC is the last brain area to fully develop. This helps explain why young children are so effortlessly creative: their censors don’t yet exist. But then the brain matures and we become too self-conscious to improvise, too worried about saying the wrong thing, or playing the wrong note, or falling off the surfboard.

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