DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

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_Symmachus
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Symmachus »

A Daniel Peterson thread surely is a very tiresome thing, but so is Sic et Non (well, not the actual Sic et Non): de gustibus etc. In any case, it's a potent metaphor for what's happened to classical Mormon Apologetics; plagiarism is the recourse for those who have nothing to say. No ideas happen over there at Sic et Non (which can at least be entertaining) or at the Interpreter (which never is). No ideas, I say, just "irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas."*

*adapted from Lionel Trilling on conservatism in the preface to The Liberal Imagination (1950), p. xv. (<------That's how to cite your sources, idiots).
"As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them."

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_Lemmie
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Lemmie »

Again?

Every once in a while I look at another science or history post of DCP's; it's beyond disturbing the regularity and frequency with which I keep finding plagiarism. This would be the 4th evidence of plagiarism documented on this board in the last week, all with dates ranging from august 1st to October 7th, found from simply randomly reading from the list of his science and math related posts.

In this example, DCP writes about Anfinsen, a Nobel prize winner, and his belief in God, posted on August 1, 2017.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us

In the blog post, it seemed odd that he repeated a quote in the middle. His justification for that was to prove Anfinsen really believed it, but the first use of the quote was from Anfinsen's wife's memorial speech, so why would the proof be necessary?

Once I looked online, however, I realized why. It looks like DCP lifted the bulk of his blog entry from this piece:

Nobel Laureate Christian B. Anfinsen on the Existence of GOD

Author/Compiler: Tihomir Dimitrov (http://nobelists.net; also see http://scigod.com/index.php/sgj/issue/view/3)


http://2012daily.com/community/blogs/142

I don't understand this behavior. He goes to a lot of work to blend the piece into his blog entry, so he can't argue he forgot he didn't actually write the words, or that it is just in note form and he forgot the reference. Why not just give proper attribution for what you use?

In Dimitrov's piece, after listing biographical data, there is a break, and then 4 unconnected examples from Anfinsen's life are numbered and listed separately as evidence for the title; two of them use the same quote but in different contexts. In my opinion, DCP lifted ALL 4 directly from the list, errors, references and all, and then tried to weave it into a narrative, hence the weird justification for Anfinsen's wife's use of the quote.

Below are 9 straight paragraphs from DCP's blog entry, with the source he plagiarized from, numbered as 1-4 from the other piece. Dark blue are the parts he took from Dimitrov, light blue are the identical quotes he uses. Note this part of his blog entry is entirely and exactly composed of Dimitrov's full piece.

As additional proof, note in the very first copied piece, I have enlarged two parts where DCP makes the identical error, found in his source, of repeating "the" just before the quote which begins with "the."
DCP wrote:In 1979, Christian Anfinsen converted to Orthodox Judaism, and he remained a practicing traditional Jew for the rest of his life. He had, he said in explanation, been deeply impressed by the " the history, practice, and intensity of Judaism.”
[#4 on the list]

In 1979, Anfinsen converted to Orthodox Judaism, a commitment he retained for the rest of his life; he maintained that he had been deeply impressed by the " the history, practice and intensity of Judaism.”

Another factor may have been his own partially Jewish heritage: On 16 November 1995, his widow, Libby, delivered a memorial speech in his honor during the Memorial Garden Dedication at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, for which he had served as a member of the Board of Governors. In her remarks, she said:

“His religious background is interesting in that his Jewish maternal grandmother’s family disappeared when the Nazis invaded Bergen, Norway. His parents were Bible reading Lutherans, and he himself was an agnostic until the later 70’s when he studied and converted to traditional Judaism. He felt the following quote from Einstein accurately expressed his beliefs. ‘The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.’ He xeroxed and distributed this quote to many.”
[the rest of #4 on the list:]

On 16 November 1995, in her Memorial speech for Christian Anfinsen at Memorial Garden Dedication, Weizmann Institute, Libby Anfinsen (Prof. Anfinsen’s wife) said:
“His religious background is interesting in that his Jewish maternal grandmother’s family disappeared when the Nazis invaded Bergen, Norway. His parents were Bible reading Lutherans, and he himself was an agnostic until the later 70’s when he studied and converted to traditional Judaism. He felt the following quote from Einstein accurately expressed his beliefs. ‘The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.’ He xeroxed and distributed this quote to many.” (Libby Anfinsen, 1995).


Evidence of his liking for the quotation comes in a letter that he himself sent to Professor Henry Margenau and Roy A. Varghese, the compilers of a 1991 anthology titled Cosmos, Bios, Theos: Scientists Reflect on Science, God, and the Origins of the Universe, Life, and Homo Sapiens (where it is found on page 140):

“I enclose a favorite quotation from Einstein that agrees almost completely with my own point of view.
“Einstein himself once said that ‘The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God’”
(as cited in Margenau and Varghese, Cosmos, Bios, Theos, 140).
[#2 on the list:]

Prof. Anfinsen wrote to the compilers of the scientific anthology ‘Cosmos, Bios, Theos’ (1997) this:
“I enclose a favorite quotation from Einstein that agrees almost completely with my own point of view.

Einstein himself once said that ‘The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God’.”
(Anfinsen, as cited in Margenau and Varghese, ‘Cosmos, Bios, Theos’, 1997, 140).


In a letter to Henry Margenau dated 28 March 1989, Anfinsen wrote:

“Thank you for your letter of March 13 and your kind words about my small contribution to your anthology. I can think of little more to add to my final point having to do with the nature of God and the existence of God. . . . Clearly, an all-powerful, all-knowing entity must exist to explain our existence.”
[#3 on the list:]

In his letter of 28 March 1989 to Prof. Henry Margenau (compiler of the scientific anthology ‘Cosmos, Bios, Theos’), Anfinsen wrote:

“Thank you for your letter of March 13 and your kind words about my small contribution to your anthology. I can think of little more to add to my final point having to do with the nature of God and the existence of God. Clearly, an all-powerful, all-knowing entity must exist to explain our existence.” (Anfinsen 1989).

In response to a question from the book’s editors, Professor Anfinsen replied as follows:

“I think only an idiot can be an atheist. We must admit that there exists an incomprehensible power or force with limitless foresight and knowledge that started the whole universe going in the first place.” (Anfinsen, as cited in Margenau and Varghese, Cosmos, Bios, Theos, 139).
[#1 on the list:]

To the question, “Many prominent scientists - including Darwin, Einstein, and Planck - have considered the concept of God very seriously. What are your thoughts on the concept of God and on the existence of God?” Christian Anfinsen replied:
“I think only an idiot can be an atheist. We must admit that there exists an incomprehensible power or force with limitless foresight and knowledge that started the whole universe going in the first place.” (Anfinsen, as cited in Margenau and Varghese, ‘Cosmos, Bios, Theos’, 1997, 139).
Last edited by Guest on Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
_Tom
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Tom »

You found another one, Lemmie. I find it curious that the columns by Professors Hamblin and Peterson in the Deseret News rarely cite a source: https://www.deseretnews.com/author/2305 ... erson.html

Do they rely on Wikipedia entries?
“A scholar said he could not read the Book of Mormon, so we shouldn’t be shocked that scholars say the papyri don’t translate and/or relate to the Book of Abraham. Doesn’t change anything. It’s ancient and historical.” ~ Hanna Seariac
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Finding examples of Mr. Peterson's plagiarism is about as difficult as finding a colored egg at a toddler's Easter egg hunt.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Lemmie »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Finding examples of Mr. Peterson's plagiarism is about as difficult as finding a colored egg at a toddler's Easter egg hunt.

- Doc

:lol: Exactly. I was going with shooting fish in a barrel, but even that metaphor is starting to over-state the effort.
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Lemmie »

Tom wrote:You found another one, Lemmie. I find it curious that the columns by Professors Hamblin and Peterson in the Deseret News rarely cite a source: https://www.deseretnews.com/author/2305 ... erson.html

Do they rely on Wikipedia entries?

I've only looked at a couple of those, it does seem odd. Because it is an opinion piece, would DesNews not require references?
_Jesse Pinkman
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Jesse Pinkman »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Finding examples of Mr. Peterson's plagiarism is about as difficult as finding a colored egg at a toddler's Easter egg hunt.

- Doc

Wrong Holiday example. How about finding candy while Trick or Treating? LOL
So you're chasing around a fly and in your world, I'm the idiot?

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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Tom »

Lemmie wrote:
Tom wrote:You found another one, Lemmie. I find it curious that the columns by Professors Hamblin and Peterson in the Deseret News rarely cite a source: https://www.deseretnews.com/author/2305 ... erson.html

Do they rely on Wikipedia entries?

I've only looked at a couple of those, it does seem odd. Because it is an opinion piece, would DesNews not require references?

I'm not aware of the standards used by the Deseret News, but I've found a few similarities between their column on the Byodo-In Temple and Wikipedia entries on the Byodo-In Temple and Amitabha.

Here is a comparison of selected passages:

Hamblin and Peterson: "The temple itself was built in 1968, as a way of celebrating the centennial of the arrival of Japanese people and culture in the Hawaiian Islands, and it was dedicated by the then governor of the state."

Wikipedia, "Byodo-In-Temple": "Byodo-In Temple was commissioned and built largely by concrete (the original is wooden without the use of nails) in 1968 at its present location in the Valley of the Temples to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the arrival of Japanese culture to Hawai'i. It was dedicated by Governor John A. Burns."


Hamblin and Peterson: "Strictly speaking, it isn’t a fully functioning Buddhist temple (which is simply a house of worship designed to create a space of calm beauty for meditation) because it’s associated with neither an active congregation nor a resident monastic community."

Wikipedia, "Byodo-In-Temple": "Contrary to popular belief, it is not a functioning Buddhist temple in the proper sense as it does not host a resident monastic community nor an active congregation."


Hamblin and Peterson: "The serene and lush grounds that surround it include Japanese gardens, large ponds full of koi and a deep-toned three-ton bronze bell that visitors are encouraged to sound."

Wikipedia, "Byodo-In-Temple": "Outside is a three-ton, brass peace bell. Surrounding the temple are large koi ponds that cover a total of two acres (8,000 m²). Around those ponds are lush Japanese gardens set against a backdrop of towering cliffs of the Ko'olau mountains."


Hamblin and Peterson: "Inside the temple is a 9-foot wooden image, covered in lacquer and gold, of the 'Lotus Buddha.'"

Wikipedia, "Byodo-In-Temple": "Inside the Byodo-In Temple is a 18 ft (5.5 m) [sic] statue of the Lotus Buddha, a wooden image depicting Amitabha. It is covered in gold and lacquer."


Hamblin and Peterson: "He represents 'Amida or 'Amitabha' ('Infinite Light'), the celestial buddha who is the principal figure in the 'Pure Land' branch of East Asian (Mahayana) Buddhism."

Wikipedia, "Amitabha": "Amitābha[2] (Sanskrit pronunciation: [əmiˈt̪aːbʱə]), also Amida or Amitāyus, is a celestial buddha according to the scriptures of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in Pure Land Buddhism, a branch of East Asian Buddhism. . . . Amitābha means "Infinite Light."


Hamblin and Peterson: "By means of the power thus accumulated, Amitabha eventually created a pure land called 'Sukhavati' (from the Sanskrit words for 'possessing happiness'). This land, in which Amitabha himself now lives, is located far away in the uttermost west, beyond the boundaries of the temporal world in which we mortals currently reside."

Wikipedia, "Amitabha": "Through his efforts, Amitābha created a pure land called Sukhāvatī (Sanskrit: "possessing happiness"). Sukhāvatī is situated in the uttermost west, beyond the bounds of our own world. "


Hamblin and Peterson: "There, according to a doctrine that might appropriately be called 'eternal progression,' Amitabha will instruct them in the 'dharma,' the doctrine or teachings of Buddhism, so that, in the end, they can become 'bodhisattvas' and 'buddhas' in their own right."

Wikipedia, "Amitabha": "By the power of his vows, Amitābha has made it possible for all who call upon him to be reborn into this land, there to undergo instruction by him in the dharma and ultimately become bodhisattvas and buddhas in their turn (the ultimate goal of Mahāyāna Buddhism)."


Hamblin and Peterson: "Unsurprisingly, Amitabha is often described as the Buddha of 'comprehensive love' or 'infinite compassion.'"

Wikipedia, "Amitabha": "Amitābha is the buddha of comprehensive love."


Hamblin and Peterson: "Oahu’s Byodo-In Temple has also shown up, among other places, in episodes of the television shows 'Lost,' 'Magnum, P.I.' and 'Hawaii Five-0,' and as a stand-in for its Japanese original in the movie 'Pearl Harbor.'"

Wikipedia, "Byodo-In-Temple": "The TV series Hawaii Five-O and Magnum, P.I. featured several episodes where the temple is incorporated into the plot. The temple and its vicinity also served as a stand-in for South Korea in one episode of the ABC series Lost and as the Presidential Villa in an episode of seaQuest DSV.

The temple was also used in the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor as a replica of the Byodo-In Temple in Japan as well as several other movies."
“A scholar said he could not read the Book of Mormon, so we shouldn’t be shocked that scholars say the papyri don’t translate and/or relate to the Book of Abraham. Doesn’t change anything. It’s ancient and historical.” ~ Hanna Seariac
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _MsJack »

Tom wrote:I'm not aware of the standards used by the Deseret News, but I've found a few similarities between their column on the Byodo-In Temple and Wikipedia entries on the Byodo-In Temple and Amitabha.

Here is a comparison of selected passages:
[SNIP]

Wow. Wikipedia?? SMH.
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _The Dude »

MsJack wrote:
Tom wrote:I'm not aware of the standards used by the Deseret News, but I've found a few similarities between their column on the Byodo-In Temple and Wikipedia entries on the Byodo-In Temple and Amitabha.

Here is a comparison of selected passages:
[SNIP]

Wow. Wikipedia?? SMH.


If you must write Mopologetics
The words you use should be your own
Don't plagiarize or take "on loan"
'Cause there's always someone, somewhere
With a big nose, who knows
And who trips you up and laughs
When you fall
Who'll trip you up and laugh
When you fall

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