DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

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_I have a question
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _I have a question »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:And this is why BYU, the MI, and the Deseret News cannot be taken seriously:

https://www.thewrap.com/daily-beast-liz ... lagiarism/

Daily Beast reporter Lizzie Crocker resigned from the company this weekend after allegations of plagiarism against her were confirmed by the publication, TheWrap has learned.

“Plagiarism is unacceptable,” Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief John Avlon told TheWrap in a statement. “Lizzie Crocker has offered to resign and her resignation was accepted.”

“Though this was a difficult decision, we take plagiarism seriously, and will not allow the hard-earned trust we’ve built with our millions of loyal readers to be compromised,” he added.


If the Daily Beast takes plagiarism seriously, what does that say about BYU, the MI, and the Deseret News? You know for a fact that these people are aware of Mr. Peterson's plagiarisms, and the fact they haven't done anything to correct this problem is absolutely astounding. They are jokes, all of them.

- Doc


“When we became aware of this incident on Saturday, we took swift and decisive action to verify the extent of the plagiarism, and deleted the article with an editors’ note,” he said. “A larger investigation of her work at The Beast has revealed no other incidents of plagiarism. But one incident is enough.”
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Tom »

In June 2011, Peterson published a column in the Deseret News titled "Defending the Faith: John Whitmer's testimony endures." I've noted some parallels between passages in the column and passages in Richard Lloyd Anderson's 1981 book, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses. Did Peterson use Anderson as a source? They quote many of the same sources. Here is a comparison of some passages in the two works:

1. Anderson:
The completely candid temperament of John Whitmer furnishes one of the best tests of the truth of his claim to have seen and handled the plates. As a trusted leader on the inner circle of decisions, he was editor of the Messenger and Advocate almost a year. In his closing editorial in 1836, John Whitmer shared his experiences as a member of the Church "from its beginning":

"Therefore I desire to testify to all that will come to the knowledge of this address, that I have most assuredly seen the plates from whence the Book of Mormon is translated, and that I have handled these plates, and know of a surety that Joseph Smith, Jr., has translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God."

Peterson:
In his 1836 final column as editor of the church publication "Messenger and Advocate," Whitmer bore witness of the plates and the Book of Mormon:

"I desire to testify to all that will come to the knowledge of this address," he wrote, "that I have most assuredly seen the plates from whence the Book of Mormon is translated, and that I have handled these plates, and know of a surety that Joseph Smith, Jr., has translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God."


2. Anderson:
From this peak of conviction, the same man descended to the depths of doubt within three years. Skeptical of Joseph Smith personally because of the failure of the Kirtland Bank, and rejected by his companions in gospel service, John Whitmer made common cause with other non-Mormons in ridiculing the faith of Theodore Turley, the business agent of the Church who remained to wind up financial affairs at Far West after the Mormons were driven out. But Turley openly accused Whitmer of inconsistency. Answering in the presence of his anti-Mormon friends, the Book of Mormon witness made two revealing statements. First, he admitted, "I now say, I handled those plates; there were fine engravings on both sides. I handled them." When Turley next asked bluntly why Whitmer now doubted the work, the witness indicated his inability to translate the characters on the plates: "I cannot read it, and I do not know whether it is true or not."

Peterson:
Shortly thereafter, though, when the Kirtland Bank failed and he was excommunicated, Whitmer became doubtful, skeptical, even cynical.

When he encountered Theodore Turley, the church's business agent — who courageously remained in Missouri in order to wind up Mormon financial affairs after the Saints had been expelled under threat of extermination — Whitmer joined with others to ridicule Turley's continued faithfulness.

Turley responded by charging Whitmer with inconsistency. Had he not once borne strong testimony of the Book of Mormon? Where was his faith now?

Still surrounded by his mocking friends, Whitmer admitted, "I handled those plates; there were fine engravings on both sides. I handled them."

Thus, even in his darkest, most doubting hour, Whitmer affirmed that Joseph Smith had possessed engraved metal plates.

Then why was he now allied with critics of the church? Because, he said, he couldn't actually confirm the translation of that strange writing. "I cannot read it, and I do not know whether it is true or not."


3. Anderson:
John Whitmer's reiteration of his testimony was a moving experience to him. Pained that he was out of the Church, this witness wept openly when William Lewis pressed the inconsistency of his inactivity: "At last he did say, wiping the tears off, that the day would come when we would all see eye to eye." The bitterness of the days after his excommunication were gone, and what remained in John Whitmer's mature years was the vivid memory of participation in the translation of a record of scripture:

"[O]ld Father John Whitmer told me last winter, with tears in his eyes, that he knew as well as he knew he had an existence that Joseph translated the ancient writing which was upon the plates, which he 'saw and handled,' and which, as one of the scribes, he helped to copy, as the words fell from Joseph's lips, by supernatural or almighty power."...

Six months before his death, he delivered his convictions publicly at a rural Sunday morning service.

Peterson:
And, not long thereafter, he was back to declaring, rather often and sometimes very emotionally, his conviction that the Book of Mormon was true and that it had been translated by the supernatural gift and power of God. (Records still survive of such declarations from up to at least six months prior to his death in 1878.)


4. Anderson:
In 1861, Jacob Gates talked with him over four hours and wrote in his journal, "He still testified that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Lord. He also said that he believed that . . . Brigham Young was carrying out the doctrine and system which Joseph Smith taught but he (Whitmer) did not believe in a man's having more than one wife."

Peterson:
In 1861, Jacob Gates spent roughly four hours talking with him, and, afterward, indicated in a journal entry that, while the witness didn't like polygamy and hadn't rejoined the church, John Whitmer "still testified that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Lord. He also said that he believed that … Brigham Young was carrying out the doctrine and system which Joseph Smith taught."


5. Anderson:
The evaluation of his community on his forty years of residence in Caldwell County is shown by the local obituary that alluded to the Mormon expulsion: "Mr. Whitmer remained at Far West and has since been a highly respected and law abiding citizen."

Peterson:
At his passing, the local newspaper published an obituary of him, reflecting on his 40-year residence in Caldwell County after the expulsion of the Mormons: "Mr. Whitmer remained at Far West and has since been a highly respected and law abiding citizen."
Last edited by Guest on Thu Jan 18, 2018 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“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 _Tom »

In January 2012, Peterson published an oddly similar column on John Whitmer, this one titled "Defending the Faith: John Whitmer left church, but kept testimony of Book of Mormon." There are some parallels between passages in the column and passages in Richard Lloyd Anderson's book, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses. Did Peterson use Anderson as a source? They quote a number of the same sources, and there is one instance in which it appears that Peterson directly quotes Anderson (without any citation). Here is a comparison of some passages in the two works:

1. Anderson:
Some of the severest Missouri persecutions came to witnesses of the Book of Mormon. Late in 1833 John Corrill reported of Christian Whitmer: "They also took him and pointed their guns at him, threatening to kill him if he did not tell them where the brethren were." Another correspondent wrote in the midst of this terror: "[T]he enemy . . . had thrown down 10 or 12 houses, and nearly whipped some to death, among whom was H. Page." Earlier that year, John Whitmer had joined other Mormon leaders in offering themselves as hostages to stop the abuse of their people

Peterson:
Plainly, he was a committed believer. In fact, he was willing to die for his faith: With several others in 1833, he had offered himself as a hostage to the Missouri mobs on behalf of his fellow Latter-day Saints.


2. Anderson:
John Whitmer was excommunicated March 10, 1838, followed by his brother David one month later. ... From this peak of conviction, the same man descended to the depths of doubt within three years. Skeptical of Joseph Smith personally because of the failure of the Kirtland Bank, and rejected by his companions in gospel service, John Whitmer made common cause with other non-Mormons in ridiculing the faith of Theodore Turley, the business agent of the Church who remained to wind up financial affairs at Far West after the Mormons were driven out. But Turley openly accused Whitmer of inconsistency. Answering in the presence of his anti-Mormon friends, the Book of Mormon witness made two revealing statements. First, he admitted, "I now say, I handled those plates; there were fine engravings on both sides. I handled them." When Turley next asked bluntly why Whitmer now doubted the work, the witness indicated his inability to translate the characters on the plates: "I cannot read it, and I do not know whether it is true or not." ….

One may surely rely on his ability to report whether or not he lifted and handled a metal object of substantial weight.

Peterson:
John was excommunicated on March 10, 1838, a month before his brother David, one of the Three Witnesses. Sorrowful and dejected, bitter over monetary issues, angry at the church in general and Joseph Smith in particular, his faith faltered.

During an 1839 exchange with Theodore Turley, the Latter-day Saint business agent who had bravely stayed behind in Missouri to settle financial affairs there after the Mormon expulsion, John confessed to doubts about the Book of Mormon. Speaking of the original text on the plates, he said, "I cannot read it, and I do not know whether it is true or not."

Nonetheless, he insisted, "I handled those plates; there were fine engravings on both sides. I handled them."

This is remarkable. Unlike the Three Witnesses, who heard a divine voice testify to the truth of the translation of the plates, the Eight Witnesses simply saw and held the plates under quite matter-of-fact conditions. Yet, even in the depths of alienation and bitterness, even when most inclined to doubt, even living, as he did, in the area of the worst anti-Mormon persecutions, John Whitmer could not deny what he personally and directly knew, that he had "lifted and handled a metal object of substantial weight."

Note the quoted language in Peterson's final sentence immediately above. Peterson is evidently quoting Anderson (see above), but Peterson does not provide a citation. (In a 2002 article titled "Not Joseph's, and Not Modern," Peterson cites Anderson's book several times, including for the same quoted language.)

3. Anderson:
After 1856 John Whitmer was the sole survivor of the Eight Witnesses. Outliving all the rest from two to four decades, he was contacted by more people than the others and thus left more specific statements about his experience. . . . In 1861, Jacob Gates talked with him over four hours and wrote in his journal, "He still testified that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Lord. He also said that he believed that . . . Brigham Young was carrying out the doctrine and system which Joseph Smith taught but he (Whitmer) did not believe in a man's having more than one wife."

Peterson:
John's bitterness, or at least his skepticism, was short-lived. And, after 1856, he was the last survivor of the Eight Witnesses. In 1861, Jacob Gates spoke with him for more than four hours, recording in his journal: "He still testified that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Lord."


4. Anderson:
The bitterness of the days after his excommunication were gone, and what remained in John Whitmer's mature years was the vivid memory of participation in the translation of a record of scripture:

"[O]ld Father John Whitmer told me last winter, with tears in his eyes, that he knew as well as he knew he had an existence that Joseph translated the ancient writing which was upon the plates, which he 'saw and handled,' and which, as one of the scribes, he helped to copy, as the words fell from Joseph's lips, by supernatural or almighty power." 32
.....
32 Letter of Myron Bond to Saints' Herald, Aug. 2, 1878, Cadillac, Mich., cit. Saints' Herald 25 (1878):253.

Peterson:
Myron Bond reported in 1878 that "old Father John Whitmer told me last winter, with tears in his eyes, that he knew as well as he knew he had an existence that Joseph translated the ancient writing which was upon the plates, which he 'saw and handled,' and which, as one of the scribes, he helped to copy, as the words fell from Joseph's lips."


5. Anderson:
Six months before his death, he delivered his convictions publicly at a rural Sunday morning service, reported in the local newspaper as follows:

"Mr. Whitmer is considered a truthful, honest and law abiding citizen by this community, and consequently, his appointment drew out a large audience. Mr. Whitmer stated that he had often handled the identical golden plates which Mr. Smith received from the hand of the angel. He said it was of pure gold; part of the book was sealed up solid, the other part was open, and it was this part which was translated. . . . Before closing he asked the audience if they would take the Book of Mormon and the Bible and compare them, and to take Paul's rule, 'To prove all things and hold fast to that which is good.'"

Peterson:
Finally, six months before his death, John spoke at a public Sunday service. His remarks were reported in the "Kingston Sentinel" as follows: "Mr. Whitmer is considered a truthful, honest and law abiding citizen by this community, and consequently, his appointment drew out a large audience. Mr. Whitmer stated that he had often handled the identical golden plates which Mr. Smith received from the hand of the angel. He said it was of pure gold; part of the book was sealed up solid, the other part was open, and it was this part which was translated."


6. Anderson:
The evaluation of his community on his forty years of residence in Caldwell County is shown by the local obituary that alluded to the Mormon expulsion: "Mr. Whitmer remained at Far West and has since been a highly respected and law abiding citizen."

Peterson:
When he died, the "Kingston Sentinel" eulogized him as "a highly respected and law abiding citizen."
“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 _Tom »

Peterson's recent blog post titled "Lise Meitner, pioneering female Christian physicist" appears to be a light revision of passages from the superb Wikipedia entry on Meitner. I assume that Peterson did not think his notes required a link or citation. (A cached version of the post is here.)

Peterson:
Lise Meitner was an Austrian physicist, born in Vienna, whose research concentrated on radioactivity and nuclear physics. In fact, she was a part of the scientific team that first discovered nuclear fission (in uranium, when it absorbs an extra neutron). Her collaborator and team co-leader Otto Hahn eventually won the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics [sic] for that achievement, but she was passed over. Both of them had been nominated several times previously for both the chemistry and the physics prizes, even before their discovery of nuclear fission.

Wikipedia (footnote numbers are removed in this passage and other passages below):
Lise Meitner (English: /ˈliːzə ˈmaɪtnər/; 7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. Meitner and Otto Hahn led the small group of scientists who first discovered nuclear fission of uranium when it absorbed an extra neutron; the results were published in early 1939. . . . Meitner received many awards and honors late in her life, but she did not share in the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for nuclear fission that was awarded exclusively to her long-time collaborator Otto Hahn. . . . Both he and Meitner had been nominated for both the chemistry and the physics prizes several times even before the discovery of nuclear fission.

====
Peterson:
Meitner spent most of her scientific career in Berlin, serving as a professor of physics and chairing the department at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. (She had earned her doctorate in Vienna, but had also studied in Berlin — where the great Max Planck, who had never before permitted women to attend his lectures, made an exception in her case.) However, she was Jewish and so, on account of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws issued under Nazi rule, she eventually lost her academic position. In 1938, she fled to neutral Sweden, ultimately becoming a Swedish citizen.

Wikipedia:
Meitner spent most of her scientific career in Berlin, Germany, where she was a physics professor and a department head at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute; she was the first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany. She lost these positions in the 1930s because of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany, and in 1938 she fled to Sweden, where she lived for many years, ultimately becoming a Swedish citizen. . . . After she received her doctorate, Meitner rejected an offer to work in a gas lamp factory. Encouraged by her father and backed by his financial support, she went to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin where famous physicist Max Planck allowed her to attend his lectures, an unusual gesture by Planck, who until then had rejected any woman wanting to attend his lectures.

====
Peterson:
She was deeply critical of German physicists, including Werner Heisenberg and her own former colleague Otto Hahn, who remained and worked in Nazi Germany throughout the Second World War. She drafted (but apparently did not send) a letter to Hahn that read, in part:


You all worked for Nazi Germany. And you tried to offer only a passive resistance. Certainly, to buy off your conscience you helped here and there a persecuted person, but millions of innocent human beings were allowed to be murdered without any kind of protest being uttered … [it is said that] first you betrayed your friends, then your children in that you let them stake their lives on a criminal war – and finally that you betrayed Germany itself, because when the war was already quite hopeless, you did not once arm yourselves against the senseless destruction of Germany.

However, they reconciled and remained lifelong friends.

Wikipedia:
After the war, Meitner, while acknowledging her own moral failing in staying in Germany from 1933 to 1938, was bitterly critical of Hahn, Max von Laue and other German scientists who, she thought, would have collaborated with the Nazis and done nothing to protest against the crimes of Hitler's regime. Referring to the leading German nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg, she said: "Heisenberg and many millions with him should be forced to see these camps and the martyred people." In a June 1945 draft letter addressed to Hahn, but never received by him, she wrote:
You all worked for Nazi Germany. And you tried to offer only a passive resistance. Certainly, to buy off your conscience you helped here and there a persecuted person, but millions of innocent human beings were allowed to be murdered without any kind of protest being uttered ... [it is said that] first you betrayed your friends, then your children in that you let them stake their lives on a criminal war – and finally that you betrayed Germany itself, because when the war was already quite hopeless, you did not once arm yourselves against the senseless destruction of Germany.

After the war in the 1950s and 1960s, Meitner again enjoyed visiting Germany and staying with Hahn and his family for several days on different occasions, particularly on March 8, 1959, to celebrate Hahn's 80th birthday in Göttingen, where she addressed recollections in his honour. Also Hahn wrote in his memoirs, which were published shortly after his death in 1968, that he and Meitner had remained lifelong close friends. Even though their friendship was full of trials, arguably more so experienced by Meitner, she "never voiced anything but deep affection for Hahn."

====
Peterson:
Meitnerium, element 109 in the Periodic Table, was named after Lise Meitner in 1997 — the only non-mythological woman to have received such an honor — at least partly by way of atonement for her having been ignored by Nobel Prize committee. (In 1955, though, she had won the Otto Hahn Prize! And, in 2010, the Otto Hahn Building at the Freie Universität Berlin was renamed the Hahn-Meitner Building.)

Wikipedia:
[I]n 1955 she was awarded the first Otto Hahn Prize of the German Chemical Society. . . . In 1997, element 109 was named meitnerium in her honour. She is the first and so far only non-mythological woman thus honoured. (Curium was named after both Marie and Pierre Curie.) . . . . In October 2010, a building at the Free University of Berlin was named the Hahn-Meitner Building; this was a renaming of a building previously known as the Otto Hahn Building.

====
Peterson:
“Our Marie Curie,” Albert Einstein called her.

Wikipedia:
She was praised by Albert Einstein as the "German Marie Curie".

====
Peterson:
In 1908, as an adult of roughly the age of thirty, Meitner converted to Christianity — specifically, to Lutheranism. In her last months, she was so frail that she was not informed of the deaths of Otto Hahn and his wife. She died in her sleep, aged 89, on 27 October 1968 in a rest home in Cambridge, England. According to her wish, she was buried at St. James parish church in the Hampshire village of Bramley. Her nephew, the famous Anglo-Austrian physicist Otto Frisch, composed the inscription that appears on her tombstone:

Lise Meitner: a physicist who never lost her humanity

Wikipedia:
As an adult, she converted to Christianity, following Lutheranism, and was baptized in 1908. . . . She died in her sleep on 27 October 1968 at the age of 89. Meitner was not informed of the deaths of Otto Hahn (d. July 1968) or his wife Edith, as her family believed it would be too much for someone so frail. As was her wish, she was buried in the village of Bramley in Hampshire, at St. James parish church, close to her younger brother Walter, who had died in 1964. Her nephew Frisch composed the inscription on her headstone. It reads:

Lise Meitner: a physicist who never lost her humanity.
“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 _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Wow. He's not even trying to hide it anymore. This is as bad as it gets.

- 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 _Symmachus »

The textual critic in me can't help but say: shared features are not enough to prove dependence, only shared innovations. In other words, a clear mistake unique to two texts is what proves that the one derives from the other. I think "derivative" is a highly accurate word to describe Daniel Peterson's intellectual work (such as it is), and his tralatitious writing is at least a reflection of that. But find a mistake in something he writes that can only have come from another source and you'll nail him for good as a copy-and-paste plagiarist—if you haven't already.
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Lemmie »

Symmachus wrote:The textual critic in me can't help but say: shared features are not enough to prove dependence, only shared innovations. In other words, a clear mistake unique to two texts is what proves that the one derives from the other. I think "derivative" is a highly accurate word to describe Daniel Peterson's intellectual work (such as it is), and his tralatitious writing is at least a reflection of that. But find a mistake in something he writes that can only have come from another source and you'll nail him for good as a copy-and-paste plagiarist—if you haven't already.


We have, at least twice in this thread that I remember .

First, when DCP plagiarized his blog entry about Anfinsen from Dimitrov's piece, he repeated an error:

Lemmie, p 2, wrote: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.”
Author/Compiler Tihomir Dimitrov wrote: 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.”(http://nobelists.net; also see http://scigod.com/index.php/sgj/issue/view/3)

viewtopic.php?p=1084299#p1084299


Also, when he plagiarized from Pearcey, he footnoted a Berenstain Bears book, but actually copied the same misquote that was in the Pearcey chapter:
....when I was looking into Peterson's plagiarism I also noticed that his Berenstain Bears quote was incorrect. The text from the actual Berenstain Bears book is this:
Nature is you!
Nature is me!

It's all that IS
or WAS
or EVER WILL BE!
https://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80% ... WWrSijJS_M

According to Peterson's footnote, he is quoting the book itself, even though what he wrote in his blog entry is NOT from the book. What he wrote does, however, exactly match what Pearcey wrote, right down to the ellipses and the error:
Pearcey wrote: The Berenstain Bears’ Nature Guide. In it, the Bear family invites the reader on a nature walk, and after a few pages, we open to a two-page spread, glazed with the light of the rising sun, proclaiming in capital letters:
“Nature … is all that IS, or WAS, or EVER WILL BE!”23

And here is Peterson:
DCP wrote:As the 1975 children’s book The Bears’ Nature Guide, featuring the Berenstain Bears, informs its young audience,
“Nature . . . is all that IS, or WAS, or EVER WILL BE!”[3]
[bolding added]
viewtopic.php?p=1103220#p1103220

Symmachus wrote:The textual critic in me can't help but say: shared features are not enough to prove dependence, only shared innovations.
Although I don't think you were necessarily referring to this, technically, I would mildly disagree that the dozens of documented instances of Peterson's exact word for word, sentence for sentence, even paragraph for paragraph plagiarism can be described as "shared features."
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _DrW »

Lemmie wrote:

Symmachus wrote:The textual critic in me can't help but say: shared features are not enough to prove dependence, only shared innovations.

Although I don't think you were necessarily referring to this, technically, I would mildly disagree that the dozens of documented instances of Peterson's exact word for word, sentence for sentence, even paragraph for paragraph plagiarism can be described as "shared features."

It doesn't matter whether one characterizes this kind of recurring behavior as "sharing features" or plagiarism.

A single instance of such behavior after a written warning from peers in the profession or management in a DOE National Laboratory, or any research oriented government agency I can think of, and the unfortunate offender would find themselves without a job and unlikely to get another in the same profession at anywhere close to the same level.

As a former scientific journal editorial board member, I would assure DCP that detection of any such behavior would lead to rejection of the affected manuscript for publication in pretty much any reputable journal.
David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."

DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _grindael »

Been following this for a while, don't think I've ever commented. If I may make a rather obvious observation, the people that have hired Mr. Peterson to write for them, have hired him to advocate their propaganda. They really don't care where it comes from, as long as he keeps it coming and it agrees with their world view. The erosion of ethics and morality in religion and politics has taken a sharp downwards turn as of late, and the ends justifying the means seems to be the current ship that many are jumping on. I don't see them ever doing anything to censure such things unless somehow it eats into Corporate profits, or embarrasses them in some kind of significant way. Cycles come and go, and perhaps, in time this cycle will end. I hope so.
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Lost in the riddle of a quatrain; Stuck in an elevator between floors.
One focal point in a random world can change your direction:
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Re: DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

Post by _Doctor Steuss »

Tom wrote:[..]
Speaking of Sic et Non, I rate Dr. Peterson's telling of the history of the crusader castle of Shoubak or Shawbak as second only to the Wikipedia entry on "Montreal (Crusader castle)."

Tom posted the above in his Interpreter Foundation thread. I think it deserves to be here. I might have time later tonight to post side-by-sides, but I'm sure someone else will be able to do it, as it doesn't appear that it'll require too much effort.
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
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