DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Dr. Moore wrote, "It isn't just the blog.

My survey of 6 Interpreter articles (technically volume prefaces, but written as articles with abstract, references, etc) shows a massive amount of unattributed, plagiarized material.

So the journal has a plagiarism problem, too."

Yeah, I noticed a while back how much pilfering he was doing of his colleagues intellectual property. I couldn't believe me eyes. The crazy thing is... How do they not know, and how do they not care? Do they just fire and forget? Like, wouldn't someone who took the time to research, write, and publish material be absolutely livid that some lazy idiot waltzes in, steals your work, and passes it off as his own? It's mind boggling.

- Doc

[_Philo Sofee]

Dr. Moore wrote, "It isn't just the blog.

My survey of 6 Interpreter articles (technically volume prefaces, but written as articles with abstract, references, etc) shows a massive amount of unattributed, plagiarized material.

So the journal has a plagiarism problem, too."

Yeah, I noticed a while back how much pilfering he was doing of his colleagues intellectual property. I couldn't believe me eyes. The crazy thing is... How do they not know, and how do they not care? Do they just fire and forget? Like, wouldn't someone who took the time to research, write, and publish material be absolutely livid that some lazy ____ waltzes in, steals your work, and passes it off as his own? It's mind boggling.

- Doc

Well since the Mormon ideology is to all be of one mind, perhaps they believe their brains and research is everyone's? So it's perfectly fine to just fob and lob........after all it's defending everyone's beliefs, so apparently it isn't cared who gets the credit.....

[_Lemmie]

When I finished and posted Peterson’s Wikipedia plagiarism yesterday, I found several other drafts where I had started to document Peterson’s plagiarized works, but didn’t finish due to lack of time. As we come to the end of this semester I have more time, so I am finishing up those documentations.

In this one, Peterson plagiarizes from the entry “Drama,” in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Authored by Charles Metten.
https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Drama

Peterson has two blog entries that plagiarize this work:

“Phantom”
OCTOBER 15, 2019 BY DAN PETERSON
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... antom.html

and

Brigham Young, the Theater, and Moral Uplift
AUGUST 26, 2018 BY DAN PETERSON
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... plift.html


Peterson’s first paragraph in both is his work. Here is the most recent:

DCP:

From a previous blog post of mine:

I suspect that Brigham Young’s tastes in theater may have been more overtly didactic than mine are, and we certainly disagree on his distaste for tragedies, but I’m grateful that he gave such strong support to drama from the very earliest days of Mormon settlement in Utah. (So, too, is my wife, the theater major.)

But then, as usual, things go awry as plagiarism starts attacking the helpless-to-prevent Peterson. Also as usual, Peterson’s exact plagiarized phrases and sentences are in blue.

From the EOM:

EOM:

Soon after arriving in Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the Latter-day Saints erected what they call a bowery (a temporary shelter made from placing tree boughs on a frame structure) on the southeast corner of what became Temple Square.

Three successively larger boweries replaced the first. Concerts, plays, and dances were performed there. President Brigham Young observed, "If I were placed on a cannibal island and given a task of civilizing its people, I should straightway build a theatre" (Skidmore, p. 47).

Peterson, without noting the skidmore source, or crediting the EOM author:

DCP:

“If I were placed on a cannibal island and given a task of civilizing its people,” Brigham is said to have remarked, “I should straightway build a theatre.”

And, very plainly, history and his actions bear him out on that claim. Soon after they arrivedin the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the Latter-day Saints erected a temporary shelter made from tree boughs on a frame structure that came to be called “The Bowery.” It stood on the southeast corner of what we now know as Temple Square. The forerunner of the Tabernacle, it was used for religious services — but also for concerts, plays, and dances.

Next section in the EOM:

EOM:

Social Hall in Salt Lake City was formally dedicated in 1853, scarcely more than five years after the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in the valley. In Utah and the Mormons, Benjamin G. Ferris described the presentations held there: "During the winter they keep up theatrical exhibitions in Social Hall, and generally the performances are better sustained in all their parts than in theatres of Atlantic cities" (quoted in Maughan, p. 5).

As plagiarized by Peterson:

DCP:

In 1853, not much more than five years after the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in the valley, Salt Lake City’s Social Hall was formally dedicated. The non-Mormon lawyer and federal territorial official Benjamin G. Ferris (1802-1891), a native of New York who was no friend to Mormonism, compared the theatrical performances held there favorably to dramatic presentations along the eastern seaboard.

Continuing:

EOM:

The Salt Lake Theatre, one of the finest theater buildings of its time, was dedicated in 1862. Brigham Young believed that it had been created for an ennobling purpose. During the dedicatory service, he said, "On the stage of a theatre can be represented in character evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards, the weaknesses and follies of man and the magnanimity of the virtuous life" (quoted in Maughan, p. 84).

And Peterson:

DCP:

Thereafter, in 1862, Brigham Young dedicated the Salt Lake Theatre, which was one of the finest theater buildings of its time anywhere in the United States.

“Upon the stage of a theatre,” said Brigham, “can be represented in character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards; the weakness and the follies of man, the magnanimity of virtue and the greatness of truth. The stage can be made to aid the pulpit in impressing upon the minds of a community an enlightened sense of a virtuous life, also a proper horror of the enormity of sin and a just dread of its consequences. The path of sin with its thorns and pitfalls, its gins and snares can be revealed, and how to shun it” (Discourses of Brigham Young, 243).

The EOM entry credits Charles Metten with this work, and in his entity, he properly credits his sources.

On the other hand, Peterson credits only one quotation (Brigham Young) and gives no attribution to any of the others credited in the EOM, including the author of the actual entry.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Yet another plagiarism:

https://www.deseret.com/2020/1/16/21065 ... iddle-east

https://www.ancient.eu/Cyrus_the_Great/

tl;dr - He basically snips up the linked article on Cyrus the Great and cobbles together a column for the Deseret News. Lots of exact phrases, etc etc...

- Doc

[Guest]

Here’s another instance of Peterson’s plagiarism I documented some time ago, but didn’t have time to finish and post:

Peterson’s blog entry titled “Astro Worms,” posted Aug 4th, 2018, plagiarizes an Aug 2018 review article in Scientific American, also originally titled “Astro Worms.” [ Note: “This article was originally published with the title "Astro Worms" in Scientific American 319, 2, 14 (August 2018)“ https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -on-earth/ ]

Katherine Kornei, science reporter at Scientific American, published a brief review in the Aug of 2018 Sci Am magazine of some research regarding testing the g-forces a nematode can withstand.

Peterson decided to briefly review her brief review, but in doing so he has unfortunately lapsed back into his plagiarism habit.

Does reviewing a review count as plagiarizing? I'm sure Ms. Kornei would give a resounding yes, but to get an unbiased take on it, here is the NYTimes policy on reviews of reviews, from their ethics page:

Other People's Reporting.

When we use facts gathered by any other organization, we attribute them. This policy applies to material from newspapers, magazines, books and broadcasts, as well as news agencies…

Inserted from <https://www.asne.org/resources-ethics-nyinteg>

[bolding added]

Granted, Peterson isn't a journalist, just a professor at a religious University where he is bound by an extremely controlling honor code, and maybe he will argue that Ms. Kornei's words are generic on the subject, or that he forgot the words weren't his, or some other variation on one of his many, many mea culpas, but I am sure Ms. K would say otherwise, as would the magazine, Scientific American, that paid for her review.

DCP starts off mildly enough, at least attempting to paraphrase:

Abstract:
A tiny species of nematode can withstand major g-forces.

Caenorhabditis elegans would make an ace fighter pilot. That's because the roughly one-millimeter-long roundworm, a type of nematode that is widely used in biological studies, is remarkably adept at tolerating acceleration.

According to “Astro Worms,”a tiny species of nematode called Caenorhabditis elegans that is widely used in biological studies of various kinds is capable of surviving enormous g-forces.

But then his old habits kick in:

Human pilots lose consciousness when they pull only 4 or 5 g's (1 g is the force of gravity at Earth's surface)...

Human pilots lose consciousness when they pull about 4 or 5 g‘s — a g being the equivalent of the gravitational force at Earth’s surface....

And again:

More than 96 percent were still alive, and the survivors did not exhibit any adverse physical or behavioral changes.

more than 96% of them were not only still alive but showed no adverse physical or behavioral changes at all.

and again:

For one thing, it took roughly five minutes for the ultracentrifuge to build up to these massive g-forces—whereas rocks blasted off a planet would reach them within a 1,000th of a second. Nor did the experiment replicate the harsh conditions of space. “Other factors, such as temperature, vacuum and cosmic radiation, should also be tested.”

For example, the Brazilian ultracentrifuge required approximately five minutes to reach its maximum speed, whereas meteoric ejecta would likely reach maximum velocity within roughly one thousandth of a second.  And then there are questions about temperature, vacuum, and cosmic radiation

Replacing "rocks blasted off a planet" with "meteoric ejecta" in the middle of a plagiarized sentence doesn't undo the plagiarism.

6 of the 8 sentences in Peterson's 4 paragraph review contained long strings of word for word plagiarism. The seventh sentence contained shorter strings of word for word plagiarism. The eighth sentence is the only one in Peterson's fourth paragraph, and the only one that is original. Here it is:

“Still, it’s an intriguing study.“ 


That’s the only sentence in this entire review of a review which is Peterson’s own work.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterso ... worms.html

Note that Scientific American allows use of their materials for a fee:

Tiny Worms Survive Forces 400,000 Times Stronger Than Gravity on Earth
Author: Katherine Kornei
Publication: Scientific American
Publisher: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc.
Date: Aug 1, 2018
Copyright © 2018, Scientific American, Inc.

Welcome to RightsLink

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. has partnered with Copyright Clearance Center's RightsLink service to offer a variety of options for reusing this content.

https://s100.copyright.com/AppDispatchServlet#formTop

If you select

I would like to .... post on a website/blog

Then a warning pops up:

Scientific American content shall not make up more than 20% of your new work.

Peterson posted 8 sentences, 6 and 1/2 of which are outright plagiarism, which in my estimation means Sci Am content has made up more than 80% of Peterson’s “new” work, with not a single quotation mark in sight.

In other words, Peterson plagiarized again.

[_Dr Moore]

Geez. Embarrassment to scholarship.

[_Lemmie]

Peterson has now added this to his Astroworms plagiarized blog entry:

[For a certain small group of obsessive critics: This blog entry is partially made up of notes taken from an article. Those notes are notes. From an article. The article from which the notes were taken is identified. I make no claim to being an expert on astrobiology. I do not pretend that my notes here represent original research on my part. I do not claim this as an original publication. I do not list blog entries among my publications. Part of this blog entry is made up of notes. From an article. I’ve closely paraphrased what that article says. I’m simply sharing my notes. I wasn’t trying to pretend that I was writing a new article of my own. I was simply sharing my notes. If you want to brand me as a plagiarist for doing so, you’re perfectly free to do that. But doing that seems more than a little bit silly to me.]

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... worms.html

Let’s take this one point at a time:

DCP:
“The article from which the notes were taken is identified.“

As was recently pointed out, identifying a source, but then using the work without quotation marks is still plagiarism:

It is important to not only cite the source, but also to restate the author’s description in your own words.

Too closely imitating the author’s language structure in your summary or paraphrase is a form of plagiarism, even if you provide a citation, because it gives the false impression that the words are your own when they are not.

This includes rearranging the author’s sentences but using mostly the same wording, or simply inserting synonyms into the author’s sentence arrangement.

https://davidson.libguides.com/c.php?g=349327&p=2361767

And Deseret News agrees. They have removed columns and columnists for the same reason:

Several paragraphs in that column erroneously failed to use quotation marks to properly attribute their source as an article written for the New York Times by Adam Grant. Grant's article was directly referenced at the opening and close of the Eyres' column.

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/765 ... tml?pg=all

What Peterson is doing is considered plagiarism. Saying it is “silly” to identify plagiarism as such is simply a cowardly attempt to blame someone else for his own lack of integrity.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I think his reaction belies his fear. What is this fear? It’s the fear of discovery. He’s been plagiarizing since he realized he wasn’t going to get caught, once he realized no one would fact check him. This most likely started in high school, it most definitely happened at UCLA (WE WOULDN’T ANYONE CHECKING A CERTAIN DISSERTATION, WOULD WE MR. PETERSON?), continued at BYU, and now continues at the Deseret News and on his blog with such regularity that it boggles the mind.

Students would be expelled for his behavior.

Soldiers would be administratively punished or even discharged for his behavior.

Journalists would be fired for his behavior.

And yet, he persists. He’s a fraud and conman who just found a way to finagle a gig at BYU for 30 years simply because no one bothered to take a good look at what he was doing.

- Doc

[_Tator]

Mr. Pasterson is quoted saying, "You can't insult me, I'm too ignorant!" I wonder where he plagiarized that?

[_Dr Moore]

Dan's uniquely eloquent brand of academic dishonesty is still just that: dishonesty.

His writings consistently reveal a serial plagiarizer at work, not some absent minded professor who simply became overwhelmed with the volumes of great ideas crisscrossing his enigmatic mind or buried in some massive jumbled computer file. How insulting to the world, the notion that poor digital hygiene is at fault for failure to cite source material properly, a.k.a., plagiarism.

Take these following examples from the Interpreter. None of these examples come from a blog, or "notes" as it were. These are prefacing articles written by the editor of a "Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship." Each article is presented with an abstract, footnotes & citations, and a comments section!

And yet, somehow, NO citations mention the massive amounts of previously published plagiarized content below. The material is presented as if original. A reader in good faith would reach no other conclusion.

And let the record show that when confronted with evidence of his rampant plagiarism, a tenured professor at BYU does the following:
(1) adds notes to old blog posts, disclaimers of a sort, to pre-empt the obvious label of plagiarism
(2) calls the watchdogs "more than a little bit silly" for doing the leg work to assist in bringing the practice to light

Why take any action at all, if it isn't plagiarism? What's the old adage, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging? (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_holes)