DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

[drumdude]

I’m happy to admit that we are lame for wasting time on Peterson.

The Peterson fanboys however are on a whole other level.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

From his De Profundis article, which ironically shares its title with this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Profundis_(letter)

In its first half, Wilde recounts their previous relationship and extravagant lifestyle which eventually led to Wilde's conviction and imprisonment for gross indecency.

Mr. Pasticheterson wrote:

I’m grateful to the authors, copy editors, source checkers, and others who have created this particular volume …

-_-

Anyway. It seems we need to up the plagiarism word count from 123 to 150 and counting. DCP plagiarizes this wiki entry:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston ... tte_should

with this theft:

“Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.”

Grinchy sticklers for good grammar pointed out, however, that the jingle should properly read “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should.” As it stood, the ad confused the preposition like with the conjunction as. To which the Winston ad campaign unrepentantly responded with a rhetorical question that became yet another effective slogan, “What do you want, good grammar or good taste?”

Whoops! Huh! Weird! Crazy! I guess he forgot to annotate the source for this manuscript ‘Word document he cobbled together from unattributed sources’.

-_-

- Doc

[Lem]

Since Peterson's problem with plagiarism seems to have re-surfaced, I thought I would post this comment that I wrote a while back but didn't post. I updated links and time frames:

Tl:dr; DCP plagiarized the same work three times, twice was caught so he took those two down, the third wasn't noticed as much so he left it up, and it is still up today, without the attribution he admitted was missing the first time he posted it:https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... ience.html


In 2018 and also in 2017, I documented DCP plagiarizing a piece written by Krauthammer, which was one of the earliest cases I reported. DCP first plagiarized Krauthammer in 2017; after being caught he removed the content from that link, but then he repeated the exact same plagiarism in 2018, on the one year anniversary of the first plagiarism. Again after being caught, he removed the content from that link.

About three weeks later, he snuck the same plagiarism, for a third time, into the middle of another post. Although I referred to this attempt in another post, it seems I didn't post the documentation of that third time, which is possibly why DCP didn't scrub that 3rd plagiarism as he did his first two entries. In case this third plagiarism of Krauthammer disappears like the first two, [here is a live link from today: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... ience.html ].

Below is the documentation of DCP's third plagiarism of Krauthammer, which is still up [November 2021], four years from the first time he was caught plagiarizing this author. Note that DCP posted this third version in November 2018, AFTER removing the previous two entries of Oct. 2017 and Oct. 2018. Each time he removed his post after his plagiarism was documented, which seems to indicate he knows there is an issue. He even acknowledged the issue the first time, in 2017, with a sort of mea culpa.

And yet he still re-posted his plagiarism, twice more. In this third version you'll notice he plumped up his paragraph slightly, but he still used Krauthammer's exact same ideas, in the exact same order, and with much of the exact same words and phrasing:

DCP wrote: But let’s take a very down-to-earth branch of science, nutrition.  When I was growing up, we ate margerine because butter wasn’t healthy and should be avoided.  Now, though, butter is much healthier than margarine.  (I’m not exactly sure when that change occurred; somehow, I missed the memo.)  And eggs aren’t to be avoided anymore, either.  On the contrary, they’re now some sort of superfood.  (I missed that announcement, too.)  Diet fashions seem to change like the seasons. 

But how about eggs? After years of egg phobia, we have learned that eggs may not be bad for you after all. And that butter is healthier than stick margarine. Every month, it seems, some accepted nutritional fact is overturned.

DCP wrote: In psychiatry, the lives of many patients were destroyed by lobotomies and shock therapy—therapeutic techniques that are now so far out of fashion that we can scarcely imagine a time when they were (but they most definitely were) the preferred methods of dealing with several mental health problems.  (Consider the notorious case of Rosemary Kennedy.)  

Most shocking, perhaps, is the simple reminder of how contingent are the received truths of modern medicine. We know how pre-modern medicine got it wrong, from centuries of leeching and bleeding to the lobotomies and shock therapies...

DCP wrote: Just a few decades ago, virtually every kid had a tonsillectomy.  That was just part of growing up, at least in America.  (I didn’t, though I’m not sure why not.)  Yet we now understand that tonsillectomies are mostly unnecessary, and that, in at least some cases, they can be problematic or even occasionally dangerous.

When I was a kid, everyone got a tonsillectomy. It was a rite of passage. We now know that this was unnecessary surgery, indeed, worse than useless.

DCP wrote: We used to know that ulcers were caused by stress, or by excess stomach acid.  Now we know that most ulcers are caused by a bacterium known as Helicobacter pylori or by the use of aspirin or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.  

That ulcers are caused by stress or stomach acid.

DCP wrote: Since the German physician, psychiatrist, and academic Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich determined the mean human body temperature in 1868, everybody has known that it’s 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 °C).  However, in 1992, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study in which that temperature was more accurately determined to be 98.2 degrees (36.8 °C).  [Reference]  It seems a small thing, but it’s pretty fundamental.  

My favorite myth is 98.6. If there was anything solid in my medical education, it was that mean body temperature was 98.6 F. Well, in 1992 the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study that actually measured it. It turns out to be 98.2 degrees. Where did the 98.6 come from? From the German doctor, Carl Wunderlich. In 1868. No one had bothered to check it since then.

For the record, here is part of my 2018 post, discussing the first two plagiarisms. It also contains DCP's 2017 'mea culpa':

Sat Oct 20, 2018 10:23 pm This is utterly unbelievable, but Tom has pointed out to me that Peterson has re-plagiarized a portion of a previously plagiarized blog entry, on the exact one year anniversary of when he first plagiarized it! this year's version: "Humility in science"  9 October 2018 By Dan Peterson http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterso ... ience.html last year's version: "Science has a history, and that is actually significant" 9 October 2017 by Dan Peterson http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterso ... l#_ftnref1 Here is the paragraph from this year, again plagiarized from Charles Krauthammer:

But let’s take a very down-to-earth branch of science, nutrition.  We have recently learned that butter may be better for us than stick margarine.  Eggs may not be bad for us, after all.  Diet fashions seem to change like the seasons.  In psychiatry, the lives of many patients were destroyed by lobotomies and shock therapy—therapeutic techniques that are now so far out of fashion that we can scarcely imagine a time when they were (but they most definitely were) the preferred methods of dealing with several mental health problems.  Just a few decades ago, virtually every kid had a tonsillectomy.  That was just part of growing up, at least in America.  Yet we now understand that tonsillectomies are mostly unnecessary, and can be worse than useless.  We used to know that ulcers were caused by stress, or by excess stomach acid.  Now we know that most ulcers are caused by a bacterium known as Helicobacter pylori or by the use of aspirin or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.  If there was anything absolutely sure in medical education, it was the fact that the mean human body temperature was 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.  Everybody knew it, not just doctors.  However, in 1992, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study in which scientists actually measured the mean human body temperature, and it turned out to be 98.2 degrees.[1]  So what’s the source of the figure 98.6?  A German physician by the name of Carl Wunderlich came up with it in 1868, and nobody had bothered to check it since then. [1] Source?

And I don't even have to write anything, I will just re-post my exact entry from last year, where I documented his plagiarism from then, which also documents his plagiarism now, based upon the identical paragraphs:

...the unfortunate part is that he seems to have plagiarized far too many parts of it directly from an op-ed piece published in the Washington Post by Charles Krauthammer, dated July 15, 2002. Right after one section of blatantly incorporating a full paragraph of Dr. K's work into his, DCP includes the footnote [1], which is listed as "?" at the bottom. Here is DCP's work-in-progress, the inserts are from Krauthammer's op-ed piece:

DCP wrote: But let’s take a very down-to-earth branch of science, nutrition. We have recently learned that butter may be better for us than stick margerine. Eggs may not be bad for us, after all. Diet fashions seem to change like the seasons. Charles Krauthammer, the original source DCP is plagiarizing from, wrote: But how about eggs? After years of egg phobia, we have learned that eggs may not be bad for you after all. And that butter is healthier than stick margarine. Every month, it seems, some accepted nutritional fact is overturned. [DCP wrote:] In psychiatry, the lives of many patients were destroyed by lobotomies and shock therapy—therapeutic techniques that are now so far out of fashion that we can scarcely imagine a time when they were (but they most definitely were) the preferred methods of dealing with several mental health problems. Celestial Kingdom, DCP's plagiarism source, wrote: Most shocking, perhaps, is the simple reminder of how contingent are the received truths of modern medicine. We know how pre-modern medicine got it wrong, from centuries of leeching and bleeding to the lobotomies and shock therapies... [DCP wrote:] Just a few decades ago, virtually every kid had a tonsillectomy. That was just part of growing up, at least in America. Yet we now understand that tonsillectomies are mostly unnecessary, and can be worse than useless. Celestial Kingdom, DCP's plagiarism source, wrote: When I was a kid, everyone got a tonsillectomy. It was a rite of passage. We now know that this was unnecessary surgery, indeed, worse than useless. [DCP wrote] We used to know that ulcers were caused by stress, or by excess stomach acid. Now we know they result mostly from infections of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). Celestial Kingdom, DCP's plagiarism source, wrote: That ulcers are caused by stress or stomach acid. [DCP wrote:] If there was anything absolutely sure in medical education, it was the fact that the mean human body temperature was 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Everybody knew it, not just doctors. However, in 1992, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study in which scientists actually measured the mean human body temperature, and it turned out to be 98.2 degrees.[1] So what’s the source of the figure 98.6? A German physician by the name of Carl Wunderlich came up with it in 1868, and nobody had bothered to check it since then. Celestial Kingdom, DCP's plagiarism source, wrote: My favorite myth is 98.6. If there was anything solid in my medical education, it was that mean body temperature was 98.6 F. Well, in 1992 the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study that actually measured it. It turns out to be 98.2 degrees. Where did the 98.6 come from? From the German doctor, Carl Wunderlich. In 1868. No one had bothered to check it since then.

...And here is the mea culpa Peterson wrote the [first]time he plagiarized Krauthammer:

Postscript:  Some of my more obsessive and personally unpleasant critics have found a new passion, gleefully accusing me of plagiarism.  They point to undeniable similarities between some of what’s written above and a 2002 column by Charles Krauthammer that I had completely forgotten. These are very old notes.  That’s important:  Not merely that they’re old but that, as I said above when I first introduced them, they’re notes.  This particular manuscript — it’s actually just a computer file — has lain dormant for many years, and it’s nowhere near being in its final state.  For the most part, it’s not even continuous prose.  And it’s not organized according to any outline nor in anything like the way it will be when it’s finished (should it ever be finished).  It’s made up of isolated quotations, links, notes, paraphrases, reminders to myself, and so forth.  I’m blogging parts of it as a way of dusting it off.  Is it ready for publication?  Emphatically not.  Do I consider blogging the same as publishing?  Emphatically not. This sort of zealous public faultfinding grows tiresome.  It’s wearisome to have one’s reputation assaulted constantly, and anonymously.  (On the particular board where this is going on, it’s been going on for approximately ten years.  Day after day, week after week, year after year.  On any given day for a decade, roughly ten percent of the threads displayed on the board’s front page are dedicated to me.  The word weird doesn’t begin to describe the phenomenon.) I’m not very optimistic about change, though. “Charity . . . is kind; . . . doth not behave itself unseemly . . . thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity” (1 Corinthians 13:4-6).

Regarding his argument that these are 'old notes,' there was this exchange in the thread:

I'm not one to get too worked up that somebody essentially rewrote an old editorial so that it could be somehow worked into a future piece someday. It would be better to give explicit credit to the source of your inspiration for something like that. (e.g. In 2002 Charles Krauthammer pointed out that...), but oh well.

On that, I will have to disagree with you. According to the dates in his work, Peterson actually wrote his version c. July 22, 2002, which is just 7 days after Krauthammer's original piece was published. And contrary to his assertion that his 2002 file was composed of disjointed "notes" and "quotes," it is clear from his blog post that he incorporated Krauthammer's work into close to a final essay form.

And finally, here is part of a 2018 post, noting but not documenting DCP's third plagiarism of Krauthammer:

Lemmie » Thu Nov 08, 2018 12:56 am This latest development is just bizarre, but it certainly does open a window into Peterson's motivations. In October 2018, Peterson re-plagiarized a number of authors by re-posting several old blog entries previously identified as plagiarism. The first time they were identified as plagiarism, Peterson grudgingly added a number of mea culpas that included the sources of his plagiarism, but this time he just re-posted, without adding those sources. This was a blatantly dishonest move on Peterson's part that obviates any previous attempts he has made to call his plagiarism "unintentional" or "inadvertent." Tom and I both noticed and discussed these October events, and while we noted a few of them here, to be honest, Peterson's theft of intellectual property through plagiarism is such old news that we didn't even bother to report them all. (It's worth noting that Peterson did delete his October 8, 2018 entry that we pointed out was a re-plagiarism of the Washington Post editorial by Krauthammer, only to re-post it, November 2, 2018, with a few more adjectives and adverbs re-arranged. It's still plagiarism...)

Tl:dr; DCP plagiarized the same work three times, twice was caught so he took those two down, the third wasn't noticed as much so he left it up.

[Xenophon]

I’m happy to admit that we are lame for wasting time on Peterson.

The Peterson fanboys however are on a whole other level.

The only issue I take with that is some of us honestly barely think about the guy. Even when I posted heavily in the Terrestrial forum I rarely ventured into the DCP threads. I frankly wasn't that familiar with him until long after my journey out had begun. I'll be the first to admit that I think some members of this board often read him as negatively as possible and have a an unhealthy concern for what he does.

That said, these threads and his response to them are very telling. Honestly if you deleted every DCP thread save these plagiarism ones I'd think you'd have all that you needed to tell the story.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

It should be noted that DCP actually knows how to credit sources. From the comments section in his De Profundis piece someone linked to an article he wrote for the Church that has 49 footnotes. For the curious:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... n?lang=eng

So he knows exactly what he’s doing.

- Doc

[drumdude]

Wow that Krauthammer plagiarism is enough to get anyone kicked out of university. Absolutely shameful.

[Doctor Scratch]

I’m happy to admit that we are lame for wasting time on Peterson.

The Peterson fanboys however are on a whole other level.

The only issue I take with that is some of us honestly barely think about the guy. Even when I posted heavily in the Terrestrial forum I rarely ventured into the DCP threads. I frankly wasn't that familiar with him until long after my journey out had begun. I'll be the first to admit that I think some members of this board often read him as negatively as possible and have a an unhealthy concern for what he does.

That said, these threads and his response to them are very telling. Honestly if you deleted every DCP thread save these plagiarism ones I'd think you'd have all that you needed to tell the story.

You may be right about that, but this is really just one example in a mountain of instances where he’s been engaged in something questionable. I noticed that, in his most recent post, he’s attacking Jonathan Neville again. I wonder how Dr. Peterson would like it if there was a site devoted to attacking him, day after day, week after week, month after month?

[Moksha]

Although he doesn't specify the exact study, Dr. Peterson does list this conversation between doctors as proof that religion is not as fallible as science:

Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called “wheat germ, organic honey and tiger’s milk.”

Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.

Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or… hot fudge?

Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy… precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.

Dr. Melik: Incredible.

[Tom]

I’ve been, umm, blessed over the past fifteen years or so, every single day of every week of every month, to be a principal focus of attention for a small group of anonymous online folks who scrutinize everything I do and say and write. They’re looking for evidence of real or perceived errors and wickedness. Most recently, they’ve discovered that the one-hundred-word twenty-third paragraph of my recent nearly-four-thousand-word essay “De Profundis,” a paragraph devoted to defining the Greek New Testament word metanoia and the roughly equivalent Hebrew term teshuvah, is verbally far closer than it ought to be to the respectively relevant articles, first, on Wikipedia and, second, on a website called My Jewish Learning.

And they’re right. And I’m surprised, somewhat perplexed, and, they’ll be delighted to know, embarrassed. I’m not exactly sure how it happened. I vaguely recall that I checked the Wikipedia article and the My Jewish Learning article in order to confirm my sense of the exact meanings of the terms. I wanted to check it against that of people who shared neither my background, my faith, nor my particular “agenda.” But I certainly didn’t mean to simply reproduce the precise language of those other people. What would I gain from that? After all, it’s not as if their precise language was particularly unique or elegant or eloquent. And it’s not as if I needed to look up the basic meaning of terms that I’ve known for decades. (I earned an undergraduate degree in classical Greek, and I took my first Hebrew course before embarking on my mission at the age of nineteen. And these are absolutely central words, not peripheral obscurities, in the New Testament and in the Jewish tradition.) Had I not already known the basic meaning of the two terms, it would never have occurred to me to look them up. I looked them up in much the same way, and for much the same reason, that I’ll sometimes, when writing, check out the exact meaning in the Oxford English Dictionary of a word that I use pretty much every day of my life.

Oh well. I can only apologize and make an effort to take pleasure in the fact that I’ve made at least one tiny group of online enthusiasts very, very happy today. In a world such as ours, that’s not a small thing. I freely plead guilty to the unforced error, but I won’t concede their eager imputations of depravity or corruption.

If he already knows the basic meanings of the terms and he simply went to check his understanding, why are the detailed definitions he provides almost identical to the detailed definitions in the uncited sources?

When does he plan to fix the “unforced error”?

And when does he plan to address his unacknowledged use of Wikipedia in his essay on triage in the Gospel?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

The only issue I take with that is some of us honestly barely think about the guy. Even when I posted heavily in the Terrestrial forum I rarely ventured into the DCP threads. I frankly wasn't that familiar with him until long after my journey out had begun. I'll be the first to admit that I think some members of this board often read him as negatively as possible and have a an unhealthy concern for what he does.

That said, these threads and his response to them are very telling. Honestly if you deleted every DCP thread save these plagiarism ones I'd think you'd have all that you needed to tell the story.

You may be right about that, but this is really just one example in a mountain of instances where he’s been engaged in something questionable. I noticed that, in his most recent post, he’s attacking Jonathan Neville again. I wonder how Dr. Peterson would like it if there was a site devoted to attacking him, day after day, week after week, month after month?