DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

[_Arc]

Again, none of this behavior is problematic for a private citizen.

That it comes from a tenured BYU professor is shameful.

That it has been going on for >10 years, and appears to chronically violate University rank & status standards, suggests the problem is a systematic failure on the part of BYU to uphold its own academic mandate. And by association, the Apostles (Trustees) and the church itself looks absolutely foolish for not merely looking the other way, but tacitly endorsing it.

That the behavior was acknowledged in 2011 to be complete waste of time (see here: https://youtu.be/BTx-n8Yx5eg?t=1033) suggests a horrifically unhealthy addiction.

Let me say that a different way.

He literally compares his own addiction to internet debate boards as being like an alcoholic, who walks past the saloon doors and cannot resist looking inside.

Watch the video. It's astonishing.

It is astonishing. It is also interesting that Dr. Peterson looked and sounded the same in 2011 as he does now. It seems that nothing has changed since that interview except for 8 more years of negative public comments.

[_Philo Sofee]

Again, none of this behavior is problematic for a private citizen.

That it comes from a tenured BYU professor is shameful.

That it has been going on for >10 years, and appears to chronically violate University rank & status standards, suggests the problem is a systematic failure on the part of BYU to uphold its own academic mandate. And by association, the Apostles (Trustees) and the church itself looks absolutely foolish for not merely looking the other way, but tacitly endorsing it.

That the behavior was acknowledged in 2011 to be complete waste of time (see here: https://youtu.be/BTx-n8Yx5eg?t=1033) suggests a horrifically unhealthy addiction.

Let me say that a different way.

He literally compares his own addiction to internet debate boards as being like an alcoholic, who walks past the saloon doors and cannot resist looking inside.

Watch the video. It's astonishing.

It is astonishing. It is also interesting that Dr. Peterson looked and sounded the same in 2011 as he does now. It seems that nothing has changed since that interview except for 8 more years of negative public comments.

He's just practicing to be a mini-me for Jehovah is all. Nothing major happening here, move along.

[_malkie]

I think one of the great lessons Mr. Peter$on has imparted to the casual observer is that attempting to be a polymath is akin to being everywhere, but nowhere at the same time. You spend all your mental energy attempting to impress, to con the unobservant into believing you're something you're not, only to wake up one day that you're 12 years older and you've produced nothing while parasitically nourishing yourself off the works of others.

...

- Doc

Ahh, but it is also a manifestation of good-like characteristics:

The definition of God as 'an infinite sphere, whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere' has its roots in the Liber XXIV philosophorum, a Latin booklet by an anonymous author, which consists of 24 commented definitions of what God is.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/funding/fundedprojects/studentperformance/addivinola/

[Guest]

One of the ways that I like to write is simply to throw things rapidly into a computer file, as the thoughts occur to me, for later revisiting. At that point, I’ll clean them up, organize them into a suitable flow, check assertions, provide references where appropriate, smooth out inconsistencies, and otherwise make what I’ve written suitable (I hope) for publication.

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

I feel like this is somewhat of a mea culpa for his most recent plagiarisms. Not that it is sufficient in any way.

"Throw[ing] things rapidly into a file" and "later revisiting" to "provide references" in NO way covers for or excuses his deliberate, meticulous, synonym-exchanging attempts to disguise his online theft of other people's intellectual property.

[_Philo Sofee]

Were Peterson to actually wake up to his dire situation he could recognize that his ego has kept him a spiritual midget his entire existence on earth thus far. And it is so truly an unnecessary harm he is doing to himself.

[_moksha]

... a Latin booklet by an anonymous author,

Sounds like an author who would not demand those pesky quotation marks.

[_Physics Guy]

"Throw[ing] things rapidly into a file" and "later revisiting" to "provide references" in NO way covers for or excuses his deliberate, meticulous, synonym-exchanging attempts to disguise his online theft of other people's intellectual property.

It's hard to see how "rapid throwing" could generate the slight revisions to the original texts while preserving long phrases verbatim. I mean, if I were to rapidly throw ideas into a file, I would either cut and paste whole paragraphs into my scrapbook app (which automatically appends a link to their source) or else write jot notes of my own that would not preserve so much of the original wording. I just can't see how passages like Peterson's could be produced other than by deliberately editing the original.

Conceivably he cut and pasted whole paragraphs, then later forgot that he had copied them and, thinking he had written them himself, revised them a bit before posting them without attribution. This would be plagiarism by culpable negligence—it wouldn't be an excuse—but at least it wouldn't be deliberate. Presumably this is the defence that Peterson is trying to offer.

The kinds of revisions Peterson makes don't really seem to me to fit that pattern, however. They don't tend to shorten or simplify awkward expressions; if anything they more often make the original harder to read. So they look more like deliberate token efforts at paraphrasing than like the kind of revisions one would make to one's own words.

My best guess is that Peterson thinks he is serving as an expert curator: by his scholarly expertise he is identifying good passages to quote much better than any lay person could by just googling. That kind of curation could indeed be valuable but it should take the form of posting links, not lightly edited copies without attribution. Perhaps Peterson feels that curated link lists are unfairly undervalued and that his plagiarism is a little white lie that lets him claim the academic respect which his expert curation deserves?

I'm not trying to excuse him, just trying to see why the heck he would keep on doing this.

[_Stocks]

My best guess is that Peterson thinks he is serving as an expert curator: by his scholarly expertise he is identifying good passages to quote much better than any lay person could by just googling. That kind of curation could indeed be valuable but it should take the form of posting links, not lightly edited copies without attribution. Perhaps Peterson feels that curated link lists are unfairly undervalued and that his plagiarism is a little white lie that lets him claim the academic respect which his expert curation deserves?

It is addiction. He admitted to it back in 2011. Plain and simple.

Like other addictions, he cannot stop. With every new post, he gets a dopamine hit. With every comment notification, he gets a dopamine hit. With every comment posted, he gets a dopamine hit.

This is a compulsive disorder no different from addictions to video games, porn, gambling, kleptomania, or hoarding.

Were Dr. Peterson to visit with a psychologist and disclose the full measure of his weekly activity on internet blogs and discussion boards, what would a trained professional have to say? By his own admission, this has been an all consuming, life wasting, destroyer of professional productivity. What has this behavior done to interpersonal relationships?

Dan, get help.

Ask yourself, why would you need to tell white lies to cover other white lies to cover your behavior?

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/addictio ... dicts-lie/

7 Honest Reasons Why Addicts Lie

#1 To Preserve Their Addiction
#2 To Avoid Facing Reality
#3 To Avoid Confrontation
#4 They Are in Denial
#5 They Believe They’re Different
#6 They Feel Ashamed
#7 Because They Can

This board is the closest thing to an intervention being offered by anyone who cares. Dan, get help.

[_malkie]

One of the ways that I like to write is simply to throw things rapidly into a computer file, as the thoughts occur to me, for later revisiting. At that point, I’ll clean them up, organize them into a suitable flow, check assertions, provide references where appropriate, smooth out inconsistencies, and otherwise make what I’ve written suitable (I hope) for publication.

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

I feel like this is somewhat of a mea culpa for his most recent plagiarisms. Not that it is sufficient in any way.

"Throw[ing] things rapidly into a file" and "later revisiting" to "provide references" in NO way covers for or excuses his deliberate, meticulous, synonym-exchanging attempts to disguise his online theft of other people's intellectual property.

When I'm teaching grade 11-12-level students how to write an essay, one of the most "serious" pieces of advice I give them is not to collect information this way - if you don't capture the reference data at the same time as the information, you are almost guaranteed to forget where you found something, thus making it unusable, or to forget that you found something, thus making it possible to think later that it was your own idea, and smoothing the path to plagiarism.

[_Lemmie]

kiwi:

....Interestingly, one of his screen names was "Prop 8." Dan threatened to ban him a while back, but never quite got around to it. However, Prop 8 disappeared after he was outed for having used an Amazon book review and claimed it as his own.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the only genuine case of plagiarism to appear on Sic Et Non. But don't expect the obsessive haters at the Sty to make a fuss about it. They don't care about actual plagiarism; they only care about slinging mud at Dan.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... 4593900207

Fascinating. The part I bolded is not true of course, as has been documented in this thread and several others, fully and completely, over a very long period of time regarding so many separate instances of Peterson’s plagiarism that it’s become simply laughable. How else to think about a BYU professor who thinks this is acceptable?

Still, it is fascinating that, apropos of nothing, this commenter feels the need to bring it up now.