Grant Palmer is attacked by Brian Hales and Gregory L. Smith

[Guest]

Gustave

[_malkie]

Has anyone else tried to have a rational discussion with an apologist about whether lifting portions of the KJV translation and placing them in the Book of Mormon, while insisting that the Book of Mormon is an original translation of an ancient manuscript constitutes plagiarism?

That's not plagiarism for a number of reasons, the least of which is that the ultimate author of the Bible is the ultimate author of the Book of Mormon.

If that is not the case, the problem with the Book of Mormon is much much deeper than plagiarism.

Would you accept a CFR for that assertion?

[rhetorical only - just messing with you]

[_sock puppet]

Credentials are very important to Mormons.

Credentials are important in every hierarchical bureaucracy.

[_grindael]

Seems like plagiarism is not new to Mormon Historians...

Y. professor apologizes for plagiarism

By Edward L. Carter, Staff Writer Deseret News

Published: Saturday, Feb. 28 1998 12:00 a.m. MST

Bruce Van Orden, a Brigham Young University professor and LDS Church historian, admitted that he plagiarized the work of several authors in a recent book. Van Orden said carelessness in citing sources, not malicious intent, led to unattributed material taken from others in his 1996 book "Building Zion: The Latter-day Saints in Europe."Specific passages that were plagiarized, along with Van Orden's apology, are slated for publication in the Journal of Mormon History's spring 1998 edition.

"I looked into it from day one and recognized that I made some errors," Van Orden told the Deseret News. "I've pledged never to make the mistake again."

The Journal of Mormon History, a publication of the non-church-affiliated Mormon History Association, documented "59 examples of misused and inadequately cited material from 11 authors writing in eight books or articles."

Van Orden continues to teach at BYU. He said the university took appropriate action in conjunction with its policy on plagiarism, but neither he nor administrators said what that action was.

The ordeal, which started a year ago when an Australian researcher noticed that some of her work appeared without attribution in portions of Van Orden's book posted on the Internet, clearly has been difficult for those involved.

It may have the positive result of tightening standards in LDS historical scholarship. "We hope this will make expectations more clear," said Richard Jensen, book review editor of the Journal of Mormon History.

Jensen, an associate professor at BYU's Joseph Fielding Smith Institute of Church History, oversaw the work of the reviewer who brought Van Orden's plagiarism to light.

Jensen is also one of the authors whose work was plagiarized, and he is the one who brought the matter to the attention of Van Orden's supervisors in the department of church history and doctrine.

"I just didn't think that as a friend it would be proper for me to sweep it under the rug or encourage that to be done," Jensen said. "Personally, I don't think it's going to kill (Van Orden)."

Van Orden has bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from BYU. He was hired there in 1986. Van Orden said that he began collecting materials on the growth of the church in various countries to use as lecture notes.

That packet became available for sale in the BYU Bookstore in 1996 and was used as the basis for "Building Zion," which was published by Deseret Book in May 1996. Van Orden said that in the process of researching and compiling the materials, he neglected to give proper attribution."Looking back now on what I did then, I can see that my major mistake was trying to accomplish the task too quickly," he wrote in a response to be published in the Journal of Mormon History.

The plagiarism was to be brought out for the first time in the journal's edition scheduled for publication in April. But a faculty member who heard Van Orden apol-o-gize during a faculty meeting mentioned the case during a recent BYU class. A student journalist heard the discussion and that led to a story in Friday's edition of the campus newspaper.

Marjorie Newton, an LDS Church member in Sydney, Australia, and author of a master's thesis on the history of the church in Australia, brought the similarities to the attention of Belgian scholar Wilfried Decoo, who had been asked by Jensen to write a review of Van Orden's book for the Journal of Mormon History.

Decoo then brought the plagiarism to the attention of Jensen. When informed of the problems, Van Orden asked that "The International Church" not be sold any longer at the BYU Bookstore and requested that materials from the packet be removed from LDS-Gems listserver and two Internet sites.

In his Journal of Mormon History analysis, Decoo decried the fact that scholarly researchers painstakingly research historical details, but writers with a broad audience take credit for the work.

Decoo noted an LDS tendency to embellish and to borrow material from others without giving credit. "The end - building the kingdom - does not justify the means," he wrote.

Van Orden said he has apologized to the authors whose work was plagiarized. Colleagues have encouraged him to continue work in the field and strive to rebuild his reputation.

[_ludwigm]

Plagiarism shouldn't be handled as a pardonable sin. Anyway, it is kind of stealing.

Our 4th President, Pál Schmitt lost his position...

Academic misconduct and resignation
Main article: Pál Schmitt academic misconduct controversy ***
Pál Schmitt defended his doctoral (dr.univ) dissertation summa cum laude at the Testnevelési Egyetem (University of Physical Education) in 1992. Testnevelési Egyetem merged into Budapest's Semmelweis University to become one of its Faculties in 2000.[31] On 11 January 2012, the website of the Hungarian magazine HVG accused Schmitt of plagiarizing the work of a Bulgarian sport expert for his doctoral dissertation. Nikolay Georgiev's Analyse du programme olympique (des Jeux d’Olympiade) was finished in 1987. Schmitt's dissertation, written in 1992, appears to be almost entirely an exact translation of this work.[32] The accusation was denied by the Office of the President, who explained that Schmitt and Georgiev were friends and worked together, from the same sources.[33] Additional plagiarized sources, including 17 pages from German sport sociologist Klaus Heinemann[34] were identified later. Semmelweis University announced that a fact-finding committee would investigate the matter.[35][36] The fact-finding committee's report, issued on 27 March, confirmed the plagiarism (word-by-word translations of "unusually large extent"), but blamed the Testnevelési Egyetem for not revealing the copied sources, and fell short of putting any blame on Schmitt ("the author may have thought that his dissertation satisfied the requirements").[37] A minority report was issued by the single non-faculty member of the committee, which called for the revocation of the title.[38]

The Senate of Semmelweis University revoked Schmitt's academic title on 29 March 2012.[39][40]

On 2 April 2012 Schmitt announced his resignation, saying that he felt the plagiarism debate had divided the country.[2][3][4] He reiterated that his conscience was clear, vowed that he would complete a PhD program, and threatened to launch a lawsuit against Semmelweis University. On 15 May 2013, Schmitt formally resigned from his doctorate after an academic remedy commission declared that his thesis did not meet the criteria, either in terms of content or formal requirements.[41]

On 22 March 2014, Schmitt admitted in a short interview that gave up his plans to getting PhD, but instead he would write a monograph on sports effects on the environment and sustainable development, this would have been the same theme of the promised work degree.[42]

***
This wiki entry shows the archetype of whitewashing, denying the inconvenient facts, and using power instead of arguments. It may be offtopic, but the same style can be found in the apologetics here...

[_Joe Geisner]

I felt like it might be nice to get some clarity on the claim that Richard Van Wagoner "plagiarized" Mike Quinn, so I emailed Mike with the link and two quotes. Mike was gracious enough to respond and I will post his response in total. It is unfortunate when a scholar makes a mistake such as Van Wagoner's, it is unfortunate when a scholar makes errors in their writing. For me, I see this as unfortunate, but forgivable. On the other hand, I see apologist distort the historical record and only allow their view be told and leave all contrary evidence on the cutting room floor. I also see apologist try and do character assassination and attach motive to a author/scholar where there is no evidence for such motive. One of those who jumped on the plagiarism band-wagon (Bot) in this thread, has consistently done this to my friend Will Bagley. These acts I don't find forgivable, and they cause most intelligent people to dismiss anything they say or write. Van Wagoner had his problems, but for the most part is a highly respected scholar in the Mormon historical community. I know that the old Church archives staff all treated him with respect and courtesy.

Here is Mike's email to me:

Hi, Joe !

Unacknowledged indebtedness of one author to a previously published work isn't always plagiarism. That is especially the case if the indebtedness is primarily paraphrasing from the previous work and old quotes the previous work also used.

As a professor, my course-outlines provided the university's published definition of plagiarism. It warned my students there was no upper limit to the A's I gave in my courses, but that I would give a failing grade to anything they submitted to me that involved plagiarism. During 12 years on the faculty at BYU, I gave failing grades to many papers that involved unacknowledged quoting from someone else's work (including from student papers previously submitted to me).

If a student had submitted a term-paper to me with the quote you've submitted, I would have put in the margin: "Is this plagiarism?" but would not have lowered the grade for the questionable passage. Some concerns remain questions.

Best,

Mike

[Guest]

t is unfortunate when a scholar makes a mistake such as Van Wagoner's, [sic: a semicolon is required, not a comma] it is unfortunate when a scholar makes errors in their [sic: "his" or "her," not "their"] writing.

For me, I see this as unfortunate, but forgivable. On the other hand, I see apologist [sic] distort the historical record and only allow their [sic] view be told and leave all contrary evidence on the cutting room floor.

Your friend Will Bagley did not include in this book the letter from John D. Lee's lawyer indicating that he, Bishop, was going to add things to Lee's confessions to spice things up. Indeed, it seems that Bishop did so as Lee's family descendant biographers claim that his confessions contain information he could not possibly have known. At a minimum, Bagley should have discussed the letter.

Your friend Bagley contains an account of a "jailer" who claimed he overheard a conversation with Lee and the prosecutor where the two agreed to suppress evidence of Brigham Young's guilt. Bagley doesn't mention that one day before this jailer's affidavit was published in the Salt Lake Tribune, a New York paper published an affidavit by the prosecutor denying the charge and denying that the jailer was ever a jailer.

The National Archives contain more than a dozen intra-government agency letters attesting to efforts by the government to continue to prosecute Massacre perps after Lee's judgment of guilt. Bagley mentions not a one, because to have done so would have hurt his scapegoat story.

I also see apologist [sic] try and do character assassination and attach motive to a author/scholar where there is no evidence for such motive.

One of those who jumped on the plagiarism band-wagon (Bot) in this thread, [sic] has consistently done this to my friend Will Bagley.

Bagley used words directly from Dwyer without quote marks, the same error that brought down McCullough.

I think you exaggerate. I have never mentioned Bagley's plagiarism (he has many more errors) other than in my published piece, once.

These acts I don't find forgivable, and they cause most intelligent people to dismiss anything they say or write.

Perhaps you can address the charge that I make of Bagley's plagiarism. Agree? Deny? Do you want me to post the quotes as was done above to Van Wagoner?

Van Wagoner had his problems, but for the most part is a highly respected scholar in the Mormon historical community. I know that the old Church archives staff all treated him with respect and courtesy.

That is not a test of reliability.

Here is Mike's email to me:

Hi, Joe !

Unacknowledged indebtedness of one author to a previously published work isn't always plagiarism. That is especially the case if the indebtedness is primarily paraphrasing from the previous work and old quotes the previous work also used.

It almost always is plagiarism if exact words and phraseology occurs. Note that in this email Quinn does not address the specific charge of Van Wagoner's plagiarism.

As a professor, my course-outlines provided the university's published definition of plagiarism. It warned my students there was no upper limit to the A's I gave in my courses, but that I would give a failing grade to anything they submitted to me that involved plagiarism. During 12 years on the faculty at BYU, I gave failing grades to many papers that involved unacknowledged quoting from someone else's work (including from student papers previously submitted to me).

If a student had submitted a term-paper to me with the quote you've submitted, I would have put in the margin: "Is this plagiarism?" but would not have lowered the grade for the questionable passage. Some concerns remain questions.

A student pasting material from a source or the internet is not the same thing as an established scholar doing so. Again, Quinn does not address the particular problem of Van Wagoner's plagiarism.

The reasons that plagiarism by a student and plagiarism by an established scholar are not the offenses are these, among others: Students operate under tight deadlines and don't often care; an established author has years to consider his or her (or, in Geisner's venacular, their) words. Further, established authors are supposed to have editors to catch these problems. Failure to catch them suggests strongly that there was insufficient editorial control, something that Bagley admitted to me for Blood in the Prophets, wherein the University of Oklahoma trusted Bagley not to make errors and trusted him to line up his own peer reviewers. [Such mindlessness.]

I'm sorry to tease you once again about your piss-poor writing. Nobody expects perfection on a board like this, but dang it, I've seen this from you too many times. Are you qualified to really defend Van Wagoner against claims of plagiarism?

[_grindael]

As Mike said,

"Some concerns remain questions". It is telling that he did NOT call it plagiarism.

[_Yahoo Bot]

As Mike said,

"Some concerns remain questions". It is telling that he did NOT call it plagiarism.

Well, we don't know if the specific plagiarism was brought to Quinn's attention. But supposing it was --

The fact that Quinn doesn't discuss it certainly cannot be seen as some sort of forgiveness or waiver.

Plus, it doesn't matter than the victim author forgives the thieving author. Academic credibility is at stake. The presence or absence of editorial oversight is at stake.

Interesting how perspective affects one's objective judgment. I see Hales and Smith's error as rather egregious with the "F" business. But Van Wagoner's error is even the more egregious, yet you and others who have an axe to grind against the Church don't think so.

[_grindael]

As Mike said,

"Some concerns remain questions". It is telling that he did NOT call it plagiarism.

Well, we don't know if the specific plagiarism was brought to Quinn's attention. But supposing it was --

The fact that Quinn doesn't discuss it certainly cannot be seen as some sort of forgiveness or waiver.

Plus, it doesn't matter than the victim author forgives the thieving author. Academic credibility is at stake. The presence or absence of editorial oversight is at stake.

Interesting how perspective affects one's objective judgment. I see Hales and Smith's error as rather egregious with the "F" business. But Van Wagoner's error is even the more egregious, yet you and others who have an axe to grind against the Church don't think so.

The specific plagiarism WAS brought to Mike's attention, I saw the original e-mail and reply. I don't think either Hales or Smith's error with the "F" business is worth a rat's ass in concern. It's ridiculously stupid. Their own hypocrisy makes that look like small potatoes. I think that Van Wagoner's is of more concern BUT... Mike Quinn doesn't think so, so that is enough for me. They both had the same publishing house, probably the same editors to a large extent, etc. They also traded ideas and research, so that to me makes it a cautionary tale, but not much more than that.