I think we have to be careful to differentiate the actual bases of
academia versus the idealized norms. Given a recent report said a
significant number of scientists, upwards of of 50% admitted to lab
practices that may have undermined results and something like 6%
admitted to some for of falsification of data, academic honest I would
argue is much like general honest, we'd prefer the situation where it
was generally promoted, and less prefer the situation where it was
generally practiced. This I think you can roundly see to be true
when you look at the stories of just about any technological
revolution, you find ideas flowing quite freely, plagiarized and not,
for short periods as people become familiar with the changes. I think
the history of the concept of plagiarism is particularly informative
to the question of contemporary copyright. The majority of the works
that I teach in some of my classes(as i teach ancient and medieval
political theory, machiavelli and other things sometimes).... have no
citation that was not entered after the fact. Citations and
plagiarism came into being somewhat together, and for a very
particular reason that had nothing to do with honesty, though today
they seem to have to do with concepts of 'honor codes' and 'honesty'
than their original goals of enabling research, and specifically
enabling the finding of research.
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