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Jeremy, Thank you for the link to the report. It does indeed make interesting reading. I asked for the report because, having seen individual reports in the past, I did not believe that the figures you quoted were anything like correct. This report describes a serious systematic review of previous studies. In summary they say: It found that, on average, about 2% of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a serious form of misconduct my any standard – and up to one third admitted a variety of other questionable research practices including “dropping data points based on a gut feeling”, and “changing the design, methodology or results of a study in response to pressures from a funding source”. So - rather than 6 per cent admitting to falsification of data, the reported weighted average is actually 1.9 per cent. Rather than 'upwards of 50 per cent' admitting to questionable practices, the reported figure indicates up to a third admitting to questionable practices, some of which may be small but nevertheless were felt by those individuals to be worth reporting. Many more did say that they knew of others who were guilty of dodgy practices. There is no indication of what any of this has to do with plagiarism. Most of the dodgy scientists were in medicine and pharmacology. I wondered how I might fare in answering such a survey. I have never knowingly falsified data, though if asked about others I might say that I have known of several cases where design researchers' data were worthless due to ignorance of process rather than deliberate massaging: these would include not controlling [or having too many] variables, inconsistencies in data collection, poor questionnaire design, bias, and hopeless optimism. Of course it might be argued that one dodgy practice is misreporting the results of surveys. I should also point out that my interpretation of this report is also partial and aimed at making a point, but does (I hope) state the figures accurately. David ......................................................................... David Durling FDRS PhD http://durling.tel ......................................................................... On 28 Jun 2009, at 9:05 am, jeremy hunsinger wrote: > 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.