LSM's Plagiarism - An Initial Inquiry

aron · 03-25-2021, 03:28 AM

The fight against fake-paper factories

Since last January, journals have retracted at least 370 papers that have been publicly linked to ‘paper mills’, an analysis by Nature has found, and many more retractions are expected. Physicians in China are a particular target customer for paper mills — companies that churn out fake scientific manuscripts to order — because of intense pressure to publish combined with long work hours...The effect of such trickery can be very serious, says molecular oncology researcher Jennifer Byrne, who points to suspected fake studies that link genes to particular cancers. “People die from cancer — it is not a game.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00733-5

In the West, academic doctors are also under intense pressure to publish, but the consequences for fakery are so severe, and the benefits are so small, that it isn't widespread. In China the situation is reversed: the benefits are greater and the penalties are less so.

I'm not going to rehash the discussion thus far - interested readers can look back. Watchman Nee got great benefit from copying without attribution the works of others (Jessie Penn-Lewis, and perhaps more), and passing it off as his own, and the penalties when it was discovered, were minimal if any. Witness Lee apparently did the same thing, even going so far as to claim himself as the proprietary source of various 'revelations' that may well not have been his. "Who else has seen this?" he'd ask in meetings (of course, nobody answered the question, for fear of being 'marked').

A lot of people have realized that there's a tidy living to be made from putting out spiritually-oriented words and phrases. Think of Hank Hanegraaf, for one. (Hank also used, without attribute, words and phrases from his 'research associates'). What is outstanding about Nee and Lee is the degree to which they did it using the words of others, and claiming authorship, and then waving it off when the issue was raised. Other authors who lived off the proceeds and public authority of creating published works would find that exposure would be ruinous. But with Nee and Lee the problem was readily dismissed, and there are probably strong, ingrained cultural factors involved. Lee told us China was "virgin soil" for the Lord to move, but it wasn't. Every one of those 370 faked published papers came from China. They're fallen people, like everyone else, and until we begin to deal with the implications of this, we'll suffer the effects.

aron · 03-25-2021, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aron

In the West, academic doctors are also under intense pressure to publish, but the consequences for fakery are so severe, and the benefits are so small, that it isn't widespread. In China the situation is reversed: the benefits are greater and the penalties are less so..

Rather than cloud up the previous post I'll add a post-script here. In reading the Nature article, publishing was cited as a way to advance one's career, not as a way of alleviating human suffering through science, and study, and careful experimentation. No, medicine is a 'career' in which one 'advances' to one's self-benefit.

But many do work at science, and publish in journals, because they're curious. They want to help others and do good, and so they like to solve puzzles. How to discover causes, and mitigate the effects? It's hard work, but the motivation not to advance oneself but to do good, to help others. Puzzle-solving can be fun, but the real payout is when others get helped. Jonas Salk genuinely wanted to help others, to end suffering.

Many Christian speakers and leaders got into it because they had an opportunity to serve God and to help others. I don't doubt that Watchman Nee, Witness Lee, Ravi Zacharias, actually had conversion experiences and wanted to do good. But at some point conflicting desires got in the way - the desire to "advance one's career", for lack of better term. RZ got the VP of the USA to talk at his funeral. WL and WN got read into the Congressional Record. WL got a reflecting pool and his family got residuals. The temptation is there.

(And the fact that Christian 'author' Watchman Nee's only written book, Spiritual Man, was a blatant rip-off of someone else, should give us serious pause. All his other published books came from notes that people took. He'd talk and talk, and people would write notes, and tidy it all up.)

03-25-2021, 03:28 AM	#1
aron Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Natal Transvaal Posts: 5,632	Fake papers from China The fight against fake-paper factories Since last January, journals have retracted at least 370 papers that have been publicly linked to ‘paper mills’, an analysis by Nature has found, and many more retractions are expected. Physicians in China are a particular target customer for paper mills — companies that churn out fake scientific manuscripts to order — because of intense pressure to publish combined with long work hours...The effect of such trickery can be very serious, says molecular oncology researcher Jennifer Byrne, who points to suspected fake studies that link genes to particular cancers. “People die from cancer — it is not a game.” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00733-5 In the West, academic doctors are also under intense pressure to publish, but the consequences for fakery are so severe, and the benefits are so small, that it isn't widespread. In China the situation is reversed: the benefits are greater and the penalties are less so. I'm not going to rehash the discussion thus far - interested readers can look back. Watchman Nee got great benefit from copying without attribution the works of others (Jessie Penn-Lewis, and perhaps more), and passing it off as his own, and the penalties when it was discovered, were minimal if any. Witness Lee apparently did the same thing, even going so far as to claim himself as the proprietary source of various 'revelations' that may well not have been his. "Who else has seen this?" he'd ask in meetings (of course, nobody answered the question, for fear of being 'marked'). A lot of people have realized that there's a tidy living to be made from putting out spiritually-oriented words and phrases. Think of Hank Hanegraaf, for one. (Hank also used, without attribute, words and phrases from his 'research associates'). What is outstanding about Nee and Lee is the degree to which they did it using the words of others, and claiming authorship, and then waving it off when the issue was raised. Other authors who lived off the proceeds and public authority of creating published works would find that exposure would be ruinous. But with Nee and Lee the problem was readily dismissed, and there are probably strong, ingrained cultural factors involved. Lee told us China was "virgin soil" for the Lord to move, but it wasn't. Every one of those 370 faked published papers came from China. They're fallen people, like everyone else, and until we begin to deal with the implications of this, we'll suffer the effects. __________________ "Freedom is free. It's slavery that's so horribly expensive" - Colonel Templeton, ret., of the 12th Scottish Highlanders, the 'Black Fusiliers' Last edited by aron; 03-25-2021 at 05:11 AM.