DCP's ongoing problem with plagiarism

[_Maksutov]

Given that one of the prevailing theories is that the Book of Mormon is plagiarized, and given that the Joseph Smith version of the Bible was plagiarized (that study last year pointed this out) I would propose that Mormons are quite comfortable with plagiarism.

"What many people call sin is not sin; I do many things to break down superstition, and I will break it down." --Joseph Smith Jr.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper ... addenda/20

[_SteelHead]

Joseph Smith smith plagiarized the "Inspired Translation" of the Bible from Adam Clarke's biblical commentary - as published by BYU (the researcher, Haley, finished her degree then came out as ex-mormon on the exmormon reddit sub):

http://jur.byu.edu/?p=21296

[_I have a question]

Joseph Smith smith plagiarized the "Inspired Translation" of the Bible from Adam Clarke's biblical commentary - as published by BYU (the researcher, Haley, finished her degree then came out as ex-mormon on the exmormon reddit sub):

http://jur.BYU.edu/?p=21296

Although not the official Bible of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the JST offers many interesting insights and is an invaluable aid to biblical interpretation and understanding. It is a most fruitful source of useful information for the student of the scriptures. It is likewise a witness for the divine calling and ministry of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/josep ... ranslation

It certainly is...

[_Lemmie]

In March of 1980, an article by Richard L. Jensen and Gordon Irving, titled “The Voyage of the Amazon: A Close View of One Immigrant Company,” was published in the lds magazine, Ensign.

Peterson has twice plagiarized this article, once as part of a blog entry dated September 16, 2017, titled Charles Dickens on the Mormons, and then again on June 13, 2019, in a blog entry, titled Charles Dickens, on “the pick and flower of England.”

Neither time did he attribute any of the work to Jensen and Irving.

Jensen and Irving begin:

In June of 1863 the Amazon, a passenger ship with 891 Latter-day Saints aboard, set sail from London. Just before the voyage, many Londoners—government officials and clergymen included--came for a firsthand look at the Mormons and their traveling arrangements. Among the visitors was author Charles Dickens,

and Peterson:

In June 1863, the passenger ship Amazon set sail from London for America with nearly 900 Latter-day Saint emigrants aboard.  However, just before she weighed anchor, many Londoners—including both government officials and clergymen—came to take a look at the Mormons, up close and at first hand, as well as at their traveling arrangements  One of these visitors Charles Dickens,

Okay, so far pretty factual, but use and arrangement of the language is cutting it a little close.

To continue with Jensens' and Irving's sentence:

Among the visitors was author Charles Dickens, who spent several hours on board the ship questioning British Mission President George Q. Cannon and quietly observing the Saints.

Peterson breaks up his copying by listing, unnecessarily, FOURTEEN of Dicken's works, with dates, as well as noting he is regarded as a great novelist. It doesn't obviate the plagiarism, however, which continues by adding phrase rearrangements:

Dickens spent several hours on board the Amazon, quietly observing the Saints on the ship and interviewing George Q. Cannon, a member of the Twelve who was serving at the time as the president of the British Mission.

The original authors continue:

A month later Dickens published an account of his visit to the Mormon emigrant ship. He pointed out that these were primarily working-class people, including craftsmen in many trades. Though he remained skeptical about what the Mormons would find when they reached Utah, Dickens was impressed by their thoroughgoing organization, their calmness, and their quiet self-respect:

And after several sentences on Cannon, from Peterson,

A month or so after his visit to the Amazon, Dickens published an account of it in an essay for the periodical All the Year Round (4 July 1863), titled “The Uncommercial Traveller.”  In his essay, he remarked that virtually all of the emigrating Latter-day Saints were tradesmen and craftsmen and their families, people of the working class.  He was worried about what these British converts to Mormonism might encounter when they actually arrived in Utah.  (He was surely familiar with the horror stories going around England at the time – which would continue for the next several generations — about the theocratic “Mormon kingdom” in the remote North American west.)  But he was deeply impressed by what he had actually seen.  The emigration was thoroughly well-organized, calm, orderly.

The original authors quote Dickens, starting with:

“I went on board their ship,” he said, “to bear testimony...

And Peterson follows suit, synonymously:

“I went on board their ship,” he wrote, “to bear testimony...

J & I finished up their quote of Dickens, and ended with this thought:

...have often missed.” Of the people themselves Dickens wrote that had he not known they were Mormons, he would have described them as, “in their degree, the pick and flower of England.”1

Peterson also ended his quote of Dickens in the same place, and also finished with Jensen's and Irving's thought:

have often missed.” Of the Saints themselves, Dickens confessed that, had he not known they were Mormons, he would have described them as, “in their degree, the pick and flower of England.”

Why not just give Jensen and Irving due credit for their intellectual ideas? A few synonyms, phrase rearrangements, and the insertion of some filler to spread out the plagiarism is STILL plagiarism.

Jensen and Irving's citation, missing from Peterson's use of their work:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... y?lang=eng

Peterson's plagiarisms:

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

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

[_Tator]

Ditto Copy Pasterson is too lazy to do his own work. Final answer.

[_Lemmie]

I just noticed this comment on SeN:

When an anonymous poster accuses a named scholar of "plagiarism" and "lying" - as the smugly spiteful "Lemmie" does - that is character assassination.

"Accuses"? oh I don't think so. "Proves" is the accurate term, as the last 17 pages show. Any 'character assassination' observed by the commenter is purely self-inflicted by the plagiarizer.

If a BYU professor doesn't want to be caught plagiarizing, the best strategy is to not plagiarize.

[_Gadianton]

when an anonymous poster accuses a named scholar...this is character assassination

These guys should really stop "falling for their own slanders", to borrow a phrase. If it isn't enough to push their "anonymity" agenda with Gemli, suggesting that he's incapable of being slandered or even having feelings because he doesn't post with his real name, now it's slander on its face for an anonymous person to question the track record of an onymous person, no matter what the evidence or circumstances?

[_Dr Exiled]

Let us pray:

Dear Lord, please bless Dr. Peterson with self-awareness, with an attribution heart. Dear Lord, DCP is ensnared in the gall of plagiaristic bitterness. He simply cannot help himself oh Lord of hosts. For some reason, he fears his own dark wisdom and must steal the thoughts of other, more pure hearts. May thy mercy shower him with honesty and humility. May he realize that proper attribution of sources and clever whiticisms attached thereto is a thing that the public and the brethren might enjoy and thereby give our brother DCP the proper acclaim he so desperately desires. May he realize he doesn't have to copy clever whitty sources and try to make them his own no longer. Further, oh Lord, may thou bless our brother Dr. Midgely with the insight and wisdom of the ancients in his last days. May he be kind and forgo the ad hominem. For he is advanced in age and cannot handle any righteous pushback that thou mightiest command.

We thank thee that we are not like our troubled brethren but wish them the mercy thou hast shown to countless servants throughout the milenia.

Amen.

[_Tom]

The original authors continue:

A month later Dickens published an account of his visit to the Mormon emigrant ship. He pointed out that these were primarily working-class people, including craftsmen in many trades. Though he remained skeptical about what the Mormons would find when they reached Utah, Dickens was impressed by their thoroughgoing organization, their calmness, and their quiet self-respect:

And after several sentences on Cannon, from Peterson,

A month or so after his visit to the Amazon, Dickens published an account of it in an essay for the periodical All the Year Round (4 July 1863), titled “The Uncommercial Traveller.”  In his essay, he remarked that virtually all of the emigrating Latter-day Saints were tradesmen and craftsmen and their families, people of the working class.  He was worried about what these British converts to Mormonism might encounter when they actually arrived in Utah.  (He was surely familiar with the horror stories going around England at the time – which would continue for the next several generations — about the theocratic “Mormon kingdom” in the remote North American west.)  But he was deeply impressed by what he had actually seen.  The emigration was thoroughly well-organized, calm, orderly.

Dr. Peterson doesn't accurately paraphrase Jensen and Irving and, more importantly, Dickens in this passage. Dr. Peterson turns Jensen and Irving's "these were primarily working-class people, including craftsmen in many trades" into "virtually all of the emigrating Latter-day Saints were tradesmen and craftsmen and their families, people of the working class."

Here is what Dickens wrote:

The faces of some of the Welsh people, among whom there were many old persons, were certainly the least intelligent. Some of these emigrants would have bungled sorely, but for the directing hand that was always ready. The intelligence here was unquestionably of a low order, and the heads were of a poor type. Generally the case was the reverse. There were many worn faces bearing traces of patient poverty and hard work, and there was great steadiness of purpose and much undemonstrative self-respect among this class. A few young men were going singly. Several girls were going, two or three together. These latter I found it very difficult to refer back, in my mind, to their relinquished homes and pursuits. Perhaps they were more like country milliners, and pupil teachers rather tawdily dressed, than any other classes of young women. I noticed, among many little ornaments worn, more than one photograph-brooch of the Princess of Wales, and also of the late Prince Consort. Some single women of from thirty to forty, whom one might suppose to be embroiderers, or straw-bonnet-makers, were obviously going out in quest of husbands, as finer ladies go to India. That they had any distinct notions of a plurality of husbands or wives, I do not believe. To suppose the family groups of whom the majority of emigrants were composed, polygamically possessed, would be to suppose an absurdity, manifest to any one who saw the fathers and mothers.

I should say (I had no means of ascertaining the fact) that most familiar kinds of handicraft trades were represented here. Farm-labourers, shepherds, and the like, had their full share of representation, but I doubt if they preponderated.

(Incidentally, Dr. Peterson's post gives the wrong publication date for A Christmas Carol.)

[Guest]

Peterson, plagiarizing from Wikipedia:

The Hebgen Lake earthquake (also known as the Yellowstone earthquake) occurred at 11:37 PM, local time, on 17 August 1959. Measuring 7.2 on the Moment magnitude scale — which ranks it roughly on par with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake as one of the most powerful quakes ever recorded in North America, behind the 1964 Good Friday earthquake in Alaska, which came in at a stunning 9.2 — the Hebgen Lake event caused a huge landslide whose effects remain clearly visible today, almost exactly sixty years later.

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

no credit to wikipedia, of course, even though Wikipedia footnotes and documents sources, but there is an additional problem in DCP's next paragraph:

Fifty million cubic yards (38 million cubic metres) of rock, mud, and debris swept down into the narrow valley of the Madison River at approximately 100 miles per hour, creating hurricane-force winds of roughly the same speed. Those winds were strong enough, in their own right, to toss cars.

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

The above from DCP is from Wikipedia, also:

The landslides caused by the quake carried 50 million cubic yards (38 million cubic metres) of rock, mud and debris down into the valley and created hurricane-force winds strong enough to toss cars...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959_Hebg ... earthquake

But here's the problem. The Wikipedia sentence is based on a wiki section right above it, which reads:

The landslide caused by this quake was the largest since an earthquake in Wyoming in 1925 caused a landslide amounting to 50 million cubic yards (38 million cubic metres) of rock and debris ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959_Hebg ... earthquake

You'll notice the grammar seems to imply a different landslide caused the 50 million cubic yards of rock and debris, and you would be correct. Here's the 1925 landslide:

In 1925, more than 38 million cubic meters (50 million cubic yards) of waterlogged soil was dislodged from a mountainside, crossed the Gros Ventre River, and moved 90 meters (300 feet) up the other side of the valley...

http://geology.teacherfriendlyguide.org ... dslides-nc

And here is the correct information about Earthquake Lake and the 1959 landslide, from the US Forest Service:

Earthquake Lake Visitor Center

It was near midnight on August 17th, 1959 when an earthquake near the Madison River triggered a massive landslide.  The slide moved at 100 mph and in less than 1 minute, over 80 million tons of rock crashed into the narrow canyon, blocking the Madison River and forming Earthquake Lake.  This earth- changing event, known as the Hebgen Lake Earthquake, measured 7.5 on the Richter scale.   At the time it was the second largest earthquake to occur in the lower 48 states in the 20th century. Twenty-eight people lost their lives in the event.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsin ... rdb5127785

Lesson? If you plagiarize from Wikipedia, their mistakes become your mistakes. Even Wikipedia gives references.

Of course, the main lesson remains the same. Plagiarizing is dishonest, repeated plagiarizing is dishonest and immoral, and breaks BYU's honor code. Faculty are not exempt.