Saturday, February 9, 2013

Eine Plage

In Deutschland über alles;
A spectre is haunting Europe, and this time it is the spectre of plagiarism and scientific misconduct. Some high-profile politicians have had to resign in the last 18 months - but the revelations are also shaking respected European universities.
The latest being a member of the ruling class;
German Education Minister Annette Schavan has resigned after a university stripped her of her doctorate for plagiarism.
Duesseldorf's Heinrich Heine University voted last Tuesday to remove her doctorate following a review.
Ms Schavan, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, insisted she would still fight the university's ruling.
In 2011, Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg also quit after allegations he plagiarised his thesis.
Even the anti-plagiarists can't resist the temptation;
However, it seems that the plague of plagiarism has also reached the level of the professorships in Germany. Those who are supposed to be teaching students have also been caught using copy and paste. Last month it was revealed that more than a third of a new book for law students on how to write papers properly was plagiarised, including liberal smatterings from Wikipedia.
Fittingly, even the chapter on plagiarism was plagiarised.  
Can't anybody here play this game?  (We hasten to add Casey Stengel said that first.) 

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