Flaming plagiarism from the skies!

I haven't done a good plagiarism story in a long time.

For the last couple of months, conspiracy and prophecy nuts have been fixated on mid-September as the time when something big is going to happen. They don't agree on the details, but a giant comet or asteroid hitting the earth has emerged as the favorite. Hunt online and you'll find dozens of blog posts and YouTube videos screaming that NASA has confirmed that a 2.5 mile-wide something is going to splash down into the Caribbean. And, as with the Mayan calendar and/or Niburu nonsense, NASA has finally had to issue a stop-being-silly press release.

I read the story about the press release in the British tabloid The Daily Mail. Toward the end of the short article, they linked to Huffington Post UK for details on one element of the conspiracy theory. I clicked through and found a slightly longer version of the same article. The first few sentences were so similar that I went back to the Mail to to see if they were both by the same writer. They're not. The HuffPo version is by Sara C. Nelson, the Mail version by Ellie Zolfagharifard. According to the timestamps, the HuffPo version went up thirteen hours earlier than the Mail version.

Take a look:

HuffPo: A gargantuan asteroid is hurtling towards Earth, with enough power to wipe out life as we know it.

The Mail: A massive asteroid is on a collision course with Earth, and it is large enough to spell the end of humanity.


HuffPo: That’s the belief of an online community of biblical theorists who predict our collective demise will occur between 22 – 28 September 2015.

The Mail: This is the radical claim of an online community of biblical theorists who say that life as we know it will be wiped out between 22 to 28 September this year.


HuffPo: Though sources are dubious, chatter about the impending end of life as we know it has prompted Nasa to speak up.

The Mail: Despite their lack of credentials, the popularity of the prediction has now forced Nasa to speak up, dismissing the theory as unfounded.


HuffPo: Other similarly questionable sources cite a meeting between French foreign minister Laurent Fabius and US Secretary of State John Kerry in May 2014 as being further evidence the Rapture is approaching.

The Mail: Some cite a meeting between French foreign minister Laurent Fabius and US Secretary of State John Kerry in May 2014 is further evidence the Rapture is approaching, according to the Huffington Post.


HuffPo: At odds with talk of the Rapture, however, is the theory that the asteroid isn’t going to get us – but the CERN Large Hadron Collider will.

The Mail: Others have even predicted the events will be started by Cern's Large Hadron Collider.


HuffPo: One blogger points out: “The CERN logo is 666, the sign of the beast in a circle.”

The Mail: One blogger, said: 'The Cern logo is 666, the sign of the beast in a circle. The Cern collider looks like the all seeing eye or stargate we see so much of.'


I don't know the peculiarities of British news publishing or whether HuffPo and the Mail have some kind of arrangement that makes this possible, but, from my seat, it looks like a big steaming mess of plagiarism seasoned with a generous dose of chutzpah.

Plagiarism at the BBC

As if the science blogging world wasn't in enough turmoil this week, we have our own little plagiarism scandal to deal with. People who know me, know I have strong feelings about plagiarism. I hate plagiarists. Today we have a successful and established media figure apparently stealing from a fledgling writer and acquaintance of mine.

Last week, Brian Switek published a short piece on his Smithsonian Magazine blog about the discovery of fossil marks left by a dinosaur attempting to dig into a mammal's burrow. Yesterday, Tom Feilden, a science correspondent for BBC Radio 4, published a short piece on his blog that repeats verbatim sentences from Switek's post including an entire paragraph, which Fielden attributes to the discoverer of the fossils. Two examples will suffice to demonstrate the apparent copying.

Switek:

On the mammalian score, a specimen of the relatively large Cretaceous mammal Repenomamus robustus described in 2005 was found with the bones of baby dinosaurs in its stomach—-it had apparently fed on young Psittacosaurus shortly before it died.

Feilden:

One clue, which appears to give mammals the upper hand, comes from the fossilised remains of a relatively large mammal, repenomamus robustus, discovered in 2005. It was found with the bones of a baby dinosaur in its stomach--apparently it had snacked on a young psittacosaurus shortly before it died. Score it one-nil to the mammals.

Not only is the wording similar, but notice the placement of the dash and the use of the sports scoring metaphor.

Switek:

The first trace fossil type was made by a digging dinosaur, probably a maniraptoran similar in form to Deinonychus and Troodon. At first glance it doesn’t look like much-—just a lumpy bit of sandstone-—but if you look carefully, a claw impression and numerous downward-arcing grooves can be seen. It appears that the dinosaur was repeatedly sticking its foot into the hole and raking out sediment, a behavior consistent with the idea that these dinosaurs probably did not use their arms to dig because their feathers would have gotten in the way or been damaged.

Feilden:

The first trace evidence shows scraping marks in the sandstone rocks made by a digging dinosaur, probably a deinonychus or Troodon.

Below the claw marks numerous downward arching curves...

[...]

"If you look carefully," professor Simpson says, "it appears that the dinosaur was repeatedly sticking its foot into the hole and raking out sediment. Behaviour consistent with a carnivore digging out its next meal".

Both are short articles; these two examples make up almost half of their lengths. There are similarities and exact borrowings in the rest of the two pieces.

Professor Simpson is Edward L. Simpson, the first author listed on the scientific article that both Switek and Feilden are reporting. It is possible that both writers are borrowing from Simpson. Unfortunately, the article is hidden behind the pay-per-view firewall of the journal Geology, so I cannot check that. I know Switek, so I do not think he is also a plagiarist. However, even if both Switek and Feilden were both plagiarizing the same source in the same way, this would not excuse Feilden or diminish his crime. Plagiarism is almost never a one time thing. Plagiarists usually steal not because they are unimaginative but, rather, because they are lazy and feel pressure to keep producing. If they get away with plagiarism once, they will almost always try it again until it becomes a habit. If someone has the time or the energy, they should look over Feilden's earlier work. If he is a serial plagiarist, he needs to be exposed. If this is his first offense--however unlikely that is--he needs to be smacked hard so he will not try it again.

The BBC needs to investigate this and make a quick and public response.