Tuesday, August 01, 2006

China's Top Academic Cop Accused of Plagiarism


Slef-acclaimed Chinese academic cop Mr. Fang Shimin, aka Fang Zhouzi, lost a case in Wuhan, China. The plaintiff Mr. Xiao Chuanguo, who lost a academician-ship due to Fang's accusations on the Net received about $5,000 judgement. Mr. Xiao said he would file another law suite in the US against Dr. Fang on plagiarism violations.

Source: popyard


轰动一时的方 舟子武汉成被告案终于宣判,方舟子被判道歉并赔3万元后,起诉他的武汉教授肖传国向媒体记者披露惊天隐情----肖“是因为向美国《科学》杂志举报方舟子 ‘抄袭’遭到‘报复性打假’”。在肖和国内外一些学者的帮助下,晨报记者经过调查,最终获得了被指“抄袭”的方舟子三篇文章原文及相关英文作者文章原文。

8月1日见报的“反伪斗士”特稿,涉及方 舟 子“抄袭门”的部分,由于版面所限,且内容特殊须完整呈现,故在特稿见报前夜,在记者博客刊发相关文章中英文对比完整版。

国内部 郭翔鹤

2006年7月31日20:02

对比之一

中文部分来源:2001年10月4日《南方周末》方 舟 子文章《科学地解决道德难题?》

英文部分来源:2001年9月14 日美国《科学》杂志格林等人的论文《道德困境的功能磁共振成像(fMRI)研究》(《An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment》)

方 舟 子:科学地解决道德难题?

http://www.sina.com.cn 2003年07月24日 13:37 南方周末

方 舟 子/文

当代哲学的一个任务是解决道德伦理问题,为此哲学家们经常要辩论一些假想的难题,其中较著名的一个是“电车难题”:假设有一列失控的有轨电车飞奔而来,前面有两条轨道,一条站着五个人,一条站着一个人。如果不扳道岔,电车将冲向第一条轨道压死五个人。那么是否应该扳道岔,将电车引向另一条轨道,压死上面的那一个人?大多数人会回答应该,因为牺牲一个人拯救五个人是值得的。

The present study was inspired by a family of ethical dilemmas familiar to contemporary moral philosophers. One such dilemma is the trolley dilemma: A runaway trolley is headed for five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. The only way to save them is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it will kill one person instead of five. Ought you to turn the trolley in order to save five people at the expense of one? Most people say yes.

现在,再考虑另一个难题:同样有一列失控的有轨电车飞奔而来,前方的轨道上站着五个人处于危险之中。在电车和五个人中间,隔着一座天桥,桥上站着一位陌生的大胖子。拯救这五个人的唯一办法,是把这个大胖子推下天桥,电车将他撞死后就会停下来。那么是否应该把这个人推下桥去拯救五个人?大多数人会对这个 “天桥难题”说不应该。

Now consider a similar problem, the footbridge dilemma. As before, a trolley threatens to kill five people. You are standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge that spans the tracks, in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. In this scenario, the only way to save the five people is to push this stranger off the bridge, onto the tracks below. He will die if you do this, but his body will stop the trolley from reaching the others. Ought you to save the five others by pushing this stranger to his death? Most people say no.

为什么同样是牺牲一个人拯救五个人,人们却会做出不同的道德判断?对诸如此类的问题的争论,使得哲学家们有活可干。一种经典的解释是,在“电车难题”中,牺牲掉的那个人是不幸碰巧站在另一条轨道上,并没有被直接用来拯救另五个人;而在“天桥难题” 中,胖子是直接被用来拯救五个人的,因此直接利用一个人的生命来拯救他人,是不道德的。那么我们再来看一个“电车难题”的变型:假设站着一个人的那条轨道的另一端是跟另一条轨道相连的,即形成一个回路,如果那上面没有这个人,电车会从这条轨道绕回来到另一条轨道压死五个人。在压死这个人后,电车会停下来,不会危及另五个人。在这种情况下,是否应该把电车引向站着一个人的轨道去压死他?虽然这一次,这个人是被直接利用了,大多数人仍然会回答应该。

Taken together, these two dilemmas create a puzzle for moral philosophers: What makes it morally acceptable to sacrifice one life to save five in the trolley dilemma but not in the footbridge dilemma? Many answers have been proposed. For example, one might suggest, in a Kantian vein, that the difference between these two cases lies in the fact that in the footbridge dilemma one literally uses a fellow human being as a means to some independent end, whereas in the trolley dilemma the unfortunate person just happens to be in the way. This answer, however, runs into trouble with a variant of the trolley dilemma in which the track leading to the one person loops around to connect with the track leading to the five people. Here we will suppose that without a body on the alternate track, the trolley would, if turned that way, make its way to the other track and kill the five people as well. In this variant, as in the footbridge dilemma, you would use someone's body to stop the trolley from killing the five. Most agree, nevertheless, that it is still appropriate to turn the trolley in this case in spite of the fact that here, too, we have a case of "using."

可见,“直接利用是不道德的”的解释遇到了麻烦。还有人提出了别的解释,但也都有人想到了与之相抵触的例子。至今还未找到一个能被普遍接受的解释。有心理学家认为,“天桥难题”之所以和“电车难题”的选择结果不同,是因为将一个人推下桥这种做法让人在感情上接受不了,觉得太残忍。也就是说,感情会影响人们的道德判断。但是哲学家们普遍认为,道德判断应该是在理性思考的基础上做出的,不应带着感情。

最近,美国普林斯顿大学的心理学家用实验对这个 “感情说”进行了验证。他们让试验对象对 60个难题做出决定,并用“功能性磁共振影像技术”监测大脑功能区的变化。大脑功能区被激活后,那里的血流和脑氧代谢都增加,用磁共振对大脑进行扫描就可以形象地展现大脑各个功能区的活动情况。这60个难题分为三组:一组是与人身密切相关(也即可能会调动感情)的道德难题,包括“天桥难题”和其他类似的道德难题(像偷了一个人的内脏器官去拯救五个人,是否应该?在救生艇因超载面临沉没时,是否应该把某个人扔到海里?等等);一组是与人身关系不密切或无关的非人化的道德难题,包括“电车难题”和类似的道德难题(例如捡到了钱,该不该还给失主?);还有一组做为空白对照,是与道德无关的难题(例如出门旅行,是坐汽车还是坐火车好?)。(此段为格林等人报告中的研究成果)

结果表明,人们在判断人身化道德难题时,与判断非人化道德难题和非道德难题相比,大脑中与感情有关的区域明显变得活跃,而与记忆有关的区域则活跃程度明显降低(以前的研究已表明,人们在处理感情问题时,大脑记忆区域受到抑制)。少数人对“天桥难题”这类问题做出了“应该”的回答,而他们花的时间要比那些回答“不应该”的人长得多,这也是可以理解的,他们要花更多的时间思考,让理智战胜感情。而对非人化道德难题和非道德难题,回答“应该”和“不应该”所用的时间没有差别。(此段为格林等人报告中的研究成果)

这个实验结果,对主流哲学家是个打击,他们向来主张道德判断是纯理性的,而现在却必须考虑其中的感情因素。但是,这个实验其实并没有解决这些道德难题。

The long-standing rationalist tradition in moral psychology emphasizes the role of reason in moral judgment. A more recent trend places increased emphasis on emotion. The present results raise but do not answer a more general question concerning the relation between the aforementioned philosophical and psychological puzzles

它并没有告诉人们,把一个人推下天桥救其他人是对是错,而是告诉人们,为什么人们会做出是对是错的选择。换句话说,它只是揭示了人们做道德判断时的一个心理机制。有一个问题仍然有待解决:在我们对道德判断的心理机制有了更好的理解之后,是否会影响我们的道德决定?

How will a better understanding of the mechanisms that give rise to our moral judgments alter our attitudes toward the moral judgments we make?

如果会的话,将会有怎样的影响?在我们知道对“天桥难题”的选择原来是受情绪影响后,是否会有更多的人狠下心来理智地选择“应该”?是否应该选择“应该”?哲学家们不必担心失业。

对比之二

中文部分来源:2006年6月21《北京科技报》方 舟 子文《学生剽窃 导师有责》

英文部分来源:美国网站“高校内幕”(www.insidehighered.com)署名为道格.莱德曼、发表于去年11月1日和今年6月1日的两篇文章。

学生剽窃 导师有责

方 舟 子/文

Student Plagiarism, Faculty Responsibility

美国学术界有比较规范的处理学术造假的渠道,即便如此,仍然离不开像马特卡这样的业余“打假斗士”的参与,没有他的专注和执著,整个事件就不会暴露出来。即使在事情暴露之后,校方也未必愿意认真对待,因此舆论监督也很有必要。

2003 年,托马斯•马特卡(Thomas A. Matrka)在当了十年工程师后,决定回到大学深造,成了美国俄亥俄大学工程院一名硕士研究生。他的课程学得不错,但是到了2004年夏天,他在写毕业论文时却遇到了麻烦。他的导师多次对他的论文进展表示不满。于是他到学校的图书馆翻阅该导师以前指导的研究生学位论文,想看看有没有可供借鉴之处。

In 2003, 10 years into his engineering career, he enrolled at Ohio to get a master’s degree. He got good grades, but as he worked on his thesis, he says, his adviser, M.K. Alam, the Moss Professor of Mechanical Engineering, repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with his work. (Alam did not respond to requests for comment for this article.) Hoping for insight into projects that had previously won Alam’s approval, Matrka spent some time in the university’s library in the summer of 2004 thumbing through past theses.

这一看让他大吃一惊。他注意到不少学位论文的许多段落都非常相似,例如,有4篇分别写于1997年和1998年的论文的第三章实际上一模一样,还有一篇从以前的论文照抄了50多页。他用4个月的时间,平均每周花费 10个小时来比对这些论文,发现有44篇论文有剽窃的嫌疑。

He was struck by what he found. As he looked the papers over, Matrka says, he noted similarities — occasionally blatant, extended ones — between many of them. He discovered four theses, for example, in which the third chapters on “fluent and multiphase models” were virtually word for word. Two were from 1997 and two from 1998. Three others, from as many as six years apart, contained paragraphs and drawings that were almost identical. (Matrka provided pages from some of these theses to Inside Higher Ed for review.)

他认为在学位论文中存在如此大量的剽窃现象,导师不可能不会发现。

Some of the overlap is so obvious, he says, that it would be impossible for the professors who oversaw the theses not to have known about it.

他向工程院院长做了反映。院长说他会进行调查,但是实际上并没有采取什么行动。于是马特卡又向更高一级的学校领导反映,包括负责校纪的官员和副教务长,但是他们对此都不感兴趣,甚至劝马特卡不要多事。

The dean of Ohio’s Russ College of Engineering and Technology, Dennis Irwin……and Matrka first brought them to the attention of Irwin, who Matrka says told him that he would investigate but did not take him up on his offer to share more inxxxxation……taking his charges to the university ombuds office, an associate provost, and a number of other officials at Ohio and elsewhere. At every stage, he says, officials either have expressed little interest in what he has found, discouraged him, or said it was outside their scope of responsibility.

马特卡换了导师,通过答辩,在 2005年6月顺利毕业,获得硕士学位,离开了俄亥俄大学到一家化工厂工作。但是他继续进行“打假”,Matrka switched advisers and prepared a project thesis (“Design of an Experiment to Measure Plane Strain Flow Stress at Elevated Temperatures”) that passed muster; he earned his degree in June 2005. Though he has left the university, his campaign has continued.向俄亥俄大学理事会和高校认证机构寄去揭发材料,呼吁他们进行调查。In recent weeks, he has sent packets of materials containing examples of the alleged plagiarism to Ohio University’s Board of Regents, the Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology, a national accreditor, and the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, which accredits Ohio University as a whole. Last month he laid out his allegations before the university’s Graduate Student Senate. 他同时也向媒体反映,借助舆论向校方施加压力。一个在2004年才创办、但是已经在美国高校中很受欢迎的网站“高校内幕”在去年11月份最早报道了这个事件。

马特卡向该网站记者出示了剽窃的证据,指出如果学校不对弄虚作假的论文做出处理的话,将会使所有的学位都跟着贬值。“我只是希望他们能够调查此事,把那些剽窃论文从公共记录中撤掉,因为保留它们会玷污所有的人。”

“They’re compromising the value of the degree of honest students by not distinguishing between the plagiarism and the honest works,” says Matrka.“I’m no expert – I’m one guy over there poking around the library. I just want them to look into it and remove these from the public record, because you’ve tainted all of us by leaving them there.”

俄亥俄大学工程院院长则对“高校内幕”的记者否认在他们的研究生中普遍存在剽窃行 为,也否认校方没有认真对待马特卡的反映。他说他已调查了马特卡反映的四五起事例,但是法律禁止他透露其细节。

The dean of Ohio’s Russ College of Engineering and Technology, Dennis Irwin, rejects Matrka’s view that a widespread plagiarism problem exists in the engineering program, and says the xxxxer student is wrong to believe that Ohio officials haven’t taken his charges seriously. The college, he says, has investigated the “four or five” cases that Matrka has brought to his attention, and while Irwin asserts that a federal student privacy law prevents him from discussing details of the review……

院长并批评了马特卡的说法,说他只会提出指控,却没有给出确凿的证据。他说马特卡之所以会对论文中的相似之处大惊小怪,是因为他不熟悉工程学论文的写法,不知道在论文中有相似的段落和插图是正常 的,不能算剽窃。

Irwin adds: “I know Mr. Matrka is not satisfied with our actions to date, but all I’ve heard are accusations, and I haven’t been presented with any evidence that those accusations are true.”Part of the problem, the dean says, may be a “different in interpretation between what [Matrka] considers to be plagiarism” and the university’s own interpretation. With technical works like engineering theses, he says, “there are going to be similarities, particularly in equations and diagrams.” He adds: “If the same two people worked on the same experiment or apparatus, it is conceivable that they would jointly develop schematic drawing of that that might be used in both of their theses.”

该院长说学校对剽窃现象是非常重视的,已采取了一些措施来加强对剽窃行为的监督,包括采用专门的软件对论文进行比较,并对学生进行学术道德教育,但是学校并不计划让教师花费时间对图书馆收藏的学位论文进行全面审核。

Irwin says college officials have also altered their policies in ways that will improve their ability to monitor potential plagiarism in student work in the future, including by requiring electronic submission and using software to check new theses against those previously xxxxted electronically. But the university has no plans, the dean says, to invest the faculty time necessary for what he calls a “witch hunt” to review the hundreds of past engineering theses and dissertations in the library.

不过,到今年2月份,俄亥俄大学工程院就改变了态度,宣布已组成一个三人委员会调查马特卡发现的44篇涉嫌剽窃的论文。在调查过程中又发现还有别的论文涉嫌剽窃,总共达55篇。到3月底,该委员会公布了其调查结果,认定其中大多数都构成不同程度的剽窃,建议将所有剽窃论文从图书馆中撤掉,让剽窃者修改其论文,否则就要吊销其文凭。马特卡批评这对剽窃者太宽宏大量了,而且也没有追究导师的责任。

……of alleged plagiarism that a college committee investigated in the wake of Matrka’s charges.……They noted that of the 55 graduate theses in which students had plagiarized their own work or others’, the vast majority were overseen by three faculty members, who “either failed to monitor the writing in their advisees’ theses or simply ignored academic honesty, integrity and basically supported academic fraudulence. We consider this most serious.”……One investigation by the engineering college’s academic honesty committee, released in March, found widespread plagiarism by graduate students but did not place any blame on professors, which Matrka said ignored a central part of the problem.

随后,学校教务长任命助理校长和教员代表会前主席组成一个独立的委员会审查这个调查结果。在5月底,审查委员会建议对剽窃者做更严厉的处罚,要求他们再次答辩并修至少一个学分的课。但是审查委员会并不认为责任应该完全由学生来承担,却放过了导师。这些剽窃论文绝大多数都是在3 名导师指导下完成的,其中一位还是机械工程系主任。审查委员会建议学校开除这位系主任以及一位有多达11名研究生剽窃的教授,并建议对一位有5名研究生剽窃的教授给予停止指导研究生两年的处罚。教务长说将对该事件做更深入的调查,并将咨询研究学术不端行为的校外专家。

professors, Meyer and Bloemer did not call for letting the plagiarists themselves off easily. ……Meyer and Bloemer said the xxxxer students should be forced to defend their theses again and to reenroll for at least one credit hour during that time. ……the vast majority were overseen by three faculty members……The review called for the dismissal of two of the professors, including the mechanical engineering department’s chairman, and to bar the third professor from overseeing theses for two years.……In addition to releasing the latest report, Ohio administrators also announced that Gary Pavela, the director of judicial programs and student ethical development at the University of Maryland and a leading expert on academic integrity, would advise the university on how to proceed with its investigation and its future policies on plagiarism, both to ensure fair treatment for the subjects of its investigations and to help it put in place policies to stop such problems in the future.

这个事件有一些值得中国读者特别注意的地方。美国学术界有比较规范的处理学术造假的渠道,即便如此,仍然离不开像马特卡这样的业余“打假斗士”的参与,没有他的专注和执著,整个事件就不会暴露出来。即使在事情暴露之后,校方也未必愿意认真对待,因此舆论监督也很有必要。奇怪的是,中国目前连处理学术造假的规范渠道都还没有建立起来,却已经有很多人反对所谓“私人打假”和“媒体炒作”了。

对于涉及学生造假的事件,美国校方一般是严厉地处罚造假学生,不给改正的机会,但如果没有证据表明导师也参与造假,一般并不追究其责任。在这个事件中却倒了过来,肇事者给与了改正的机会,而导师却很可能被不留情地开除。对于大面积的学生造假,导师很难说会完全不知情,很可能正是导师纵容乃至鼓励的结果,正如审查委员会的报道所指出的,这些导师“或者未能监督其学生的写作,或者完全忽视了学术诚信而基本上是在支持学术造假。我们认为这才是最严重的。”中国当前出现的大面积的学生造假情形与此类似,也应该首先追究教师疏于管教、纵容、鼓励、包庇的责任。

对比之三

中文部分来源:2004年9月号《科学世界》杂志方 舟 子文章《植物中的神秘数字》。

英文部分来源:英国网站www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk署名“容.诺特”的文章。

假定你有一雄一雌一对刚出生的兔子,它们在长到一个月大小时开始交配,在第二月结束时,雌兔子产下另一对兔子,过了一个月后它们也开始繁殖,如此这般持续下去。每只雌兔在开始繁殖时每月都产下一对兔子,假定没有兔子死亡,在一年后总共会有多少对兔子?

Suppose a newly-born pair of rabbits, one male, one female, are put in a field. Rabbits are able to mate at the age of one month so that at the end of its second month a female can produce another pair of rabbits. Suppose that our rabbits never die and that the female always produces one new pair (one male, one female) every month from the second month on. The puzzle that Fibonacci posed was... "How many pairs will there be in one year?

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