Remember the Warda/Han affair, that daffy, sloppy, plagiarized paper that made it into Proteomics? That little pot is still simmering. If you can read French, you can read Quand un "puissant Créateur" s'invite dans une revue scientifique.
Search
Profile
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
I reserve the right to publicly post, with full identifying information about the source, any email sent to me that contains threats of violence.
Random Quote
Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that
each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.
Recent Posts
- Our illness is their profit
- Friday Cephalopod: NUMBERLESS HOSTS!
- Dear Jezebel
- There Will Be Blood?
- Zooming in on the Origin of Life Science Foundation
- Friday Cephalopod: Feasibility trial successful
- Making excuses
- More bad science in the literature
- An open letter to the Indiana legislature
- One Carnival of Evolution, coming right up
A Taste of Pharyngula
Recent Comments
- Seti on Our illness is their profit
- Quack on Our illness is their profit
- https://me.yahoo.com/a/PEzPIDl5yZq_ophitb7kJOTDwIEO#3c0e4 on Our illness is their profit
- Tumara Baap on Our illness is their profit
- chriswarr on Our illness is their profit
- vibise on Zooming in on the Origin of Life Science Foundation
- mrpoxman on Our illness is their profit
- Everbleed on Friday Cephalopod: NUMBERLESS HOSTS!
- CherryBombSim on Our illness is their profit
- I'm sorry, thank you on Our illness is their profit
Archives
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
Blogroll
Other Information
« Still straining to find an excuse | Main | Oh, no! My most subtle asset, exposed! »
More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!
Did you forget that other scandal?
Posted on: March 22, 2008 10:03 AM, by PZ Myers
TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/67490
Leave a comment
HTML commands: <i>italic</i>, <b>bold</b>, <a href="url">link</a>, <blockquote>quote</blockquote>
Comments
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 22, 2008 10:14 AM
They call Pharyngula your "blog à grande audience", which is a very French way of saying that you get as many page views in a day as I do in half a year.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 22, 2008 10:27 AM
The article doesn't say anything shockingly new about the affair, but it does get the nub of the story quite correct:
That is,
A year in France didn't improve my Francophonic skills as much as one might expect — partly because all the other students preferred to practice their English on me — so the more I translate, the more glitches I will no doubt introduce.
Posted by: Zeno | March 22, 2008 10:38 AM
My college French is less than fluent, but this sentence grabbed me: "La marque d'un puissant créateur, sans plus d'arguments ni de données?" As I read it, it says, "The sign of a powerful creator, without further discussion or data?"
I'm pretty sure that insisting on data shows a lack of faith in a powerful creator.
Posted by: C. L. Hanson | March 22, 2008 10:42 AM
Excellent article. It explains clearly how the events unfolded and especially the fact that the central (still unanswered) question is how this article got past peer-review.
I read the earlier posts about this here on Pharyngula, but before reading this article, I hadn't realized that the plagiarism was discovered as a direct result of the Pharyngula coverage. Good to see credit being given where it's due!!! My favorite part, though, is the French spelling of "Minesotta".
Posted by: Holydust | March 22, 2008 10:51 AM
#3:
"sans plus d'arguments ni de données" I'm wrong... it's been a while.
Posted by: CalGeorge | March 22, 2008 10:55 AM
Getting back on topic...
"C'est alors que deux "policiers" (ou alors des vigiles avec des uniformes ressemblant de beaucoup à ceux de la police, j'ai pas eu le temps de voir leur badge), accompagnés du directeur du cinéma sont arrivés. La police nous a dit que PZ Myers était pas seulement interdit de visionnage du film, il était également interdit de cinéma tout court, et que s'il ne quittait pas immédiatement le batiment, il serait arrété pour trouble à l'ordre public et manifestation non autorisée." [source]
Expulsé!
Posted by: Jim Wynne | March 22, 2008 11:05 AM
Being almost totally illiterate in French, I was hoping that the phrase "puissant créateur" meant "pissant creator."
Posted by: Ryan | March 22, 2008 11:06 AM
You can copy/paste the title of the article into GOOGLE and then just have it translate it for you. Or you copy paste this in:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.rue89.com/2008/03/22/quand-un-puissant-createur-sinvite-dans-une-revue-scientifique&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522Quand%2Bun%2B%2522puissant%2BCr%25C3%25A9ateur%2522%2Bs%2527invite%2Bdans%2Bune%2Brevue%2Bscientifique%2522%26num%3D100%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG
Posted by: Ryan | March 22, 2008 11:13 AM
Sorry for that long link. Here's a shorter one. Google surprisingly translates it pretty well. A few errors, but I like to think of it as sounding like someone speaking with English as a second language:
http://tinyurl.com/2qh4ux
Posted by: Cat Faber | March 22, 2008 11:27 AM
#4, actually it looks to me like they're saying that the plagarism was first discovered by someone else, but became widely known when Pharyngula covered it.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 22, 2008 11:45 AM
The portion concerning how the plagiarism was discovered:
Rough translation:
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | March 22, 2008 12:07 PM
I think I have to resort to the machine translation in the future. A french/english translation collision meant I didn't make it beyond "puissant créateur" before ROTL ("pissant creator"; I know, I know... I said it was a collision; don't blame me for a "poorly" evolved brain trying to juggle three languages, you have to expect some cracked eggs).
But first a bow for the magazine choice of illustration. "Ces't une article très magnifique", if you pardon my (too old) french.
Posted by: Pierre | March 22, 2008 12:11 PM
Alright, French is my first language, so maybe for once I can contribute something truly useful to my favorite blog (no offense Phil!). I was actually considering translating the whole thing, but now I think it's unnecessary.
Overall, this article is quite good, and provides a thorough overview of the whole affair (which I happened to follow quite closely at the time). The first time I read it I thought it had one flaw, that it credited PZ with the discovery of the multiple instances of plagiarism; once I went back to those paragraphs I saw my mistake: the journalist has correctly stated that it was the Pharyngula community who had uncovered them.
Minnesota is mis-spelled, though. It's spelled the same way in French as in English.
Posted by: rpenner | March 22, 2008 12:14 PM
I think that hand-translation to formal French writing style and then Google-translation back to English improved the crazy part of the Warda and Han paper.
I like the characterization of science's relation to creationism:
I like the question if "coquillette" (tiny, eggy, elbow pasta) is Pastafarian heresy, or acceptable dogma.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 22, 2008 12:37 PM
I think "qui cache mal ses racines créationnistes" is better translated as "which poorly hides its creationist roots."
Posted by: Physicalist | March 22, 2008 12:45 PM
My French is weak, but I can make out enough to agree that it seems to offer quite a good account.
Boy, PZ and the Pharynguloids are just being bathed in fame!
Posted by: noncarborundum | March 22, 2008 12:50 PM
My French is a little rusty, but I think "retrait" here means "retraction", not "retreat".
Posted by: Physicalist | March 22, 2008 12:55 PM
Following CalGeorge's (#6) link
I see the following in the account of PZ's expulsion from expelled:
Am I correct in understanding that they actually had staff with photos of people to kick out? I hadn't heard this from other accounts, and was instead under the impression that someone like Mathis must have personally spotted PZ. If I'm reading it right, why didn't they just e-mail folks they didn't want and tell them they were dis-invited? Everyone had to show ID anyhow.
Posted by: sparc | March 22, 2008 12:57 PM
It is really sad that the Proteomics webpage for the article still links to other papers with the following text:
(emphasis mine)Posted by: Physicalist | March 22, 2008 1:03 PM
And I know that PZ quite rightly has zero interest in suing, but this too caught my eye:
I assume that Mathis & co. only rented a single screen and that other movies were showing in the theater. If so, then while they were certainly within their rights to bar him from the private screening, it does not seem that they would have legal grounds to ban him from the theater altogether. If he wanted to buy a ticket and see another movie, it seems to me that it would be illegal to refuse him entry.
Posted by: Logicel | March 22, 2008 1:08 PM
@rpennerYes, a very lively and funny discussion in the comments following a commenter's link to the FSM Wikipedia article thusly indoctrinating a whole new following for the FSM:
That the 'nouille' (noodle) is more spiritual than the 'coquillette.' But, no problem, because of transubstantiation, the nouille will be changed into a coquillette. Then the introduction of a 'pate a trois' (trinity of pastas)will only be resolved by the Inquisition Al Dente (this is where I laughed so hard I fell off my chair).
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | March 22, 2008 2:48 PM
Correct.
The more theological portions. And not "stolen" but "pulled". And the last paragraph (except for the last sentence) is in present, not past. Apart from that, the translation is perfect.
That's what it says.
Posted by: jason | March 22, 2008 3:15 PM
I'm surprised so many Pharyngula readers speak French. +1, me too.
Is French the second most popular language behind English here?
Posted by: Physicalist | March 22, 2008 4:09 PM
Well, my German is as bad as my French, which might be better than my Italian at this point. I can read an article and order a beer, but I'm not quite up to holding an intelligent conversation in any of them.
I promised a friend that I'd learn a little basic Dutch before I returned to the Netherlands, which I see is only a couple weeks off. I guess I'd better get busy . . .
Posted by: Fabienne Gallaire | March 22, 2008 4:32 PM
Wow! Thanks for the link PZ, and thanks to y'all Pharyngulites for having a look at the paper. I think I'm blushing...
I tried hard to synthetize all the data on the story, and I'm going to correct the spelling of Minnesota right know.
Posted by: Physicalist | March 22, 2008 4:41 PM
Thank you, Fabienne. Good reporting.
Oh and @ jason #23 David Marjanović obviously speaks German too; I believe that was part of the case for his Mollification. And with a name like that, I'd be surprised if he didn't also speak Serbo-Croatian. (Ne govorim hrvatski dobro, but I can sing a few songs.)
Posted by: Pierre | March 22, 2008 5:32 PM
Oui Fabienne, merci, c'est un bon exemple de journalisme 'solide' (ca nous change de ce qu'on trouve trop souvent en ligne de nos jours). / Thanks Fabienne, it's a good example of 'solid' journalism (unlike what we too often find on the 'net these days).
Posted by: Michelle | March 22, 2008 6:44 PM
"Puissant Créteur?" Uh? What?
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | March 22, 2008 8:26 PM
D'oh la la! Merde a Dieu! I can do better: "C'est".
Posted by: noncarborundum | March 22, 2008 10:38 PM
French for "Mighty Cretor".
My wife has a t-shirt in French that includes the phrase "travaux à l'aiquille". We translate that "neeblework".
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | March 23, 2008 5:29 AM
I don't speak/read any French, and was pleasantly surprised of the quality of the Google translation. Remember how bad Babelfish was?
Language wise, I speak/read Danish, and as an extension of that I can understand Swedish and Norwegian. I can also read German, though I mangle it when I speak it. I can also read Dutch, though it takes some effort, and it's only partly understandable.
Posted by: MG | March 23, 2008 5:39 AM
Excellent paper, as were most of the comments in the original pharyngula post.
Of course, there are french readers here!Bravo pour ce blog!
By the way, is the original pdf for the retracted paper still available somewhere? I would love to use it as a case study with my students.
Posted by: bPer | March 23, 2008 10:07 AM
Jason @#23 asked:
Mais bien sûr! ;)Posted by: James F | March 23, 2008 3:00 PM
Still nothing on Warda & Han's other plagiarism in the Glycoconjugate Journal, too.
Posted by: Penny | March 23, 2008 3:49 PM
I could actually understand the passages from the original Warda/Han text after they'd been translated into French. The English was so abominable, it was hard to tell just how stupid it was. I suppose the plagiarised passages were a bit better?!
Posted by: Penny | March 23, 2008 3:56 PM
Just wondering if these guys plagiarised the weird parts of their 'theory' from The Wind In The Door. Anyone remember that one?
Posted by: Fabienne Gallaire | March 23, 2008 8:04 PM
@MG #32 : Feel free to contact me, I got hold of the pdf.
Posted by: Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen | March 23, 2008 9:09 PM
Physicalist said (#26)
Jerry Douglas would like a word with you.
;-)