Syndicate Will Look Into Alleged Coulter Plagiarism On Its Own

Editor and Publisher ^ | July 6 06 | Editor and Publisher

[churchillbuff]

Universal Press Syndicate issued a statement this afternoon saying it might look into the plagiarism allegations against Ann Coulter in two possible ways.

"We'll see what we can find on our own," said Kathie Kerr, the syndicate's director of communications, noting that Universal would use the information referenced in Sunday's New York Post article. That story quoted John Barrie, creator of the iThenticate plagiarism-probing system, who said he had easily found several examples of alleged plagiarism in Coulter's new "Godless" book and in her Universal columns from the past year. Several blogs had earlier found these and other examples.

Kerr added that Universal may also use a plagiarism-finding tool from Barrie's company.

The Universal spokeswoman said Barrie has yet to return her call (he hasn't returned E&P's calls either), but added that she did hear from a sales-division person at the iParadigms company with which Barrie is affiliated. Kerr said she was told that iParadigms wasn't sure if it "could provide the same information about Coulter as was given to the Post," but that the syndicate "could subscribe to the service that provided the information" to that newspaper.

"This tool is a service sold through subscription on LexisNexis," said Kerr. "We use the research tool on LexisNexis quite a bit. The plagiarism tool is called Copyguard and is about a year old. We'll want to set up a trial period and of course get pricing on this tool, but it sounds like something that would benefit us. I don't know how long it will take to get a trial period set up."

Universal syndicates Coulter's column to more than 100 newspapers.

[tallhappy]

PS.

I just looked at inannities. It is vacuous.

[grey_whiskers]

Well, for completeness' sake.

Here is InANNities Part I and InANNities Part II live from Darwin Central.

Note also their are links critical of the first chapter of Godless as posted on TownHall.com, and (don't remember if it is related) criticism of her discussion of Chernobyl, as being misleading or sloppily researched.

BTW if you are interested, VadeRetro of FR, and RightWingProfessor --late of FR, his account is now gone :-(
seem to be active contributors.

I don't happen to have seen Dimensio, Coyoteman, Junior, or Patrick Henry during my limited sojourn on the site...

No conclusions drawn either way from the latter.

Cheers!

[tallhappy]

VadeRetro of FR, and RightWingProfessor --late of FR, his account is now gone :-( seem to be active contributors.

Which is definitely not a positive. Both of them are of the lowest intellectual order and quite biased.

[tallhappy]

Thanks. I looked at inannities1. The star fish "eye spot" on the foot is inane in itself.

These guys posts pictures from decades and centuries ago and think they are presenting high level biology.

Their attempts don't even rise to the level of sophomoric.

[grey_whiskers]

Both of them are of the lowest intellectual order and quite biased.

Sorry, I have to disagree with that. I can personally vouch for the high intellectual attainments of RWP, from private FReepmails. But it is true that in addition to their high IQ's (intelligence quotient) they have an equally large IQ (irascibility quotient).

Guys, sorry to drag you into this, but you *were* mentioned by name. Netiquette demands I ping you...

Cheers!

[tallhappy]

Both the two you mention are ignorant buffoons. Vade Retro seems a nice enough fellow. RWP is quite misanthropic and nasty and will be incredibly personally viscious.

Neither knows biology.

Both are zealots with respect to antiGod issues.

But, this is all established and on record.

[tallhappy]

OK. Here. Some actual biology.

Why is it called an "eye spot" and not an eye?

Is this "eye spot" considered a precursor to the eye? If so, what molecular evidence supports this?

[grey_whiskers]

The star fish "eye spot" on the foot is inane in itself.

Not sure why you say this...try Googling, it seems to be well-established (Wikipedia under sea star, for example).

And other sites with no apparent axe to grind (http://universe-review.ca/R10-33-anatomy.htm#echinoderms, http://www.ns.purchase.edu/biology/bio1560lab/starfish.htm) seem to back them up on this.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

I don't know: but a "photosensitive spot" sure sounds like a precursor to an eye like me; and it is on a spot other than the face--which therefore is a contradiction to Coulter's question.

The fact that it is so comparatively easy to spot (no pun intended), and yet wasn't researched by Ann or her editors, indicates she wasn't too careful on background.

Tell you what, post those questions on Darwin Central and get back to me...I have a doctorate in molecular collision theory but haven't studied photosensitive biomechanical development in echinoderms. :-)

Cheers!

[Old Professer]

We have two currents running in the same backwater lately; there is no new music so the holders of the copyrights are trying to sell everything multiple times while the rest of us consider sharing to be a virtue and the first person to have put four words in a row seems now to be considered to own that slot-drop when it is convenient, so once upon a time has now become this ain't no shit.

The human experience is a spiraling set of parallels separated only by the healing salve of time and the brash freshness of hope.

[torchthemummy]

Plagiarism is to a passage or passages and pass them off as your own. Can this be the case if surely the passage is presented word-for-word but with the opposite intention - ie. satire? I seriously doubt it.

I would be very pleased if Ann did this on purpose where the 25 words exposed will prove to be less than beneficial to Planned Parenthood while allowing Anne to repeat her point and then asking if they disavow their own words.

Not to mention additional publicity.

[torchthemummy]

Lists

Following are the fifteen items from Coulter's list (Chapter 7, Page 197) side-by-side with those that appear at the Illinois Right To Life Committee's website:

Illinois Right To Life: Spinal cord injury repair (using stem cells from nasal and sinus regions)

Coulter: Repairing spinal cord injuries by using stem cells from nasal and sinus regions.

Illinois Right To Life: Complete reversal of juvenile diabetes in mice using adult spleen cells

Coulter: Completely reversing Type 1 diabetes in mice using adult spleen cells

Illinois Right To Life: Crohn’s Disease put into remission (using patient’s blood stem cells)

Coulter: Putting Crohn's disease into remission with the patient's own blood stem cells

Illinois Right To Life: Lupus put into remission (using stem cells from patient’s bloodstream)

Coulter: Putting lupus into remission using stem cells from the patient's bloodstream

Illinois Right To Life: Repair heart muscle in cases of congestive heart failure (using stem cells from bone marrow)

Coulter: Repairing the heart muscles in patients with congestive heart failure using adult stem cells from bone marrow.

Illinois Right To Life: Repair heart attack damage (using the patient’s own blood stem cells)

Coulter: Repairing heart attack damage with the patient’s own blood stem cells

Illinois Right To Life: Restore bone marrow in cancer patients (using stem cells from umbilical cord blood)

Coulter: Restoring bone marrow in cancer patients using stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

Illinois Right To Life: Restore weak heart muscles (using immature skeletal muscle cells)

Coulter: Restoring weak heart muscles using immature skeletal muscle cells

Illinois Right To Life: Put leukemia into remission (using umbilical cord blood)

Coulter: Putting leukemia into remission using umbilical cord blood

Illinois Right To Life: Heal bone fractures (using bone marrow cells)

Coulter: Healing bone fractures with bone marrow cells.

Illinois Right To Life: Restore a blind man’s sight (using an ocular surface stem-cell transplant & a cornea transplant)

Coulter: Restoring sight in blind people using an ocular surface stem-cell transplant and a cornea transplant

Illinois Right To Life: Treat urinary incontinence (using under arm muscle stem cells)

Coulter: Treating urinary incontinence using stem cells from underarm muscle

Illinois Right To Life: Reverse severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) (using genetically modified adult stem cells)

Coulter: Reversing severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) with genetically modified adult cells.

Illinois Right To Life: Restore blood circulation in legs (using bone marrow stem cells)

Coulter: Restoring blood circulation in legs with bone marrow stem cells.

Illinois Right To Life: Treat sickle-cell anemia (using stem cells from unbilical cord blood)

Coulter: Treating sickle-cell anemia using stem cells from umbilical cord blood.

(NOTE: RAW STORY has uncovered similiar examples from Coulter's latest book and will be reporting on them shortly)

[tallhappy]

There is actually very little on the eye spot in star fish other than there are light sensitive pigments on its feet.

The inanity of the Darwin Central response is not that star fish have a light spot, but that they think this would address her comment.

The problem is this is all exposition, not science per se. It is parry debate for the sake of debate without enough actual information known to even address the issue except in broad unprovable ways -- which can be fun and is the sort of thing that people passionate about their beliefs like to do.

But it is not science.

The people at Darwin Central are ill informed adolescent minded zealots. Panda's Thumb is much better.

Still, these discussion with these boys are boring and reducnent and never ended or progressing. What science they know is old old old and often obsolete. As far as evolutionary ideas today there are much more cutting edge web sites that I have never seen mentioned here on any of these threads.

[tallhappy]

What is molecular collision theory?

[ladyinred]

Ann does not embarrass me in the least. She tells it like it is. Too bad the left can't take it.

[grey_whiskers]

Recall that a molecule (broad brush description) is a series of atoms held together by the mutual attraction of the nuceli and the electrons: most molecules share the outermost electrons among the atoms, so that the electrons spend more of their time (on average) around one of the nuclei instead of the others.

As it turns out, the nuclei in a molecule can vibrate about an "equilibrium" position. (Think of Toy Story's Slinky Dog with his front and back ends bouncing back and forth, closer and further and closer and further from each other).

Or Slinky Dog can chase his tail.

Or he can high-tail it across the room chasing a truck.

There are other things that can happen too, but I'm too tired to come up with a simple analogy.

Molecular collision theory is what happens when one Slinky Dog is running down the hall and another is coming out of Andy's bed room at high speed: or you can think of an old-fashioned Demolition Derby. One of the dogs who was vibrating can now be vibrating faster, or spinning. One who was chasing his tail can now be chasing his tail while vibrating. One who was minding his own business can now be running away barking furiously.

Or any combination of the above.

I modeled gas-phase collisions of molecules using quantum mechanics and classical mechanics (special case) to predict how the molecules would trade vibrational, rotational, and translational energy when they collided.

I now have a nice plaque on my wall to remind me of that happy time before I entered the real world and actually had to *work* for a living :-)

Now, if I could get paid for *FReeping* :-) :-) :-)

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

And what site did you lift the side-by-side comparison from?

See how easy it is to get hoist on that petard?

Full Disclosure: Look back within the last 2 days at my comments -- "In Forum" link on my Freeper home page.

I have posted a comment which has links to 2 different sites claiming to give examples of Ann's "plagiarism".

If one is restating a fact, or compiling a list of talking points, then that is different than trying to pass of someone else's work as entirely one's own. Perhaps if you quoted the paragraphs from Ann's book which are immediately before and immediately after the list you gave in your post, we could see if Ann was attempting to take credit, or just firing someone else's ammo at an intellectual target of opportunity.

Cheers!

[VadeRetro]

You keep talking to RWP. Agamemnon suicide belted him, getting them both banned.

[grey_whiskers]

You keep talking to RWP. Agamemnon suicide belted him, getting them both banned.

I was in Alaska for 10 days from end of June to July 5th or 6th. I must have missed it. Can you at least tell me the thread it was on?

As I said to RadioAstronomer: RIP, RWP.

RWP was too abrasive, but he helped weed out intellectual sloppiness on the threads.

No cheers that he's gone.

[VadeRetro]

The thread was pulled at the time of the bannings.