To see how far academics can be corrupt, see German defence minister scandal!

[SilverbladeTE]

as a general warning on how far corruption and ego can go, just because you have a PhD, doesn't mean you know automatically jack squat or are actually able to operate in the field, so yeah, always check folks' work and ethics. Most people are honest and their work valid...but there's always ratbags, in ANY field.

A PhD or whatever, is just a statement of as it were, completing "basic training", real work tends ot comes afterward ya leave Uni
(with the exception of some serious research and creative works, some folk earn their PhDs or BSCs etc, with damn hard and long, or amazing, effort)

in this case his work was on constitutional and historical stuff about Eurpe/USA.
But lot of science/medical researchers over the years have been shown to be frauds, egotistical maniacs or just plain old decent folk with issues that overwhelm them, too.
I love science, but it's not some damn Ivory Tower of Perfection, built by lot of hard mostly very boring work of great patience, and constantly gets worked on, with a few bad bits removed, lots of erroneous bits updated etc.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12608083

1 March 2011 Last updated at 13:28 S
German Defence Minister Guttenberg resigns over thesis
Mr Guttenberg said he was not able to defend himself any further

German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has stepped down after he was found to have copied large parts of his 2006 university doctorate thesis.

Mr Guttenberg, considered until recently a possible candidate for chancellor, has already been stripped of his PhD.

He told a news conference that it was "the most painful step of my life".

Tens of thousands of German academics have written to Chancellor Angela Merkel complaining about his conduct.

The plagiarism scandal led to him being nicknamed Baron Cut-and-Paste, Zu Copyberg and Zu Googleberg by the German media.

But Ms Merkel had continued to stand by him, with her party facing three state elections later this month.

Mr Guttenberg told reporters in Berlin that he was relinquishing all his political offices and he thanked the chancellor for her support, trust and understanding.

Continue reading the main story
Analysis

Stephen Evans

BBC News, Berlin

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The defence minister had been under intense pressure after it was revealed that half the pages in his doctoral dissertation mirrored word for word the work of others.

He said it was a mistake but there was widespread scepticism. Chancellor Angela Merkel was also being criticised for standing by him.

She had, she said, taken him on as a defence minister and not as a research assistant.

But her loyalty was tested when people not in the opposition questioned how he could stand in front of troops for whom he was responsible and lecture them on matters of honesty, particularly after the university that had awarded him the doctorate stripped him of it.

Mrs Merkel stood by him and now sees her efforts come to nothing.

According to Konrad Jarausch, a political scientist at the Free University in Berlin: "It's bad for Merkel and she stuck with him far too long."

Germany's Baron without a title
"I must agree with my enemies who say that I was not appointed minister for self-defence, but defence minister," he said.

"I was always ready to fight, but have to admit I have reached the limit of my strength."

A 39-year-old aristocrat popular with the electorate, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of the chancellor's Christian Democrats.

He came under pressure after a Bremen University law professor began reviewing his 2006 thesis with the aid of the internet.

Reports emerged of a passage from a newspaper article that featured word for word, and then of a paragraph from the US embassy website being used without attribution.

Analysts then estimated that more than half the 475-page thesis had long sections lifted from other people's work.

Eventually the University of Bayreuth, which had awarded him a doctorate, decided that Mr Guttenberg had "violated scientific duties to a considerable extent".

He had already prompted opposition criticism in December for taking his TV presenter wife on a visit to German troops in Afghanistan complete with a large corps of press photographers.


Angela Merkel been accused of mistakenly standing by Mr Guttenberg As his popularity began to wane Mr Guttenberg's political allies began to desert him. Parliamentary Speaker Norbert Lammert spoke of his actions as "a nail in the coffin for confidence in democracy".

For the opposition Social Democrats, Wolfgang Thierse, vice-president of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, said Chancellor Merkel had been wrong to assume that what her defence minister had done as a private individual had no bearing on his position as minister.

By Tuesday the newspaper Die Welt reported that the number of academics who had signed the letter objecting to his continued role in the government had climbed to 51,500.

One of the most blistering comments came from law professor Oliver Lepsius, who succeeded his doctoral supervisor at Bayreuth.

"We have been taken by a fraud. His brazenness in deceiving honourable university personnel was unique," he wrote.

 

[Merry]

"Retractions by U.S. scientists, compared with the retractions by scientists of other countries, are more often due to fraud."

This is from Harper's Margazine, February 2011, on the "Findings" page, which compiles in a few paragraphs outcomes of research and sometimes court cases. The aim of the compilers is to amuse, I guess, and no sources for any of the items are provided. I don't know if the "Findings" page is accessible to non-subscribers at the magazine's website.

 

[Enid]

Rotten silverbade is it not, like all other institutions not above dishonesties I guess.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Disel
plagarism is a HUGE problem for all higher learning institutes nowadays, as is out right fraud :/
there's online services, who for cash, will write up or give you a specially "tweaked" copy of a thesis or whatever (I will not even name or give articles about that, for obvious reasons)
hence there's actually special services/software apparently to check for this kind of stuff, and work by law agencies to cut down on the cash services

What's annoying as hell to me, is, that this guy has very wealthy background and still did this, now I know he may well have been rushed, and I'll be the first to say pressures of life can push you to do stupid damn things, but hey, he has money/time to re-do, take a break, whatever.

I couldn't get a University education: family was poor, out of work/disbaled (back in 1980s, horrendous unemployment in my area), greedy government and other issues resulted in no chance of grant/scholarship funding it (best I could get was 3000 MAYBE out of 15000 needed)
Least I managed ot get to college about 10 years ago afore my health ruined that.
So, seeing this well-to-do fella, cheat...oh boy!

know what I mean?

now, form what Little I've heard of the guy he seems interesting, good reforms on military? National Service is *BAD* for the army, such work can be good for the person when done right, but conscripted armies suck in practice versus volunteers (sorry, hard fact)
dunno about this scandal of mutiny/death on ship, that's very serious, what's the background on that?

Msot of the "media" are the "psychs" of the public world!! Jeesh they may pretend to be Left or Right, but it's a croc, you'll find most of them are up tot their eyeballs in crap.
Over here, Guardian is supposed to be a very forethright, investagative "Liberal" newspaper
not just "Left", more..."thoughtful", ya know? often come out with very damn good reports on stuff foolk want covered up
So, they had been ripping into the bankers over the financial crisis, and quite rightly so
BUT...turns out the Guardian had made a fortune from share/money dealings during that same damn period, ie, they are jsut as bad as the ones they castigated!!