As you may have seen, it has emerged that Avicenna has been plagiarizing extensively on his blog, so we had to cut him loose from FTB.
He posted what he calls an apology after the plagiarism emerged and before we cut him loose. I wouldn’t call it an apology myself. It’s not actually apologetic, and it is quite self-aggrandizing and self-absorbed and self-serving. That’s…not how to apologize.
He doesn’t mention anything about the harm done to the rest of us, or gratitude for taking him on to begin with. That’s not how to apologize either.
So, altogether, not a very shining moment.
On a happier note, we have new people coming aboard soon.
I noticed Avicenna’s ‘apology’, but didn’t realise that he’d been shown the door from FTB.
I was reminded of a line from Tom Lehrer’s song about plagiarism (Lobachevsky)—
“Plagiarize! Plagiarize!..Let no one else’s work evade your eyes”
Why do people do it, particularly on the net, with its billions of users?
It seems very likely than many of Avicenna’s grand stories of his activities in India are also highly exaggerated if not completely fabricated. I had a 4 hour conversation with him on twitter as the plagiarism was first being pointed out, and the amount of lies he spewed to try to excuse it away was astonishing. It was like talking to a 10 year old caught in a fib.
[meta]
Jeff S: It seems very likely than many of Avicenna’s grand stories of his activities in India are also highly exaggerated if not completely fabricated because you had a 4 hour conversation with him and gained that impression?
(Well, perhaps it’s a mistake to just accept people’s claims…)
Did not meant to imply my conversation with him proves the first point.
The second bit was a bit of an aside, but a further testament to his persistent wilful dishonesty.
Avicenna’s numerous tall tales are well chronicled and documented here:
https://theyetisroar.wordpress.com/
Jeff S @4, they’re certainly alleged there, anyway.
So, that’s your belief’s actual basis, and the “second bit” was just confirmation?
Fair enough; your opinion and its basis are duly noted.
Yep, my belief is that is “very likely” that “many” of Avicenna’s grand stores of his activities in India are at least exaggerated.
The evidence collected by “Yeti” in that post outlines many claims that are very difficult to believe indeed.
Given that Avicenna was uncovered to be a serial plagiarist, and given that he offered hilariously bad lies to try to explain his plagiarism, leads me to belief that he very likely lying in those very unbelievable claims.
The guy tried to blame his plagiarism on his laptop publishing old draft verisons of his blog posts before he had a chance to fix the plagiarism in them. Then he blamed his poor internet connection. Then a power outage. He also defended it as being “2 or 3 lines in a 1000 word blog post”, despite it actually being 230 words plagiarised in a 730 word blog post.
He accused those who pointed out his plagiarism of being racists. He then said he would only admit to it and apologize if I donated to his fundraiser.
I honestly tried to help the guy to simply fess up and apologize before things got too out of hand, but he just kept backing himself further into a corner.
Nothing Avicenna has claimed can be taken at face value. The people who thought they knew him on FTB, probably didn’t.
[meta]
Jeff S @6:
Your #2 was hardly ambiguous; you repeat yourself needlessly.
To what evidence do you refer? You provided an URL, no more, assuming that because you consider it credible (you don’t think it’s “highly exaggerated if not completely fabricated”) your opinion is justified.
Which is a different justification, and no less inane. Your inferential chain is broken.
(The plagiarism itself is not controversial, but your purported inferences from that are speculative)
Some people are maddened by the situation. I’m just saddened.
IMHO nothing anyone claims can be taken at face value. Claims are always provisional, contingent and subject to revision when and if better information comes to light.
All people lie. Nobody seems to get the truth exactly right. Truth is, in my mind, sort of like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, it is startlingly difficult to tell the truth and get the placement, movement, and emotional weight of even the simplest situation exactly right. If you nail two of the three and get the third backward you are beating par. It is usually easier to misremember it than approximate it as it really was at the time.
The most tragic liars are those who lie as they think they tell the truth. Lying isn’t always a bad thing. Garrison Keillor is the type of liar we call a story teller and is quite good at it. So good that many of his biggest lies convey deep and abiding truths about humanity and reality. Truths that are not as easily illuminated or understood if set out in non-fiction form. He often gets the emotional weight and motion right while weaving the place and objects out of smoke and moonbeams.
Plagiarism is serious. It seems trivially easy to cite the origins of sources and avoid it. It is hard to imagine what might motivate anyone to avoid doing it.
One thing I know is that life is hard. Pretty much everyone has a tale of woe and, so far, I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t be classified as walking wounded, or worse. Humans are always hard pressed trying to resist taking shortcuts. Desperation and despair area always pushing us.
Another human fell short … sigh.
Next time … better.
So, lorn, you simply assume that everyone you interact with is lying to you? How does that work out?
Why is it speculative, John? Avi’s integrity is *shot* and how can we take anything he says at face value any longer, especially considering he has yet to actually apologize?
I wish they could have put him on some kind of probation and then, of course, kicked him out if he did it again. This would work, because so many people would be looking out for him to screw up again.
He had an interesting point of view and a unique personality that came through in his posts even with the problem of plagiarism. He didn’t plagiarize what he presented as his ideas and worldview.
He had the habit of using facts, claims and news stories without attribution, which he shouldn’t have done. But his commentary and analysis are still worthwhile.
The kind of thing he did: [ rather vague and sloppy summary of a controversial event] + [his opinion of it] = his blog post
when he should have done [summary of the event with proper attribution of sources] + [his opinion of it], etc.
At least that’s what I’ve gotten from what I’ve read so far about the scandal. It’s a common vice to be too casual when writing online; to treat it like a conversation as opposed to a published work. Hey, did you hear about this guy in Pakistan who was sentenced to death for blasphemy? [ and then go on to give one’s views on blasphemy laws and the death penalty] as opposed to According to such and such article in The Guardian [ followed by personal commentary].
As someone who finished college just before internet use became widespread, I’ve seen quite a battle between the idea of online communication as casual and amateur (like a discussion over drinks) and treating the internet as the equivalent of print publishing and other mass media. Of course, the standards changed in favor of the latter as so much of the culture and economy went online.
I admit that his offences may have been worse than I’ve gathered go far, and I’m still in the process of reading about it. Maybe Brayton and the others did the right thing. There’s a good change I’ll change my mind, since so many others support the decision.
Right now I feel kind of defensive since he was one of my favorite Freethought Bloggers.
Ed @ 12
He didn’t just plagiarize a few things. He did it a LOT. A large majority of the stuff you enjoyed reading? He did not write.
You didn’t enjoy his words. You enjoyed the words he stole from others. Plus his numerous multiple excuses to try to explain-away the blatant plagiarism, along with his not-apology? He doesn’t even really think he did anything wrong. He’s just sorry he caught caught.
His not-apology included him saying “I am a good writer” more than he said he was sorry! And he never even spoke about the damage he’s caused, or why people feel so betrayed. It was all about him. And then his twitter … yikes. He blamed everyone else for his mistake, when HE is the one who plagiarized. One thing I hate is that martyr attitude, and he had it in spades last night.
Personally, I had a hard time reading his words. He is a ridiculously bad writer. I gave up shortly after he began writing for FtB because he was impossible to read. I have no idea how he was *anyone’s* favorites — unless they are only remembering the bits he stole.
Like many others, I liked Avi and rather admired the work he was doing, or at least appeared to be doing.
On the other hand, he has hurt many people with this plagiarism, so I don’t know what to think now.
And it’s not like he didn’t know that plagiarism was bad. It’s pretty much the quickest way to completely ruin one’s academic career, and he just finished a doctorate degree. One gets repeated warnings against plagiarism in any university setting.
@Ed
No, you really can’t really have probation for plagiarism.
We live in a big world with a lot of media, people constantly writing and expressing their thoughts. No network is ever going to be able to keep track of all of it, which means it would be unlikely to catch Avi out again if he were even slightly careful.
Outright lying in a lot of ways is more forgivable because it is easier to track if someone is doing it again. You have to find the exact source of a plagiarized post, an outright lie just requires finding something that properly discredits it.
Second, FTB is partially about ethics in atheism, calling on other people to behave in an ethical manner.
That call for ethics – means if the network falls down in any way it discredits all of that work, because it becomes seen as a means of attacking other people rather than a genuine concern with the principles involved.
Avi already did a lot of damage by his own actions, inaction or overly mild action on the side of the network would be fatal. He needed to be ejected.
Ophelia Benson @ #10:
“So, lorn, you simply assume that everyone you interact with is lying to you? How does that work out?”
Answer: Lying, directly, on purpose, with a conscious intent to deceive … no. Most people’s self image won’t allow that sort of thing without good reason. What qualifies as a good reason is entirely subjective and highly variable. Even when the self image allows a lie uttering one too casually, particularly where they might be called out for it, tends to be painful and this tends keep even the sociopaths more or less honest, most of the time.
As I wrote “Claims are always provisional, contingent and subject to revision when and if better information comes to light.” That is simply a combination of skepticism and science.
It works out fine. I provisionally trust a good number of people, and some of them trust me. I assume that this trust is provisional also. A good example is a friend who happens to be addicted to opiates. I would trust her with my life. But when we go camping I make sure the higher level medical kit, the one with narcotics, doesn’t end up in her pack. There is simply no good reason to make her deal with it. There is nothing to gain, and a lot to lose.
And no, I don’t assume that I’m above any of this. Many of the most destructive lies are told to ourselves. So yes, I also lie, and lie to myself. It is always disappointing to find out that no matter how high our standards are, or imagine them to be, we are still just human.
Yea, I guess he had to go, it just upsets me because his blog was one of my top five favorites on here.
Sorry, I forgot to qualify that–marilove @ 13, I agree with you that he wasn’t particularly polished or beautiful to read aloud, but I put that down to a slight language barrier.
What drew me to him was the subject matter–India, Islam, medicine, etc. But now that I think about it, maybe the awkwardness was the different sources being run together clumsily.
lorn – ok, that expansion on what you said mostly makes sense. I was basically saying we mostly don’t default-suspect everyone about everything, but that’s not what you meant, so I don’t disagree.
I would describe it as: we mostly do take what people say at face value unless we have some conscious reason not to. But there are gradations, contexts, etc.
@marilove
Did you even read the comment you replied to?
Ed enjoyed Avi’s comments as far as he is aware (and from what I have seen), these are not what he has plagiarised.
Given that Avicenna was uncovered to be a serial plagiarist, and given that he offered hilariously bad lies to try to explain his plagiarism, leads me to belief that he very likely lying in those very unbelievable claims.
Is there EVIDENCE that Avi was lying about any of those things? We believe the claims of plagiarism because someone found EVIDENCE of plagiarism. So if you want us to believe he was lying about other things in his experiences, you’ll have to show EVIDENCE to back it up. “He’s guilty of X, therefore he could be guilty of just about anything else I can think of” doesn’t really cut it as proof of anything.
As I wrote “Claims are always provisional, contingent and subject to revision when and if better information comes to light.” That is simply a combination of skepticism and science.
…says the person who mindlessly accepted the claims that North Korea was behind the Sony hack, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
No, you really can’t really have probation for plagiarism.
I think probation would have been appropriate for Avi if he had been caught at his plagiarism much, much earlier. Now, however, too much damage has been done and it would look really spineless of FTB to treat it as a “first offense” or “isolated indiscretion.”
@Raging Bee #21: There is EVIDENCE that Avicenna was lying about being at/helping victims of bombings/protests. The evidence is not ironclad, as trying to disprove what someone says they did is much harder than finding incontrovertible proof of plagiarism. The evidence boils down to Avicenna not mentioning his involvement in these activities at the time the incidents occured (despite posting blog posts on the same days) but then later claiming to have been there and helped treat patients. The incidents also occurred very far away from where Avicenna was living, and would have required full day or multi-day travel arrangements for him to attend. Why a trainee doctor would be travelling 1000 miles to lend assistance when there are plenty of doctors nearby is also very odd.
A full breakdown of the EVIDENCE is here,
https://theyetisroar.wordpress.com/2014/12/31/the-fantastic-tales-of-avicenna-last-part-2/
You can argue that this evidence is not sufficient, but you cannot argue that there is NO evidence that many of his biographical claims seem unbelievable. Jason Thibeault (Lousy Canuck) also now doubts Avi’s claims.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2015/01/03/on-avicenna-plagiarism-and-thanking-those-who-regularly-cry-wolf-while-flailing-us-raw/
I’m not going to go through all of that, but a bit I did look over was the Hyderabad example, which is about Avicenna claiming to have worked with victims from the 2013 Hyderabad bombings when he lived hundreds of km away.
This claim is based on
Is this saying he is in Hyderabad? Or is it comparing what he is doing to what he saw of Hyderabad in the news – ‘the scenes from yesterday’ – and what the doctors there will have been doing? (albeit it in a confusing way – but no one ever said Avi’s writing was perfectly lucid)
He certainly doesn’t outright say ‘I am here and working with the victims’. Seems like a typical bit of Slymer smearing to me.