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And there was much glee in the Slymepit.
“And there was much glee in the Slymepit.”
Who cares?
Alas. Not a blog that I read, just a name I saw mentioned here and there. (No, I do mean THIS ‘Avicenna’ not the Persian.
There really does seem to be a pitfall around attribution and sourcing when writing on the web. The details of Avicenna’s offence aren’t clear from his confession. Was he pulling quotes from hostile emails without taking the background effort he would when sharing a citation from a friendly source?
The rundown of his documented plagiarism is here.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/01/03/another-atheist-caught-in-case-of-serial-plagiarism/
Actually copying and pasting large sections of text from news sources without attribution.
This is actually much more serious than plagiarism. I took a look at the Slymepit for the first time today. Found I was banned permanently (don’t know how that could happen, unless they automatically ban people who have commented on FtB). But I could get stuff from Google’s cache. The charges against Avicenna are astonishing. Many of the things he has claimed on his blog are crazy and highly improbable, and when confronted with their craziness, Avicenna has given exactly the same dissembling, dishonest explanations that he gave in his “Apology” re plagiarism. Some of his false claims appear to be documented in the Slymepit. There are many examples, such as his improbable claim to have been involved in the autopsy of the raped Indian girls who were hung from a tree. When confronted, he walked that claim back in a ridiculous manner.
Frankly, no matter where charges against Avicenna had come from, any administrators worthy of respect would have looked into them. Now that some have been proven, the others should be given a real examination. I would hope that Ed or PZ or one of the other bloggers would investigate Avicenna’s claims publicly and openly. That’s the only way to clear the stink that this episode leaves.
claims of plagiarism were investigated, confirmed, and the proper measures taken.
claims that Avicenna wasn’t even a doctor, as you see commonly in the pit, were also dealt with as they merited.
…with much laughter and derision.
sorry dude, just because a broken clock is right twice a day, does not make it something you should pay attention to.
Icthyic, there are many more charges there, and some of them are more plausible than the “Avi is innocent” version. I’ve mentioned a few of them on Ed’s post announcing Avicenna’s departure:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2015/01/03/avicenna-has-been-removed-from-freethought-blogs/#comment-393035