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User: CheshireCatCO

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  1. Re:Agreed, and more so... on Fair Use In Scientific Blogging · · Score: 1

    The issue isn't citation, it's copying a figures and tables straight from the paper without permission. The latter are akin to artwork, which is what I think the blogger misses here. I don't really agree that she shouldn't be allowed to show a few select figures/tables, but her argument that it's taxpayer-funded (and therefore free to anyone) doesn't hold water.

  2. Re:I find opinions like this sad on Is The Term Paper Dead? · · Score: 1

    The professor is supposed to review every case that the system flags, not accept it's judgment. That's what the grandparent said and it's exactly the case. All the software does is flag cases where the wording is suspicious. If you have a few obvious, ten-word sentences that are verbatim to something in TurnItIn.com in your entire paper, you're not going to get accused to cheating by any reasonable person. If you have whole paragraphs (or longer) that are the same, you're going to set off bells.

    In my experience, students rarely copy a single sentence (let alone an obvious, easy one). They copy vast tracts of their papers. Sentence-by-sentence copying is almost as much work as just writing the paper in the first place and the key things about cheaters are that they're
    a) lazy
    b) confident that they won't get caught, no matter how blatantly they cheat.

  3. Re:Thanks for the explanation on Students Sue Anti-Plagiarism Service · · Score: 1

    I believe to be considered an "honor code" school, there not only has to be a school-wide procedure for dealing with allegations of cheating, students also have to be required to turn each other in if they witness cheating. Signing an honor pledge is not sufficient, at least by most definitions.

  4. Re:How did the studies define cheating? on Students Sue Anti-Plagiarism Service · · Score: 2, Informative

    Since you seem to be honestly interest, I've looked up the reports of studies which appear in "Academic Dishonest: An Educator's Guide" by Whitley and Keith-Spiegel.

    McCabe and Trevino (1993) apparently listed twelve cheating behaviors. The only behavior I'd call less than obviously cheat is that "copying a few sentences of material from a published source and not footnoting them." The rest are all things like copying an exam, plagiarism, getting access to an exam before it's administered, etc.

    Oh, and the study ONLY covers college careers. No high school or below is included in the questions.

    They find that overall, 78% of students reported at least one incident of one of those behaviors in college. (At honor-code schools it was 58% and at non-honor code schools it was 82%.) Cheating on exams is 52% overall, 31% at honor-code schools and 60% elsewhere. Copied homework assignments (which I'd personally lump in WITH plagiarism) are 42%, 25%, and 50% respectively. Plagiarism is 48%, 31%, and 57%.

    There are other studies cited in the first chapter of the above-mentioned book if anyone is curious. The McCabe and Trevino study just seems to be the best-performed and the most reported in the book.

  5. Re:Horrible system on Students Sue Anti-Plagiarism Service · · Score: 1

    Ah, you've gotten to the denying of data point in your argument. That was quick.

    No matter, you've just trashed what little credibility you had with me with the ad hominem attacks and the unwillingness to accept facts. I think you've made a better argument against yourself than I will be able to, so I'm happy to let this drop right here. (I'm betting you won't, in spite of your promise to do so, but knock yourself out anyway.)

  6. Re:How did the studies define cheating? on Students Sue Anti-Plagiarism Service · · Score: 1

    Typically, they rely on self-assessed cheating. In other words, it's cheating if the (ex-)student thinks it is. (These surveys are, of course, anonymous.) If anything, that likely reduces the number of reports from what a more stringent definition would yield. (e.g., most students wouldn't feel that honestly forgetting a citation is cheating.)

    Plagarism is a subset of cheating. Clearly, I can cheat without plagarizing. So yes, it is almost certainly the case that fewer students plagarize than cheat. Still, plagarism, especially in the age of Google, seems to be the most common form of cheating. (It's a lot easier and less risky than, say, sneaking a cheat sheet into an exam.)

    Publishing students' papers online might make sense, but it's not as central and as easily searched as TurnItIn (or other sites). In many ways, it suffers the same legal pitfalls, though.

  7. Re:Horrible system on Students Sue Anti-Plagiarism Service · · Score: 1

    And does your university kick out every person they catch cheating? If not, your statistics are bogus.

    I'll try to find the reports in my teaching books when I get home from work today. In the mean time, if you actually care, use Google. It'll report a lot of studies with cheating rates ranging between 50% and 90%. It's an open question which are the more reliable, though.

  8. Re:Horrible system on Students Sue Anti-Plagiarism Service · · Score: 1

    I hate to tell you this, but while YOU may not know of anyone who has cheated, it happens All. The. Time. More than 80% of students admit to cheating at some point in their college careers in most studies I've seen reported. I've had people try it on me several times (and I tend to implement counter-measures before the students even start on assignments) and I know many instructors who have had a lot more cheating occur in their classes than I have.

    People are cheating, they are just not telling *you*.

  9. Re:Above vs. below?.. on Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn · · Score: 1

    "Above" and "below" are relative to the ecliptic plane. (It is not dependent on the spin of the planet, which can vary quite a lot from one planet to the next. Look at Venus and Uranus.) That said, until 2009 the Sun will be shining on Saturn's southern hemisphere. So if you're looking at the lit face of the rings, you're below the planet. Conversely, if the rings are unlit by the direct sunlight, it's the north face. Confusingly, this will all change in August of '09. Not that I'm complaining, it's going to be a helluva time for ring observations.

  10. Re:Images hosted by NASA on Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn · · Score: 1

    Exactly, Saturn is very reflective (relative to the rings) and we're seeing it through the C ring, which is itself a pretty tenuous ring relative to the A and B rings. (It's also possible that there's some "bleed" in the CCD if Saturn is too over-exposed. Honestly, rings scientists would love to just remove the planet completely...)

  11. Re:Why not... on Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn · · Score: 1

    We're not even allowed to fly through most of the thinnest rings, let alone the ones visible from Earth. Still, plowing through the B ring is my favorite end-of-mission scenario. If you have to destroy the spacecraft, you might as well doing it in a fun way.

  12. Re:*below* the planet ?!? on Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn · · Score: 1

    all the planets orbit the sun in a similar equatorial plane. Ecliptic plane, you mean? The equatorial planes are wildly different.
  13. Re:*below* the planet ?!? on Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn · · Score: 1

    Nope, at least not if you're interested in Saturn. The rings, being planar, make a strong case for an "above" and a "below". So we frequently do use those terms, at least speaking loosely. I can't recall the same being true for other planets, although it might be.

  14. Re:Vertigo? on Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn · · Score: 5, Informative

    The different angles are actually very important when working on the rings. The photometry changes radically at different phase angles, from different latitudes, and when viewing different ring longitude. From the variations we can deduce a great deal about structures in the rings, particle sizes, and so forth.

  15. Re:Forget the crappy "ciclops" site, try NASA... on Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn · · Score: 2

    Are you using "crappy" to mean "Slashdotted"? Seems rather an unfair use of the adjective.

  16. Re:Parallel? Coplanar. on Cassini Returns Amazing New Imagery from Saturn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I suspect that the term "parallel" was chosen because "coplanar" isn't as widely understood among the general public. When writing press-releases they have to strike a delicate balance between complete accuracy and comprehension. There's a sort of perverse Heisenberg Uncertainty principle at play, there.

  17. Re:Sorry Skinflute.. We are a Democracy. on Avoiding the Word "Evolution" · · Score: 1

    Are you trying to argue that our entry into WWI was because of the Senate becoming directly elected? Wow, that's... impressive. Especially considering we had *already* been to war with Mexico and Spain and we had not yet reached out economic peak. Your theory is easily proven wrong by facts you should already have known.

    Now, whether direct election of senators is better than letting the legislature do it is another question. The Constitution was changed in 1913 toward direct elections for several very good reasons, including corruption in the election process. (And it is a lot harder to bribe an entire state than the key votes in the legislature.)

    In any case, direct versus indirect election don't matter. We choose the electors, it's a democracy and we have always elected the House. This has always been a democratic republic no matter how you try to squirm out of it.

  18. Re:Who came up with this? on Avoiding the Word "Evolution" · · Score: 1

    I think that you pretty much nailed it. Biologists writing for biologists probably figure that evolution is assumed by their colleagues. I know that I don't mention gravity every time I say something is in orbit around Saturn since I figure my technical audiences will assume something so fundamental to the field as that.

  19. Re:Sorry Skinflute.. We are a Democracy. on Avoiding the Word "Evolution" · · Score: 1

    Nope, we're both. We're a democratic republic, as a matter of fact. The People choose the government, but the actual governing is done (mostly) by representatives.

    Contrast that to the Roman Republic where the people didn't vote for the Senators at all.

    The fact that we elect representatives does not negate the fact that this is a democracy. Frankly, I'm kind of tired to hearing people make the same claim you did. It's wrong no matter how often it's repeated.

  20. 1% of 26% = 0.26%? on Consumers Unlikely To Pay $500 for iPhone · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So basically, one person their entire sample was willing to pay the iPhone's nominal, current price? That's a pretty shoddy sample to be deducing the actual percent from.

    Also, note that just because the majority of people won't buy a particular product, it does not follow that the product will necessarily fail. What percent of Americans owned iPods when they first came out? It's up to around 10% now, but we're also into the fifth generation and the prices have dropped while capability has increased. Since this is common with technology, I would expect the same from the iPhone.

  21. Re:Not the First, Folks on First Exoplanet Atmospheres Analyzed · · Score: 1

    Oddly, I *did* RTA, but thank you for patronizing. The difference between molecules and elements is irrelevant in terms of spectroscopy. Your spectra contains what's there either way. You might as well tout each new species you detect in a big press release, it's basically the same thing.

    Don't get me wrong, this is a cool result and it has a lot more potential than the HST technique. My problem is that this sounds a lot like another case of scientists trying to overplay the importance of their results to the media or the media doing the same.

  22. Not the First, Folks on First Exoplanet Atmospheres Analyzed · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is great research and all, but I would think that the people at Spitzer would be a lot more cognizant and courteous to their colleagues and not inflate their claims of priority. A team already analyzed the atmosphere of a transiting exoplanet using STIS on Hubble. It's a different situation (most exoplanets don't transit, after all), but they HST team did this around five YEARS ago. I remember hearing talks about it at the time, it was a big deal. Surely the Spitzer team should have known about this?

  23. Re:Reversal of opinion in the internet age on NASA's New Mission to the Moon · · Score: 1

    Funny how after 30 years of listening to people say "when will we go back and who will that be?" now people are saying "Is it worth going back to the lunar surface?" How did this reversal of thinking happen? Maybe there is no reversal? Maybe you're treating all of humanity as a single monolith entity with a single opinion and maybe that's an absurd thing to do? The people who were (and are) worried about our return to the Moon are probably not the same people, in general, as the ones who demanded (and continue to demand) a return to the Moon.
  24. Re:What's that thing for? on Space Station Suffers Power Glitch · · Score: 1

    a) OK, if enough of the human race needed to keep the species going can live in shelters on, say, Mars, then why not build those shelters on Earth? Again, anything we can do on another planet to make it (or part of it) habitable we ought to be able to do on Earth for a lot less money.

    b) I never suggested you were trying to say everyone should leave. But do be aware that a reasonable breeding population is at least a few thousand people if you want long-term genetic viability. (Last I saw an estimate for that, anyway. It may have changed, I'm not a biologist.) That's a decent-sized colony.

    c) You're arguing for my point, not against it. Iraq is a mess largely in part because the public (and Congress) was lied to. Now the Administration has lost almost all of its support and if we didn't have troops there and we weren't worried about the problem becoming worse if we withdrew, Congress and the American public would insist on getting us out of there right now. For space exploration, the forces that would try to make us stay the course would be far, far less compelling to most people. When we get to the point where people feel like the project is a mess, is a waste of money, and was sold on a lie, there's not much to keep them from canceling it.

  25. Re:What's that thing for? on Space Station Suffers Power Glitch · · Score: 1

    Again, I ask: how will terraforming another planet be any easier than fixing this one? As risk management strategies go, it's better to fix what you have rather than build a new one. (At a vastly higher cost.) That argument just doesn't work for me, I'm sorry.

    And I've already covered resources. Unless we get a cheap way to get material up to orbit and down again, anything produced on other worlds will be more expensive than growing it, mining it, or building it here. At least until we find things we can't get on Earth, but I have yet to see anyone show me something that's worth going out there for.

    Look, the main reason we're exploring space now is because it's cool and it's interesting. That's a fine reason and as long as taxpayers are being told what they're funding and why, I have no problem with it. It's when people make claims like the ones you've just repeated, promising wealth and safety that are not going to appear that I get concerned. The taxpayers and Congress aren't stupid: they won't pay for this stuff forever if they've being sold on a lie. Tell them the truth, tell them the cost, and then ask them to decide if it's worth it to them. It's not really that much to ask.