Walter Faxon sent me this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/18962349
QUOTE: "The problem is deep-rooted and systemic. Professors in Germany tend to work alone, with their subordinate research groups. Most will not criticise other professors, and they do not discuss problems, full stop. There is no official vetting or oversight. For decades in Germany there has been a creeping toleration of scientific misconduct, a looking away when lines were crossed. Anyone who spoke out was quickly silenced. Honest scholars have felt frustrated at seeing others getting away with cutting corners. Some teachers at the University of Cottbus are furious that a PhD dissertation containing massive text parallels on 40% of its pages has been officially declared to suffer only from 'technical weaknesses'. But people are speaking up, and plagiarism is being discussed in every university, even if many are unsure what to do. . . ." This is another sign that academic institutions are in trouble. Bear in mind, however, that we do not know how bad things are. We do not know whether they are worse than they used to be. I do not think there are statistics from the past, or graphs showing trends from the last 50 years. There has always been plagiarism. It has lately become easier to do thanks to the internet. Also, easier to catch. There has always been suppression of new ideas. Is it worse today than it used to be? I do not know. We do not know how many good ideas were successfully suppressed, because they are missing. They have been forgotten. We know only that many at ideas which survived were first suppressed, such as the maser and the MRI. There are some indications that things have gotten worse: First, the pace of progress is slower. Second, people complain about suppression and bureaucratic interference more than they used to. Years ago I read part of a book that described science in the 1920s compared to the 1990s. I wish I could recall the title. Anyway, it compared interviews and biographies of Nobel laureates and other distinguished scientists from two groups. Researchers in the 1990s complained about how difficult it was to get anything done, to get funded, or to publish anything. They complained that their ideas were rejected and they had to fight to get anything through. They portray their jobs as a constant slog to overcome opposition. The people from early in the century did not experience anything like that. For one thing it was a small world without much job competition, where everyone knew everyone. They got funded and they were left alone to do their experiments. I recall one famous memoir quoted in the book. There was a young physicist working with an older professor who was awarded the Nobel. The young scientist said he felt jealous. The older guy laughed and said, "don't fret; you'll get one soon enough." And so he did. - Jed
