Been Caught Stealing
Kent Hovind claims to
deserve one of the highest titles in academia: the PhD. Therefore Hovind should
be aware of the protocols regarding plagiarism. However, the following
article will amply demonstrate that Hovind flagrantly practices plagiarism.
Plagiarism is the act of
passing the work of another person as your own [1]. Plagiarism is an absolute academic sin. Plagiarism is so
serious that even first year undergraduates are threatened with serious
consequences for such an act - i.e. expulsion, automatic failure.
Why is plagiarism such an
important issue? Intellectual activities produce ideas on paper.
Those ideas require time and effort. This research and resulting text is
intellectual property. Using someone else's intellectual property falsely
inflates the plagiarizer’s efforts. Plagiarism defrauds both the
original author and the reader.
Despite the onerous
expectation to avoid plagiarism, this sin is easy to avoid. Always cite
sources when using other people’s ideas or data. If copying text
directly (avoid if possible) always indicate the text is quoted and therefore
the work of another author. These simple requirements should be
second nature to anyone with any academic qualifications.
The first example in the
case against Hovind occurs in the online article Doesn’t
carbon dating or Potassium Argon dating prove the Earth is millions of years
old? (April 2005).
UPDATE: (Dec 2005) Hovind, or his staff, have altered the offending web page but only by shortening the whole article. A copy of the original page can be found here.
The table below shows
excerpts from the materials of Kent Hovind compared to another Young Earth
Creationist named Walt Brown. Walt Brown's material is shown as
written on his web site with the location of a footnote noted. Hovind's
material is included in the exact order as presented on his web site.
Hovind puffed his piece up with full citations at the end of each section.
Notice how closely Hovind's order and wording matches Brown.
|
Brown
[2] |
Hovind
[3] |
|
This probably explains why different parts of the first Vollosovitch mammoth had widely varying radiocarbon ages—29,500 and 44,000 RCY. One part of Dima was 40,000 RCY, another was 26,000 RCY, and “wood found immediately around the carcass” was 9,000–10,000 RCY. The lower leg of the Fairbanks Creek mammoth had a radiocarbon age of 15,380 RCY, while its skin and flesh were 21,300 RCY. [footnote citation here] The two
Colorado Creek mammoths had radiocarbon ages of 22,850 +/- 670 and 16,150
+/- 230 years. |
"One
part of the Vollosovitch mammoth carbon dated at 29,500 years and another
part at 44,000. --Troy
L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central
Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing
office, 1975) p. 30. |
Brown implies with the
position of a footnote citation the source for his Vollosovitch, Dima and
Fairbanks data was [4]
Troy L. Péwé, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in
Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862
(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1975), p. 30. (online)
Hereafter this article
will be described as "Pewe (1975)"
Brown does not give a
citation for the Colorado Creek data. Perhaps Brown is only claiming a source
for the Fairbanks data and is not citing a source for remaining data sets?
What did Hovind do?
Hovind cites the Vollosovitch and Dima data as originating from Pewe (1975).
Strangely, Hovind ignores Brown's claimed source for the "Fairbanks Creek
Mammoth" and directly cites Brown. However, we can know that
Hovind did not personally look at Pewe (1975) otherwise he would have spotted
the errors made by Brown. What errors?
"Vollosovitch
mammoth"
Hovind claims there is a
reference to a specimen called the "Vollosovitch mammoth" within Pewe
(1975). The bottom line is there is no reference to any creature with that
name. There are no specimens matching any of the claimed ages.
We can safely conclude
that Hovind didn't read his claimed source and simply plagiarized from Brown.
We can only speculate why Brown got it wrong first.
"Baby Dima"
We know Hovind plagiarized
Brown's work because the mammoth known as Dima wasn't found until 1977 [11]
so therefore could not be included in a paper published in 1975. Hovind
copied directly from Brown and included Brown's erroneous implied citation.
Hovind also used Brown's
exact text in the booklet Are You Being Brainwashed? including the
incorrect citations. Ironically, the booklet was intended to argue how the
public school system uses "lies in the textbooks". [12]
"Fairbanks Creek
Mammoth"
Hovind (and Brown) claim a
mammoth they call the "Fairbanks Creek Mammoth" was dated as both
15,380 and 21,300 years old. Brown claims the source for this data is Pewe
(1975) but Hovind only cites Brown. But if Hovind had read Pewe (1975) - as he
cited for the Vollosovitch and Dima data - he should have known the
"Fairbanks Creek Mammoth" doesn't exist!
Below is a extract from
Pewe (1975, p30) showing these supposedly anomalous results circled on the left
side. Then look to the far right of each date - this identifies the discoverer
of each specimen. The younger specimen (15,380 years) was discovered by
Osborne in 1940. The older specimen (which ironically was a baby) was
discovered by Geist in 1948. In other words, we are dealing with two
different mammoths discovered eight years apart.
We can conclude that
Hovind plagiarized Brown and misrepresented the extent of his own personal
research by implying he had personally researched his cited sources.
Hovind Responds
When challenged by myself (full
text) regarding the evidence that Hovind had plagiarized material from Walt
Brown (using the Baby Dima data as an example) Hovind had this to say;[5]
Carl
writes, "You plagiarized Walt Brown and tried to pass his work off as your
own. Do you think that is appropriate behavior for the holder of a
PhD?" Well I ... Carl, I don't know where you get this. Walt
Brown is a good friend of mine, call him and ask him. I've talked to Walt
many times. I said, "Hey, Walt, can I use your material?
Can I use your video clips?" "Sure. Go ahead. Go for
it." I'm not plagiarizing Walt Brown. Carl, you're confused or
you're lying, one of the two.
Hovind, who claims he deserves a PhD, appears to not
understand what plagiarism is. He appears to think it is only something to
do with copyright. Note also the difference between what
I wrote and what Hovind read on his internet broadcast.
A second series of examples illustrating the practice of
plagiarism by Kent Hovind occurs in the online article If
the earth [sic] is only 6,000 years old, how do we see stars billions of light years
away? as at April 2005
UPDATE (Dec 05) Hovind (or his staff) have completely removed the offending article from the website. An archived page is available.
Hovind wrote:
During
the last 300 years, at least 164 separate measurements of the speed of light
have been published. Sixteen different measurement techniques were used.
"THE SPEED OF LIGHT HAS APPARENTLY DECREASED SO RAPIDLY THAT EXPERMENTAL [sic]
ERROR CANNOT EXPLAIN IT!"
Astronomer Barry Setterfield The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time 1987
The
first two sentences were plagiarized from Brown.