howardfredrics

Prof. Scott's real name is George, not Peter. There are multiple Prof. "Peter" Scotts, and actually, a more famous educator/naturalist, Sir Peter Scott who lived in the UK.

The vast majority of my site has nothing to do with Prof. Scott. In fact, my site does not especially target Prof. Scott for criticism, but rather, quite simply and rightly holds him accountable for the assortment of wrongdoing which was allowed to occur under his watch as Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University, a position responsible for the day-to-day running of the institution. He has, therefore, recently resigned his position to "retire" early, following a host of scandals, which resulted in findings and sanctions against the University by government quality assurance and funding agencies -- QAA and HEFCE, following several public interest disclosures, which I made. In the criminal case against me, the Judge ultimately found that my site contained material in the public interest.

WIPO found that Prof. Scott had failed to achieve sufficient goodwill under the name, "Sir Peter Scott," no doubt taking into account his record of presiding over a host of scandals, as well as his false claim to the name, "Peter".

The University spent nearly $1,000,000 of public money to silence bona fide and legitimate criticism of its actions through an unsuccessful WIPO action, and, when that failed, an unsuccessful attempt at prosecuting me. What they did not do, however, was to file a claim of libel against me, action that is heavily weighted in favor of claimants in the UK. You are free to draw your own conclusions as to why they did not file such a claim against me.

The so called criminal conviction that has thus far been upheld (having not yet reached the appeal stage) was an 'offence' akin to disorderly conduct (usually punishable by a £50 fine), based in this instance on my having publicly identified Prof. Scott as a 'criminal.' This public naming, which occurred after he was asked (much as a reporter would ask) why he did the things he'd done, allowing what took place under his watch to occur, is based on factual events supported by evidentiary documentation, and the advice of Solicitor General, Vera Baird, MP, QC.

The allegations against Prof. Scott himself include his involvement in acts of witness intimidation and/or criminal fraud stemming from a set of threatening letters sent to my wife, lawyer and myself by Prof. Scott's deputy, Donald Beaton (who was, as a result, charged by a Court with witness intimidation), after the University learned that my wife had made recordings of Board of Governors members, Mr. Beaton, and Prof. Scott, engaging in improper and corrupt conduct, the public release of which via WikiLeaks would cause considerable embarrassment to these public officials. The threatening letters may be viewed in their entirety on the aforementioned website (I'm unable to post links, having only just become a member of this forum) Prof. Scott's involvement in the sending of these letters is also evidenced on the site. Similarly, the relevant portion of Vera Baird's advice is available on the site.

The point of my raising these matters in this forum is that things one reads in a Wikipedia entry (in this case, one edited by a team of paid University reputation managers) or for that matter, a mainstream press article, are not always the full and complete facts. This is why it is also important to read the full account of Raphael Golb's case before arriving at a judgment.

Toto

This response claims that Schiffman's letter is now part of the public record, but I can't find it using google. Was it part of the court filings?

Golb is claiming that Schiffman did not credit Golb for his ideas, and misrepresented them. This is not the same as plagiarism as it is usually understood. It might be bad manners, but it hardly warrants the sort of campaign that Raphael Golb undertook.

manwithdream

Toto,

You posted this article before:

http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2010/11/113225.html

Near the beginning it says the confidential report was entered as an exhibit at the trial.

Kenneth Greifer

Toto

From that link:

But it evidently has not been posted online (yet).

DCHindley

It seems to me that part of the "aggressiveness" Schiffman attributes to Norman Golb was actually actions by his son Raphael. At the time of Schiffman's 2008 NYU report, Schiffman apparently thought that Norman Golb was behind the barrage of museum criticisms now known to be Raphael's doing.

Norman Golb does not mention his son at all in his response to Schiffman's portrayal of himself, preferring to stick to the facts as can be established by published articles and books.

This is typical of Norman Golb's style - he just doesn't get emotional. But you can tell he finds the kind of disparaging remarks that he sees Schiffman and the old guard make about him (and by extension other "dissidents") to be hurtful and dismissive.

Someone will eventually scan the Schiffman report to NYU.

DCH

howardfredrics

Plagiarism, as defined in Webster's Dictionary:

"The act of using another person's words or ideas without giving credit to that person."

Plagiarism, as defined in Oxford Dictionary:

"The practice of taking someone else‘s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own."

By no reasonable definition is it considered anything else but plagiarism to utilize someone else's ideas without acknowledging them.

howardfredrics

I tend to agree with you, except where such use of one's own name could get you fired for, for example, having criticized one's employer/boss/colleague, and especially where that criticism is in the public interest.

howardfredrics

This is incredibly misconceived, Avi. Although the Koran says, in essence, to kill the non-believers, not all adherents to Islam accept every single word that it contains. These are the non-extremist Muslims or so-called "moderate" Muslims.

Likewise, though the Torah may contain some rather barbaric passages by our modern standards of behavior, not all Jews accept every word that it contains as applicable to today's world. In fact, it is rare, indeed, for Jews to abide by any of the sorts of barbarism contained in parts of the Torah. Moreover, such passages, e.g. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" are interpreted in less extreme ways by most Jews as meaning that if someone does something bad to you, you should be compensated in equivalent (whatever that means) monetary terms, not by literally taking out someone's eye or tooth. The literal interpretation is a misconception on the part of those who do not truly understand the history of how these passages were dealt with.

And yes, most Christians, too, believe that much of the Bible is to be taken as allegory, rather than literally.

This, of course, doesn't preclude there being extremist members of each of these faiths, those who would practice violence or bigotry as the best way of dealing with a variety of matters, and who see their religious tracts as inflexible and to be interpreted literally (again, whatever that means, given the myriad problems with translations).

I think we all have to listen to what each individual says and see what he/she does, rather than pre-judging him/her on the sole basis of religious self-identification.

Toto

http://www.a2z.org/acts/articles/plagiarism.htm

Did Schiffman use Golb's work, or did he come to a similar conclusion on his own? Did he crib any distinctive language from Golb? Is Golb the only one who has ever thought that the DSS came from Jerusalem? Could he have copyrighted that idea?

If this were a clear case of plagiarism, Golb would have had a clear remedy. It certainly would have been more effective (and cheaper in the long run) to have set up a blog with a comparison of his ideas and words with those of Schiffman.

But this still doesn't justify impersonating Schiffman.

manwithdream

I would like to hear the opinion of Dr. Cargill about Dr. Golb's article since he probably has read Dr. Schiffman's article about the plagiarism charge and because he understands the case better than almost anybody else.

Kenneth Greifer