| |
|
| |
| 耶鲁教授stearns指责北大学生剽窃成风 |
|
[ 2008-1-24 13:48:00 | By: 无知者 ] |
耶鲁教授stearns指责北大学生剽窃成风
to my students in beijing, fall 2007:
while grading papers today i encountered two more cases of plagiarism. one was sophisticated but serious. the other was so blatant that it was almost unbelievable. that makes a total of three students who have failed my courses because of plagiarism.
if i had not warned you and given you the opportunity honestly to correct your essays, there would have been several more. i thank those of you who were honest and showed me what you had copied.
plagiarism disturbs me greatly, both because it corrodes my relationship with you as my students, and because it tells me things about china and beida that neither you nor i want to hear.
it corrodes my relationship with you because i work hard to be a good teacher, i take time to prepare good lectures, and i spend many hours providing detailed feedback on essays. it is hard work. you cannot imagine what it is like to correct the details of the 500th essay until you have done it yourself. i do that to help you learn to think more clearly, to express yourself convincingly, and to develop your intellectual power, your ability to understand the world. i also do it because i value you, i value your ideas, and i think the world will be a better place when you can all think clearly and behave intelligently. later in life, some of you will be leaders with important positions. i want you to be competent and honest, for i have seen too often what terrible things can happen when leaders are incompetent and dishonest. leadership aside, i want all of you to be able to create value in your lives, whatever you end up doing, and you cannot do that if you deceive.
when a student whom i am teaching steals words and ideas from an author without acknowledgment, i feel cheated, dragged down into the mud. i ask myself, why should i teach people who knowingly deceive me? life is too short for such things. there are better things to do.
disturbingly, plagiarism fits into a larger pattern of behavior in china. china ignores international intellectual property rights. beida sees nothing wrong in copying my textbook, for example, in complete violation of international copyright agreements, causing me to lose income, stealing from me quite directly. no one in china seems to care. i can buy dvds in stores and on the street for about one us dollar. they cost $20-30 outside china; the artists who produced them are losing enormous amounts of stolen income, billions of dollars each year. china has become notorious for producing defective products that have to be recalled because the pose health threats to consumers. a recent cartoon in an american newspaper shows the central committee reacting to an accusation that they have violated human rights. the response? “wait until they see what we put in their toothpaste next!” corruption is a serious problem in a booming economy. for example, in the mining industry, about 5000 miners die each year and mine owners cut corners in violation of the law. the social fabric breaks when workers die because owners are greedy. the mandate of heaven is lost.
china appears to have lost her way. confucius said, do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you. he also said, a gentleman is honest. honesty and reciprocity are the basis of trust and community. we cannot get along in a world filled with deceit and defection; such a world becomes a hobbesian war of all against all, nasty and brutal. we cannot do science if we cannot trust what others publish. there is no reason to try to replicate a result if it cannot be trusted. it would not be worth the effort. without replication there can be no shared knowledge that is tested and trustworthy - that is, no science. without science, there can be no technology. and without technology, there can be no steady increase in productivity, economic growth, and a better life for all.
the penalties for plagiarism that you will encounter later in life are very serious. if you do it as a graduate student, you can be expelled from university, and you will not get your degree. if you do it as a faculty member, you can lose your job. i know you may not believe that, for the sociology professor at beida who translated an entire book into chinese and published it with his name on it only lost his administrative positions but kept his professorship and salary. but things are not like that elsewhere. when plagiarism is detected in the united states, it can end the career of the person who did it. that is also true in europe.
the fact that i have encountered this much plagiarism at beida tells me something about the behavior of other professors and administrators here. they must tolerate a lot of it, and when they detect it, they cover it up without serious punishment, probably because they do not want to lose face. if they did punish it, it would not be this frequent.
i have greatly enjoyed teaching some of you. i have encountered young minds here that are as good as any in the world. many of you are brave, most of you work very hard, most of you are honest, and some of you are brilliant. but i am leaving with very mixed feelings. it is quite sad that so many promising young chinese think it is necessary to cheat to succeed. they damage themselves even more than the people from whom they steal and the people whom they deceive with stolen words.
sincerely, steve stearns
今天批閱論文的時候，我又遇到了兩例剽竊行為。一例手法老練但是情節嚴重，另一例則是厚顏無恥得令人難以置信。這樣總計就有三名學生因為剽竊而在我的課程中不及格。
假如我前些時候沒有警告過你們，並給你們一次機會去誠實地改正你們的文章，這種事情還會多好幾例。有些同學誠實地告訴了我他們都抄襲了哪些部分，我向他們表示感謝。
這些剽竊行為讓我非常苦惱，不但因為它損害了你我之間的師生關係，也因為它告訴了我一些關於北大、關於中國的事情，而這些事情是你我都不願意聽到的。
它傷害了我們之間的關係，因為我為了當一名好老師而付出了許多努力。我花了許多時間準備課堂講授，又花了許多時間給你們的文章寫下詳盡的回饋。這些工作都很辛苦。你無法想像，當改到第500篇文章的細節的時候你是什麼感覺，除非你親身經歷。我做這一切，是為了讓你們學會更清晰地思考問題，學會有說服力地表達自己的觀點，學會培養自己的理性，鍛煉自己理解世界的能力。我做這一切，也因為我珍視你們，珍視你們的想法，而且我想，如果你們都能夠清晰地思考、明智地行動的話，這個世界也會變得更加美好。在以後的人生道路裏，你們當中有的人會成為身居要位的領導，我希望你們能夠德才均備，因為無德無才的領導者所能帶來的可怕災難，我已經見過太多了。就算不當領導，我也希望你們所有人都能在你們的生命中創造一些有價值的東西，無論你們最後從事什麼。而如果你欺騙的話，你是做不到這一點的。
當我所教的學生從別人那裏偷竊話語和思想的時候，我感到受了欺騙，心情沉重如同跋涉泥沼。我會問自己，我為什麼要給那些存心欺騙我的人上課呢？生命是如此的短暫，太不值得。有比這好得多的事情可以做。
讓人不安的是，剽竊已經成為整個中國行為模式的一部分。中國忽視國際知識產權。比如說，複印我的書徹頭徹尾違反了國際版權協議，使我損失了收入，對我而言近乎直接的偷竊，然而北大人卻對此安之若素。再比如，我只花大約一美元就能在街頭和店鋪買到dvd光碟，這些碟片在別國要賣上二三十美元。創作它們的藝術家因此損失的大筆收入全是被偷走的，每年幾十億。因為生產劣質商品對消費者造成潛在的健康威脅而不得不召回，中國已經是臭名昭著了。最近美國報紙上刊載的一幅漫畫描繪了中央委員會被指責侵犯人權。猜他們怎麼回答？“往他們牙膏裏擱點東西，看他們還敢吭聲不？”經濟繁榮的背後，腐敗已經成為嚴重的問題。就拿礦業來說，每年大約有五千名礦工死去，就因為礦主為了省事為了利潤而不惜違反法律。礦主的貪婪導致工人死去，象徵著社會階層之間紐帶的斷裂。天道已喪。
中國似乎已經迷失了她的道路。孔子說過，己所不欲勿施於人。他還說過，人而無信不知其可。誠實互惠是信任與社群的基礎。在一個充滿欺詐和背叛的社會中，我們無法生存，這樣的世界成了霍布森式的“每個人與每個人為敵”的戰爭，險惡而野蠻。若是我們不能相信別人發表的東西，我們就沒法做科研。誰都沒有理由去企圖重複一個不可信的結果，不值得費那功夫；而沒有重複就不會有經過驗證而可信靠、可共用的知識，也就沒有科學。沒有科學就不會有技術，沒有技術就不會有生產力的穩步發展，經濟水準的持續增長，也就不會給所有人都帶來更美好的生活。
在你們今後的人生裏，剽竊將會遇到極為嚴厲的懲罰。身為研究生如果剽竊，就會直接開除，沒有學位。身為教員如果剽竊，就會丟掉飯碗。我知道你們可能不信，因為北大那位把整本書翻成中文就署上自己名字出版的社會學家僅僅丟了行政職務，卻仍然保有教授之位和薪水。然而事情在別處並非如此。在美國如果發現有人剽竊，此人的職業生涯可以就此毀於一旦。歐洲亦然。
我在北大遇見了如此之多的剽竊，這一事實說明了其他教授和行政官員的所作所為。他們必然是對此頗為容忍，而當發現有人剽竊時，他們未加嚴厲懲罰就遮掩過去，很可能是因為他們不願丟臉。假如他們真的施以懲罰，剽竊決不會這麼猖獗。
給你們當中一些人上課的時候，我感受到了極大的喜悅。我在這裏遇到的年輕的頭腦，和世界上任何地方比起來都毫不遜色。你們當中許多人都很勇敢，大部分人都很努力，大部分人都很誠實，有些人相當聰明。然而當我離去時，心情是複雜的。這麼多前途無量的中國年輕人認為要靠作弊才能成功，讓我十分傷心。比起那些被他們竊走思想的人，和那些被他們用竊來的話語所欺騙的人，他們傷害得還要多的，是他們自己。
附錄:
stephen c. stearns, ph.d.
edward p. bass professor of ecology and evolutionary biology
professor of ecology and evolutionary biology yale university
box 208106 yale university new haven ct 06520-8106 usa
phone: (203) 432 8452
email: stephen.stearns@yale.edu
prof. stearns specializes in life history evolution, which links the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology, in evolutionary medicine, and in evolutionary functional genomics. he came to yale in 2000 from the university of basel, switzerland, where he had been professor of zoology since 1983 and held several administrative posts.
his books include "evolution, an introduction" (oxford, 2000) with rolf hoekstra, "watching, from the edge of extinction" (yale, 1999) with his wife beverly peterson stearns, "the evolution of life histories" (oxford, 1992), and two edited volumes, "evolution in health and disease" (oxford, 1998) and "the evolution of sex and its consequences."
a 1967 graduate of yale college, stearns earned a m.s. from the university of wisconsin and a ph.d. from the university of british columbia.
prof. stearns founded and has served as president of both the european society for evolutionary biology and the tropical biology association and was founding editor of the journal of evolutionary biology. he has been a vice president of the society for the study of evolution and is a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science.
|
|
| |
| Re:耶鲁教授stearns指责北大学生剽窃成风 |
|
[ 2008-3-25 8:50:23 | By: 阿斗(游客) ] |
 我想这虽然是现实
但是中国要想杜绝这一现象还很难
当大家认为肥胖是美时 所有人都会去追附~
中国人思想都认为这是理所当然了~
就象吃饭就要用筷子~
至少没有相关严厉的法律出台之前是不会实现的~ |
|
| |
| Re:耶鲁教授stearns指责北大学生剽窃成风 |
|
[ 2008-2-14 17:13:48 | By: 无知者 ] |
 琪斌:
過年好么?等我們都閑一點的時候,一起聊聊天.叫上許盈盈.
祝好,井奎 |
|
| |
| Re:耶鲁教授stearns指责北大学生剽窃成风 |
|
[ 2008-1-31 14:01:01 | By: 焦琦斌 ] |
李老师，好久没访问你的博客了，浙大的vpn网速太慢，上不了你的博客，很遗憾啊。
尽管这位耶鲁教授说了很多中国人的不是，但是基本上我还是认同的，的确目前我国诚信缺失严重，是我国的传统文化中缺少诚信还是现在国人太浮躁把老祖宗的优秀美德给忘了呢。。。
我现在还经常会翻阅李老师本科时给我们买的那十本经典书籍，有几本看了好几遍了，受益非浅。希望李老师给以后的每届学生也推荐若干本经典书籍，好书的确能使人终身受益。 |
|
| |
| Re:耶鲁教授stearns指责北大学生剽窃成风 |
|
[ 2008-1-24 23:56:38 | By: jiajia(游客) ] |
| 旁观者清！这些在中国真实而又残酷的事实，被一个外国人冷静地提出来，是如此的讽刺而有力！ |
|
| |
| Re:耶鲁教授stearns指责北大学生剽窃成风 |
|
[ 2008-1-24 13:49:08 | By: 无知者 ] |
| 雅格布贴上来的两篇文字，很不错，特别推荐！ |
| 发表评论：
| |
