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from the whom-do-you-trust...-and-why? dept.
Given that collaboration [in science] is the norm, you may be asking yourself the eternal question: Who cares? How does the image of a lone scientist hero cause any danger to me?
The problem arises when there is a debate about a scientific topic. Following this structure, debate is a necessary and encouraged part of the scientific process. This debate happens before the idea is released to anyone outside of a few scientists and, while it can become heated at times, takes place with great respect between proponents of different viewpoints.
The danger can come when scientific results are released to the public. Our society now provides a platform for anyone to comment, regardless of his or her education, experience or even knowledge of the topic at hand.
While this is an excellent method of disseminating knowledge, it can also provide a platform for any opinion—regardless of the weight of data behind it—to be equal to that released in more traditional scientific ways.
Particularly in today's largely populist climate, people are looking to see the lone scientist hero overthrow the perceived dominance of facts coming from academia.
And herein lies the problem. In this situation, the opinion of a lone commenter may be considered on equal footing with that of tens or hundreds of people who have made the subject their life's work to ensure their interpretations are correct.
Everybody is entitled to their own scientific opinion, but everybody is not entitled to their own scientific facts?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday November 22 2017, @03:49PM (2 children)
To make sure that each student learned, all are expected to work alone. Work together on a creative assignment that wasn't explicitly designated a group effort, and chances are the members will be accused of cheating, and harshly punished. This attitude spans grade school all the way to doctoral dissertations.
It's institutional laziness. When people work together, it's harder to figure out whether each individual learned, so working together is strongly discouraged.
If doctoral students buy help for their work, is that cheating? Help with the subsidiary efforts seems okay. Should be acceptable to pay people to proofread, collect data, run surveys, and so forth. How about paying someone to help with the math, for instance a social scientist needing help with statistics? Still okay? How about paying a programmer to write some source code? Or just use a spreadsheet? But then there are services that offer to do more than just proofread, they do the writing for you. If it's still your ideas, is that okay? The line gets blurry. It's possible to go all the way, pay for others to do all the work.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Wednesday November 22 2017, @04:34PM (1 child)
Yeah, that's all okay, as long as you correctly attribute the help you get.
Claiming that you did the [statistics, programming, writing, whatever] of others is where the cheating begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 22 2017, @09:23PM
It's not cheating only because they'd receive a zero on the assignment if they didn't do the work. Disclosure just means that you won't be kicked out of school for doing it.
In practice, the assignment guidelines will generally indicate whether and what kind of help is allowed. And if in doubt, the instructor can indicate what the standards are going to be when the work is graded.