Enga mellom fjella

Stolen? Plagerized?

WATT'S ROTTEN IN THE LAND OF GNUS:

I wrote yesterday: "My friend John Lee is working on issues of determining the age of rocks using apatite. He studied the Grand Canyon. Saw this issue on line and wouldn't be surprised if he were involved:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080415/sc_livescience/grandcanyonpossiblyo...

WELL! I saw him last night and he was LIVID! He had presented this at a conference of geologists in Denver in November. The writer of the pop-science article was present. Nowhere do I see any credit given to John (he didn't either). Whether the article will help John (he has the research data based on 50-60 samples (4 sites?), the other scientist does not!) remains to be seen. At least John has some influential folks who know his work and can defend it on his behalf. Also John Lee's data (the other guy doesn't have enough to draw conclusions) shows that the Grand Canyon is older than suspected, but not as old as the article claims.

         John is a very nice and mild guy (Cherokee, Czech and Cajun).
         But when I saw him late last night, his Texas eyes were blazin'.

This touches on the subject of academic honesty. IMHO, John should've been quoted or cited as a reference. If John had submitted this as a thesis would he have been acused of plagiarism? But ... this article is by a well-known geologist. In the end it might help John, but this is the third incident he has experienced.

This is what I wrote in my blog entry from 02-23-07 "Mouride, sweet potato and redred dip, B-sharp major" :

Friday and I'm dragging. Met John at Aimees who is studying thermo-chronology, a field within geology. By measuring the amount of helium and the decay of uranium/thorium he can determine the temperature of the mineral, Apatite, over time. This would vary by how close to the surface it has been (cooler) or whether it has been in touch with a hot spot (like beneath Hawai'i or Yellowstone). John has collected rocks from 4 locations in the Grand Canyon; having had to repel to get some of them. One location is a 3,500 foot cliff. His eyes twinkled when I mentioned the Great Rift on Mars. He'd go tomorrow.

With poetry, the financial and academic stakes of a poem being stolen are less, but still painful to the person who originally wrote it. I know I base many of my poems on lines from other works, on photographs, on paintings, as a response to an entire poem. I try to give credit where it is due and when I remember (swiss-cheese for brains). My writings have lots of references. It is called giving honor to those who inspire and amuse our Muse.

As for my Muse. Came up with a poem inspired by John Lee. We'd spoken about plate tectonics and about how he was going to Switzerland (he has, already been to the Matterhorn, has returned and will go back soon). This is the (newly edited) poem: "Alps"