[Phys-L] Re: Warning: Don't ask for Library loans on Political Topics

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

The news story is no longer at that URL.

I don't think that there is any doubt that the student should receive some
type of punishment.  If this was an excuse to get out of completing an
assignment, then an academic sanction would be appropriate such as course
failure.

As to the gullible faculty members, they have already had a punishment by
having their reputations damaged.  I well remember when some colleagues at
the Univ of Houston announced that they had observed a single track in a
Lexan plate which had to be the signature of a magnetic monopole.  It was in
the NY Times.  Then they remeasured the plates carefully with a micrometer,
and found that they were significantly thinner that they had thought.  As a
result the monopole became a possible heavy element track.  Does one have to
punish someone for incompetence in publication.  Let the record speak for
itself.  The profs were perhaps unwise, but when the story was given
credibility, there was no talk of punishment.  Now they have to work a bit
harder to publish unless they already have tenure.

I had a very perceptive, but very eccentric, prof in grad school who said
"Physicists only need to do things right once, but engineers only have to do
things wrong once."  And then of course doctors bury their mistakes.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> "Following the student's admission Friday that it was a hoax, Clyde
> Barrow, chairman of the policy studies department, said UMass should
> punish the student and faculty members, in particular two history
> professors who repeated the unsubstantiated assertion of the history
> student to a New Bedford Standard-Times reporter.
>
> "The story, first reported by the newspaper on Dec. 17, was picked up by
> other news outlets, triggered screeds on left-wing and right-wing blogs,
> spurred a flurry of concerned e-mails among UMass faculty, and appeared
> in a Globe op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy."
>
> The complete news story is at:
> http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/12/29/umass_te
> acher_blasts_colleagues_on_hoax_story/?p1=MEWell_Pos5
>
> Rick, Strickert
> Austin, TX
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