About that cell video in <i>Expelled</i>&hellip;

I think it's still plagerism. If a cartoon uses the Peanuts comic characters without any input or permission from the estate of the late Charles Schultz, it's still wrong to do. Even if it's an original story written by someone else those characters appear in.

I have had a lot of amusement the last three days, PZ, reading the various accounts of your Expulsion from Expelled.

There is no question in my mind that the producers of this craporolla did plagiarize Harvard. The question is whether Harvard could win in court? With so many Americans creationist, and so many years of Republican far-right appointments to the Federal courts, I no longer expect any rational rulings. Dover was as total a surprise to me as it was to the Discovery Institute.

Ya, about that cell video in EXPELLED...

Oh no. The producers of the film might now try to arrest PZ for stealing one of their DVDs. I can't wait to see the PR that generates. Honestly, I wouldn't put it past them.

What would really be cool is a series on the science channel or something that featured these animations. I would love to see all the cellular processes rendered to such exquisite detail -- you could not avoid the mechanical nature of it all. I wish they would show the pieces acting a little more chaotically, though. At that scale Brownian motion would jostle everything - and watching fibers do a random walk up there little highway would be better than showing a deterministic walking machine.

Dale Husband: I think it's still plagerism. If a cartoon uses the Peanuts comic characters without any input or permission from the estate of the late Charles Schultz, it's still wrong to do. Even if it's an original story written by someone else those characters appear in.

PZ Myers lied for Darwin (again): Now I'm embarrassed to have mistaken one for the other, since the Expelled version is of much lower resolution and quality.

You do realize, don’t you, that a DVD is at most 480p. This is a limitation of the format.

I think it’s still plagerism.

PvM:

You do realize, don’t you, that a DVD is at most 480p. This is a limitation of the format.

The relevance being? Geez William...

Wow! FL and William Wallace are being even dumber than usual! Like I didn't even think that was possible! I stand corrected. LOL.

PZ Myers said he was wrong. Therefore, it is NOT plagiarism.

PZ: It’s clear that what they did was brainlessly copy what they saw in the original. I don’t know whether this is actionable anymore — that they slapped together a look-alike video to cover their butts makes the issue much more complicated.

I have previously told the story of a respected elder statesman of the Zoology Department at Oxford when I was an undergraduate. For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real: an artifact, an illusion. Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said--with passion--"My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years." We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that. In practice, not all scientists would. But all scientists pay lip service to it as an ideal--unlike, say, politicians who would probably condemn it as flip-flopping. The memory of the incident I have described still brings a lump to my throat.

FL:

I think it’s still plagerism.

PZ Myers said he was wrong. Therefore, it is NOT plagiarism.

William Wallace:

PvM:

You do realize, don’t you, that a DVD is at most 480p. This is a limitation of the format.

The relevance being? Geez William...

Resolution

"Your honor, I concede that my novel bears close resemblance to "Gone with the Wind", but its title is "Gone with the Breeze", the heroine's name is Scarlett O'Malley, and after all, you can't copyright the burning of Atlanta, can you?"

The similarity of the 2 videos is matched by the similarity of styles of preen and jacob. DNFTT(s).

If all they did was re-make it, then it is still covered by copyright law. At best it's a derivative work i.e.

A work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.

From http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/scope.html#derivative.

So yup, they could still be in hot water.

Interesting — apparently the promoters of "Expelled" have closed all further advance screenings of the film:

http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2008/03/expelled_in_tempe.php

Must be the work of those nefarious evilutionists. Perhaps they'll screen it for the public at the Immanuel Velikovsky Memorial Theatre in downtown Seattle (it's at 208 Columbia Street).

PZ said "Now I’m embarrassed to have mistaken one for the other, since the Expelled version is of much lower resolution and quality."

This is a comparison between 2 videos, you can't just say "well this one is at 480p because it's on DVD and therefore the resolution is lower." You have to actually know what the other video is at to make the claim that it's because of DVD. The original on the web, those are typically LESS than 480p to reduce. Watching the videos on the site PZ links to, the High Speed video appears to be at 480p, it certainly isn't any version of HD. The Slow Speed version appears to be at 320x240, significantly less than 480p.

3D Rendering quality has WAY more to it than just the final resolution of the images.

It remains to be seen whether there is anything that could or should be done about this obvious and pathetic case of plagiarism.

I wish they would show the pieces acting a little more chaotically, though.

Yeah. I've seen a part of Unlocking the mysteries of life in which the ribosomes make an appearance. All of the correct tRNAs drop into place right when they're needed, no jostling around. This is not in agreement with existing experimental data, such as rare codon usage choking down protein synthesis.

A clear example of Descent with Modification

preen

---

Remember you REALLY have to dumb things down here for the Darwinists to understand it. Remember that shun math and quantitative analysis.

jacob/jacob2/preen/telo all post from the same IP addresses, and no one else does. This is a Rule 6 violation. jacob/jacob2/preen/telo, you are no longer welcome to use the comment entry privilege here at PT or AtBC. Please use another forum for your comments.

telo: No one here accepts Darwin's theory? Are they Lamarkists?

"I was wrong...."

Three little words that make science so much better than ID....

Thank you administration.

Admin: jacob/jacob2/preen/telo all post from the same IP addresses, and no one else does. This is a Rule 6 violation. jacob/jacob2/preen/telo, you are no longer welcome to use the comment entry privilege here at PT or AtBC. Please use another forum for your comments.

AtBC = After the Bar Closes, a forum on AntiEvolution.org.

http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=SF;f=14

Dale Husband: If changing your screen name is a violation, I wasn't aware of that until now!

Has anyone talked to Harvard about this?

Dale Husband: I know what PT means (Panda's Thumb), but what is AtBC? Also, may I see the rules so I may know what NOT to do? If changing your screen name is a violation, I wasn't aware of that until now!

Golden Rule: Simply put, don’t make a jerk out of yourself.

Whether or not a purported copy infringes the copyright on the original work depends upon whether the copy uses the same "expression" as the original. Different kinds of works have different ranges of expression. In a novel or a cartoon strip, the range can be very broad---using the same recognizable characters or plot variations can infringe. Works based upon fact have a narrower range, because you can't copyright the underlying facts. Maps, for example have a narrow range. Mapmakers get around this by including "house towns"---small features that are not actually there.

The range of "Lives of a Cell" runs toward the narrow side, because it depicts facts. However, there is a lot of artistic variation in the way that these facts can be presented, which increases the range somewhat. If the "overall impression" of the viewer is the same, there is at least a chance that the copy infringes. The error that an irregular motion is presented as smooth in both the original and the copy is, I think, significant as to whether the expression is the same. A legal opinion would of course require a detailed review of the entire work.

Of course, you can't infringe a copyright by creating a work independently from the copyrighted work. There muat be "copying." however, access to the original and similarity can create a (rebuttable) presumption that the original was copied.

In this case, the mere possibility of copyright infringement might have a significant effect. Sending the DVD to Harvard and publicizing the similarities might cause the Expelled producers to yank that segment or to modify it again. Anything they do will cost a fair amount of money, and doing nothing will continue to be bad publicity for them---yet another dishonesty.

gota:

Vince: "I was wrong...." Three little words that make science so much better than ID....

Then why can't the science old school admit they were wrong about Darwinism? And let the new evidence in?

Then why can’t the science old school admit they were wrong about Darwinism? And let the new evidence in?

Olorin: Works based upon fact have a narrower range, because you can’t copyright the underlying facts.

gota: Then why can't the science old school admit they were wrong about Darwinism? And let the new evidence in?

I remember back from my days at UCSD that the UCSD IDEA club once had on their website a picture of the TCA cycle and related metabolic pathways lifted from Voet and Voet, doctored with some gears from Microsoft clipart that obscured and cluttered the diagram, with gaudy text slapped over the whole thing "COULD THIS HAVE EVOLVED?"

I'd say "yes" and they'd say "darn."

Could this have been actionable?

You'd say "yes" and I'd say "darn."

gota: Give me some examples of how they distort evidence.

gota,

I recommend that you check the Talk.Origins archive and other sources for examples (as the lurkers can and do), rather than get your evolution education on a thread devoted to a specific topic. Normally, most regulars would be glad to entertain general questions like yours, but we have had a lot of troll activity lately.

gota: Cladistics and molecular biology.

That isn't actually covered in the definition of plagerism. My guess is that they did plagerize the video to begin with (they made numerous references to it), then, they realized what they were doing was plagerism, so they whipped up a quick replacement to avoid copyright infringement.

gota:

Dale Husband:

gota: Cladistics and molecular biology.

Have you ever read Richard Dawkins' book The Ancestor's Tale? It's all about those concepts.

I have read quite a bit on the subject and the new evidence seems to indicate that Darwinism is inadequate.

Andrea (#148146), we agree more than you think. You can't copyright the facts, but the selection, arrangement, and presentation of the facts is certainly within the scope of copyright. "Inner Life" had a lot of this artistic element, and I think would have a significant range, even though it is basically a factual work.

The case for similar expression can be made just by looking at the two works side-by-side. Once similarity has been established, access can be easily shown, giving Harvard a presumption of copying. The producers would then have to rebut that presumption by producing evidence that they did not copy it---for example, by dragging out their notes, intermediate stages, etc.

Unfortunately, Harvard will probably not pursue this---they didn't for Dembski. But we ourselves can hold the producers' feet to the fire, and perhaps crowd them into remaking the DVD, or, more likely, deleting the segment. Either way will cost them.

His "point" is that Goddidit, I'll wager.

Gota is Jacob will clean up.

With regard to Gota of Many Names -

Okay, clean him up, but just for anyone who saw his final post...

The new evidence he was talking about (and his link, although not to an original source, was a valid one to) was discussed here in detail by PvM a few days ago.
I added a long, creationism-unrelated comment about it myself.

This was the link - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060930094021.htm

It discusses a really important piece of work which strongly supports the theory of evolution, and helps to extend and enrich it. Top story, on the heart.

Briefly, and to my positive amazement, it shows a fairly simple and elegant model of how, during development, a functional two-chambered heart can be formed in an organism with a one-chambered heart.

A specific molecular mechanism for a major morphologic evolutionary event.

I have suspected that Jacob, although an annoying crackpot and troll who deserves banishment, is marginally above the average creationist.

I think his game is to straw man down the current theory of evolution, in order to claim that he himself has "invented" something that closely resembles the real theory of evolution. He may or may not want to jam Jesus in there somewhere, but sometimes he just seemed to be talking quasi-sense, but trying to pretend that no-one else was making better sense.

Authoritarian ID schemers are not the only nuts out there. There are other varieties, some of which are equally inflammatory but far less malignant.

I would urge readers to take a look at that heart post. It is technical in language but not unreadable, and very, very interesting.

gota: Maybe you could be more specific. What findings have been made in the fields of cladistics and molecular biology that are not adequately explained by evolution? Whatever these findings are, what theory explains them better than evolution does?

Creationists distort all kinds of scientific evidence. One example that springs to mind regards transitional fossils. They frequently say that no transitional fossils have been discovered. Here is an anti-evolution website with a list of sources, and quotes from those sources, that claim that there are no transitional fossils.

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/evid1.htm

Now, if you're curious about what transitional fossils have been found, Wikipedia has a nice list. Talk origins has a FAQ as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

preen wrote: William, your point was perfectly clear the first time you said it. Remember you REALLY have to dumb things down here for the Darwinists to understand it. Remember that shun math and quantitative analysis.

Admin expelled preen: jacob/jacob2/preen/telo all post from the same IP addresses, and no one else does. This is a Rule 6 violation. jacob/jacob2/preen/telo, you are no longer welcome to use the comment entry privilege here at PT or AtBC. Please use another forum for your comments.

William Wallace, please explain to the rest of us why making such blatantly ignorant comments as you do is in any way productive to either promoting Creationism or attacking evolution. Take all the time you need to, for I suspect you will be quite busy with quote-mining, strawman type arguments, and outright lying. It's what you hypocrites do best, as the recent incident of PZ Myers being barred from that movie threater illustrated so well.

The producers would then have to rebut that presumption by producing evidence that they did not copy it—for example, by dragging out their notes, intermediate stages, etc.

Hey, I say give Jacob one more chance, in light of Harold’s comments.

— William Wallace

The posters complain that the producers 'fixed' the interviews and 'fixed' the invitations. Yet this site is 'fixed' to keep out opposing view so what is the difference?

Gary F: Could it be that the theory of evolution has progressed in the last 150 years? Who would have thought that scientists could build upon existing knowledge and alter their explanations as new data comes in? The reason why only creationists call evolution "Darwinism" is that scientists are aware of the advances made in the science of evolution since Darwin's time. For example, Darwin did not know about Mendelian genetics or DNA. ...

People here criticize the movie producer for censoring who can see his move yet censorship is here is quite OK.

Hey, gota, got a clue there? Isn't your opposing view right there in plain view? A cursory check of any random PT post will turn up plenty of comments from cdesignists and other species of creationist, plus plenty of disagreement amongst these terrible exclusionary "Darwinists" themselves. Just because the non-rationals get the rhetorical crap kicked out of them on a regular basis doesn't mean the site is somehow "fixed", or "intelligently designed", to exclude. If you're looking for that sort of behavior, I recommend Uncommon Descent. They even admit to it: http://www.uncommondescent.com/comment-policy/

Hey, john.williams: something must be wrong with the censoring because I just read your post. You should email the admins tout de suite.

Thanks for the reminder Preen, but you’re right. Biology is for students who could not make it through differential equations the first time.

— WIlliam Wallace

john.williams: People here criticize the movie producer for censoring who can see his move yet censorship is here is quite OK.

And yes, I know you're referring to poor jacob/jacob2/preen/telo, except the problem wasn't with the viewpoint, but with the rule-breaking.

Thomas S. Howard: Hey, john.williams: something must be wrong with the censoring because I just read your post. You should email the admins tout de suite.

"I am a passionate Darwinist" Richard Dawkins

So don't tell me only creationists use the word. such bull.

Actually when a person comes here and presents a good case about the weaknesses of Darwinism. whish they are gone.

Oh....my....God! John Williams is RIGHT! Haeckel's embryos. I never realized (puts face in hands, choking back sobs and tears). Oh my God. Evolution is ALL WRONG. Some drawings made by a 19th century naturalist were exaggerated, and his hypothesis was wrong! So wrong! Now I realize the waste, the utter waste, of those thousands upon thousands upon thousands of studies testing thousands of hypotheses about evolution. All paleontology -- worthless! All genetics -- worthless. Population biology -- worthless. All because (choke, sob) something that was proven wrong at least as early as 1894 was misrepresented and twisted by Jonathan Wells, then repeated uncritically by someone on a blog. (Uncontrollable sobbing). Dear Lord, if only I had listened to my Biology and Comparative Anatomy teachers as an undergraduate who taught that it was wrong. And to think, (choke, sob), those teachers actually thought it was right, even though they taught it was wrong, all because Jonathan Wells says so, and John Williams repeated it here. The shame. The shame. (sob, choke).

Yet this site is ‘fixed’ to keep out opposing view so what is the difference?

Haeckel? Really? You're gonna go with that one? Umm, you do realize that "graphics in introductory level textbooks" != "theory of evolution", right? Well, since you're a troll, I say the answer is yes and you're just going for the annoyance factor. In which case, good job.

Plagiarism is not the same thing as copyright infringement. As I noted in a post I wrote on my blog a while back, the latter is copying without proper authorization, the former is copying without proper attribution. It's possible to plagiarize without infringing copyright-- for example, ideas themselves are generally not copyrightable, but lifting wholesale a set of ideas from someone else without crediting them can still be plagiarism even if it's not copyright infringement.

One thing to note in this instance is that, when it comes to academic integrity, plagiarism is often considered a worse offense than copyright infringement. (A scholar who mistakenly makes an over-reaching judgment of what constitutes fair use can be punished but still seen as legitimate; one who lifts someone else's work without acknowledging it, even though they easily could, is often judged to be, well, expelled from the scholarly community.)

If we're talking about the scientific and academic credibility of "intelligent design" proponents, the question of plagiarism may well be the more salient one, and the question of copyright infringement a distraction. Note that I don't know whether they've plagiarized in this case-- I haven't seen their DVD, and they may have properly acknowledged Harvard's animation as the inspiration or basis of their own. But I'd suggest that that's the more relevant question to address, and not so much a legal battle over whether their animation was fair use or not.

john.williams: Wont last. My posts will be deleted soon. Actually when a person comes here and presents a good case about the weaknesses of Darwinism. whish they are gone. I think this is why people are upset about this repression of free thought. Not even weaknesses of the theory can be talked about. For instance why were the Haekels in bio texts for decades. It was till the internet came along and there was more free acess to info that people realized they were fake. The pressure from creationists forced those lies out of the text books. I do not think the Darwinists will be able to really suppress the truth on these issues because of the internet. Sure they can suppress free exchange of ideas on this site but not the internet in general.

Actually when a person comes here and presents a good case about the weaknesses of Darwinism. whish they are gone.

John Williams: “I am a passionate Darwinist” Richard Dawkins So don’t tell me only creationists use the word. such bull.

gota said: The posters complain that the producers ‘fixed’ the interviews and ‘fixed’ the invitations. Yet this site is ‘fixed’ to keep out opposing view so what is the difference?

john.williams said: People here criticize the movie producer for censoring who can see his move yet censorship is here is quite OK.

Oh dear God, here we go again. Atheists have no morals. Give me a break. I know plenty of atheists (I am not one myself, though). Most of them are kind, generous and fair -- among the more moral people that I know. On the other hand, I know some real sleaze balls and pricks who profess to be fundamentalist Christians. Witness, for example, the copiously demonstrated fact that so many YECs lie for Jesus. Shall we once again (heaves tired sigh) provide a list of the loud-mouthed hypocrites who scream about "Christian" morality while indulging themselves in the worst way (Ted Haggard, Jim and Tammy Baker etc...)? Your proposition is that morality comes from a belief in God. What a complete crock. Morality and ethics are taught and culturally transmitted. Which morality from the Bible do you adhere to -- slavery, murder, genocide, polygyny? Care to choose? Oh wait, you are selective in that morality, eh? And what determines which morals you select from your source, hmmmmm? Of course, you completely ignore the fact that non-Christian cultures have morality too, and that other Christian cultures have different morals. The bottom line is that I couldn't give a damn about whether Richard Dawkins is an atheist. Bully for him. I don't really care what you are either. At issue here is the sleazy tactics and propaganda of this film and its makers. The degree to which they loudly profess Christian morality only makes the hypocrisy of their tactics that much worse.

mplavcan: Oh dear God, here we go again. Atheists have no morals. Give me a break. I know plenty of atheists (I am not one myself, though). Most of them are kind, generous and fair – among the more moral people that I know. On the other hand, I know some real sleaze balls and pricks who profess to be fundamentalist Christians. Witness, for example, the copiously demonstrated fact that so many YECs lie for Jesus. Shall we once again (heaves tired sigh) provide a list of the loud-mouthed hypocrites who scream about “Christian” morality while indulging themselves in the worst way (Ted Haggard, Jim and Tammy Baker etc…)? Your proposition is that morality comes from a belief in God. What a complete crock. Morality and ethics are taught and culturally transmitted. Which morality from the Bible do you adhere to – slavery, murder, genocide, polygyny? Care to choose? Oh wait, you are selective in that morality, eh? And what determines which morals you select from your source, hmmmmm? Of course, you completely ignore the fact that non-Christian cultures have morality too, and that other Christian cultures have different morals. The bottom line is that I couldn’t give a damn about whether Richard Dawkins is an atheist. Bully for him. I don’t really care what you are either. At issue here is the sleazy tactics and propaganda of this film and its makers. The degree to which they loudly profess Christian morality only makes the hypocrisy of their tactics that much worse.

Mine was that many well known mainstream scientists use the term ‘Darwinism’.

reminds me most of “The Wagnerian Inquisition: - EVERYBODY expects the Wagnerian Inquisition! Our chief weapon is repetition… repetition and dullness… dullness and repetition… Our two weapons are dullness and repetition… and ruthless inefficiency… Our three weapons are dullness and repetition and ruthless inefficiency… and an almost fanatical devotion to the Cause… Our four… no… Amongst our arguments… Amongst our argumentation… are such elements as dullness, repetition… - I’ll come in again. (Exit)”

john.williams: So what is your point[?] Mine was that many well known mainstream scientists use the term 'Darwinism'. But posters here say only creationists use the term. So my point is that the posters who say only creationists use the term are either ignorant or liars.

Why would an atheist care about the poor?

William Wallace:

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Hey, I say give Jacob one more chance, in light of Harold's comments. William Wallace

Thank you for pointing out one of the many glaring non-stochastic motions in the Harvard video. When I first saw it, I really like it, but was disappointed that, with the available computing and high-res imaging powers, no one is bothering to insert one of the most important aspects of motion on the molecular level...the random jiggles and wiggles from molecular collisions...the brownian ratchet which drives so many processes. No wonder so many folks swallow ID arguments, hook, line, and sinker, when presented with a vision of the micro-world that leaves out such an important aspect of life processes (on both micro and macro levels)....randomness!
Not only the kinesin steps are overly coordinated and smooth, but the unfolding of surface receptor proteins...looking more like flowers blooming than a representation of molecules in motion.
The makers of such videos need to listen to Richard Feynman's classic lecture "Atoms in Motion".

I personally can't wait to see how bad the "Expelled" rip off really is (and how bad the movie is, in general). But then again, I'm a glutton for punishment, having recently seen "Cloverfield" in a theater.

gota: The posters complain that the producers 'fixed' the interviews and 'fixed' the invitations. Yet this site is 'fixed' to keep out opposing view so what is the difference?