更有甚者，在科学网上还因为某特殊人物是否是剽窃展开了长时间的争论，秃头上的虱子明摆着，但就是视而不见。这曾经令我困惑不解，今天终于悟出些道理：“剽窃”其实是外国人发明的，他们率先开始剽窃，率先发现剽窃的危害，于是率先制定了制裁剽窃的规章制度。请看英文字典（Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1978）中的定义：
Plagiarize: to take (words, ideas, etc.) from someone else's work and use as one's own without admitting one has done so; to take someone else's words from (written work).
说完闲话，得转入正题了：为何说剽窃是外国人发明的？不是因为他们率先发现并制定了规则，而是因为他们在大学专业教材中专门讨论了这个问题。如：Frank Press and Raymond Siever（2001）在他们合著的地质学教材《Understanding Earth》（第三版）第一章开头就用了整整半页纸专门介绍“科学方法”，而且重点讨论了学术不端问题：
The Scientific Method科学方法
•The scientific method, on which all scientists rely, is a general research strategy based on experimentation and on the principle that every physical event has a physical explanation, even if may be beyond our present ability to discover.
•Hypothesis—a tentative（尝试的）explanation based on data collected through observations and experiments—they present it to the community of scientists for criticism and repeated testing against new data. A hypothesis that is confirmed by other scientists gains credibility（可信度）, particularly if it predicts the outcome of new experiments.
•Theory: A hypothesis that has survived repeated challenges and accumulated a substantial body of experimental support is elevated to the status of a theory. Although its explanatory and predictive powers have been demonstrated, a theory can never be considered finally proved. The essence（本质）of science is that no explanation, no matter how believable or appealing, is immune（免疫的）to question. If convincing new evidence indicates that a theory is wrong, scientists may modify or discard it. The longer a theory holds up to all scientific challenges, however, the more confidently（信赖地）it is held.
To encourage the atmosphere of challenge, scientists share their ideas and data by presenting them at professional meetings, publishing them in professional journals, and discussing them in informal conversation with colleagues. Scientists learn from one another’s work as well as from the discoveries of the past.
Because such free intellectual exchange is subject toabuses, a code of ethics（道德规范）has evolved among scientists. Scientists must acknowledge the contributions of all others on whose work they have drawn（吸取）. They must not fabricate（虚构）or falsify（窜改）data, and they must accept responsibility for training the next generation of researchers and teachers. The most basic to science—honesty（诚实）, generosity（宽宏）, a respect for evidence, openness（坦率）to all ideas and opinions!
（The above words cited from: Press and Siever, 2001, Understanding Earth, third edition. p4.）
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