Because they plagiarize?
Why do German politicians so often stumble over Ph.D. plagiarism allegations?
Yet another German politician has resigned over allegedly plagiarizing their doctoral thesis. Who catches them out, and why is this a big deal in Germany?
“They copy from everywhere. Other Ph.Ds, Wikipedia, club newsletters, product information leaflets — I’ve seen the strangest things.”
That means doing nothing. And nothing is what German students want.
Is genius made from bootstraps or handouts? A university in Germany may answer that question by giving out free money for being lazy. The University of Fine Arts in Hamburg said it’s going to give three people $1,900 “idleness grants.”
I doubt if any new discoveries will be made here. Academics know this already: “Doing nothing isn’t very easy.” But, hey. Somebody has to do it.
The “grant for doing nothing” will be for “active inactivity” as the project studies lack of ambition for research for an exhibition next year on sustainability called The School of Inconsequentiality: Towards A Better Life.
“This scholarship program is not a joke but an experiment with serious intentions — how can you turn a society that is structured around achievements and accomplishments on its head?”
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation has conducted a survey of 1,106 German academics about free speech and discovered that 20% reject Israel’s existence.
Not all that surprising really, once you consider that a German government study in 2017 found 40% of the population infected with “contemporary antisemitism.” The university folks are just more enlightened, I guess.
“Based on Israel’s policies, I can understand people having something against the Jews.”
Eingeschränkte Wissenschaftsfreiheit in Deutschland? Professoren sehen sich durch Publikationsdruck, teilweise aber auch durch “Political Correctness” gehemmt.
That means nonsense.
German academics and authors call for end to ‘gender nonsense‘ – .Open letter hits back at demand for more gender-neutral nouns.
A group of German authors, comedians and academics have added fuel to the flames of an increasingly bad-tempered culture war over language bias by calling for a fightback against “ridiculous linguistic constructions” designed to make German more gender-neutral.
“And no one has been bothered by the fact that everything feminine has for 1,000 years been based on the [neuter] word das Weib.”
Germans are very precise and proper and legalistic when it comes to, well, when it comes to just about anything you can possibly imagine so it shouldn’t surprise any of us out here all that much that the rector of the German university in Rostock, where academics have voted to award NSA leakmeister Edward Snowden himself an honorary doctorate, is now trying to have the decision reversed, his argument being that Snowden’s actions did not fulfill the the university’s required criteria. Dude, like what a party pooper.
It appears that there is some sticky little detail somewhere in their regulations about honorary doctorates only being allowed for “special academic achievement” and the rector, nitpicky like German rectors are, has now pointed out to everyone that Snowden’s leaking to the media of NSA documents doesn’t wirklich (really) constitute that.
This won’t be the last word on this, of course. But still. And there’s still the Nobel Peace Prize on its way, too. So take a chill pill, people. Your hero will get his honors yet.
Datenübergabe keine wissenschaftliche Leistung
That didn’t take long. After planning to introduce “Herr Professorin” or Mr. Madame Professor at the University of Leipzig for both men and women professors, the FU Berlin is now thinking about doing the same.
Did Delta House dump some LSD in the faculty water cooler over here or something?
“All are equal in Leipzig. All women, that is.”
In Leipzig sind jetzt alle gleich, nämlich Frauen. Professoren gibt’s nicht mehr, nur noch Professorinnen, gemeint bleiben damit natürlich auch noch die männlichen Akademiker, die jedoch nur noch in einer Fußnote erwähnt werden.
Observing Hermann 