Did COVID Vaccine Advocates Commit Plagiarism?

A Modest Proposal

The plagiarism controversy in the US academic circles is widening. Particular academic plagiarists had their scientific works examined during the so-called “Ivy League antisemitism scandal.” I expressed my regret that academic integrity did not matter until a cultural controversy exploded.

Plagiarist Harvard President Resigns. Her Scientific Wrongdoing Was Fine Until a Month Ago

A friend of this blog, eugyppius, posted his take on this scandal (paywalled article), explaining the differences between his opinion and mine. The differences are important; however, in my opinion, they are minor. Eugyppius highlighted his satisfaction at seeing plagiarists doing bad science being exposed, whereas I emphasized regret that bad science did not matter until a cultural scandal exploded.

Since then, the “plagiarism scandal” widened. Bill Ackman, a billionaire at the forefront of efforts to fire certain academics, found his own family at the center of attention of certain revenge-minded Internet sleuths. They found that Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman, is also a plagiarist, and her MIT dissertation violated MIT's standards.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-ackman-wife-neri-oxman-mit-dissertation-plagiarism-2024-1

Be aware that there could be legitimate differences of opinion on how bad Oxman’s plagiarism was because sources were mentioned near some of the offending sentences, although without required quotations. (this applies to some of Claudine Gay’s passages as well) It is not an issue that I care about deeply. The point is that Neri Oxman broke the rules of her own institution.

When the public discovered that his wife is a plagiarist, Ackman went nuclear and is now threatening to review all works by MIT:

Bring it on, I say!

Investigate “COVID Science” for Plagiarism!

What can the plagiarism scandal mean for us, COVID vaccine skeptics? We saw corrupt, bad science take over public health, mass-psychology, virology, and other academic branches. These malign individuals imposed vaccine mandates, silenced critics, and forced billions to take non-working COVID vaccines, while raking in record amounts of grant money and other payments. Those vaccines made the pandemic worse and ruined the health of millions.

What can we do about them?

We can investigate them and see if they also committed acts of plagiarism! Many of them are incapable of original thought and would be highly likely to have committed some academic improprieties in the past. Now is a great time to discover them!

How do we investigate them? You can start by visiting oatd.org and search it for dissertations:

Then, you can use a plagiarism detection tool. An example is plagiarismdetector.net:

Avoid False Accusations!

Be aware that plagiarism accusations are very serious. We cannot malign innocent scientists, even if we do not like their viewpoints, and accusations of plagiarism must pass the most skeptical and stringent checking.

Therefore, if you find anything, please do not run off with it, but instead, allow your findings to be cross-examined and verified before anyone’s reputation is affected. We want to be the good guys and avoid making false or unfounded accusations.

Let us know if you find anything - and please, again, be extremely conservative when making any accusation! Subject any findings to double and triple checks and involve friends by asking them to take a skeptical look at what you found.