Lance Fortnow had a real go<\/a> at the MIT students that got the bogus paper accepted<\/a> at the SCI conference.<\/p>\n

\nI would consider someone who intentionally submits a bogus paper to STOC guilty of academic fraud. Why are these MIT students any different?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I (and many of the people who’ve commented on his blog) think there’s a big difference. Fraud implies some serious intent to “get away with something”, to pass one thing off as another. Anyone who spent 2 minutes reading their paper would immediately realize that this isn’t a real<\/em> paper. They might be confused regarding the intent, but they would know instantly and absolutely that the authors weren’t even trying<\/em> to fool anyone into thinking that it was a real piece of science. The papers that SCIgen churns out are about as subtle as a Three Stooges film, and that’s not fraud, that’s parody. Parody is a crucial tool in the toolkit of those looking to expose shams and shallow thinking, and as such I think the students’ actions were completely reasonable.<\/p>\n

P.S. One of the comments on Fortnow’s blog points to this fascinating piece on the The Bogdanoff Affair<\/a>. One might perhaps argue that academics (including scientists) have some obligation to make some sense in our writing and speaking, and that we should demand no less when reviewing the work of others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lance Fortnow had a real go at the MIT students that got the bogus paper accepted at the SCI conference. I would consider someone who intentionally submits a bogus paper to STOC guilty of academic fraud. Why are these MIT students any different? I (and many of the people who’ve commented on his blog) think … Continue reading “Fortnow’s thoughts on SCIgen”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-science","category-writing"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-29","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":126,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/04\/17\/mit-students-find-absence-of-human-intelligence-at-csci-conference\/","url_meta":{"origin":133,"position":0},"title":"MIT students find absence of human intelligence at CSci conference","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"17 Apr 05","format":false,"excerpt":"In the late 1940's Alan Turing wrestled with the thorny problem of how we'd recognize (computer) intelligence if it walked up and bit us. His answer was his famous Turing Test, which essentially takes the position that if a computer program can consistently fool us into thinking it's a human\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":822,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/03\/30\/umm-students-are-just-so-cool\/","url_meta":{"origin":133,"position":1},"title":"UMM students are just so cool!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"30 Mar 08","format":false,"excerpt":"As mentioned earlier, our paper \"Semantic building blocks in genetic programming\" with Brian Ohs (UMM '08) and Tyler Hutchison (UMM '07) was nominated for Best Paper at EuroGP 2008 in Naples, Italy. We won! 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A few weeks from now the Eleventh European conference on Genetic Programming (EuroGP)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Lake Como and the Alps","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/13\/14169907_aafc240323_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":876,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/10\/21\/this-is-really-why-i-teach\/","url_meta":{"origin":133,"position":3},"title":"This is really why I teach","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"21 Oct 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Tyler Hutchison did a wonderful drawing of himself, Brian Ohs, and me for possible use as an illustration for a UMM piece on our best paper award at EuroGP 2008 in Naples.","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":868,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/08\/12\/i-tend-to-scribble-a-lot\/","url_meta":{"origin":133,"position":4},"title":"I tend to scribble a lot","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"12 Aug 08","format":false,"excerpt":"A photo demonstrating how much I scribble on papers when I'm editing.","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Creative Commons License","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-content\/plugins\/photo-dropper\/images\/cc.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":463,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/11\/this-ones-for-my-sister\/","url_meta":{"origin":133,"position":5},"title":"This one’s for my sister","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"11 Feb 07","format":false,"excerpt":"For several years now my sister has been using old magazines, calendars, and the like as wrapping paper, which certainly made it easier to spot her presents under the tree. It's a really cool idea which I've been emulating, including using scratch paper for calligraphy projects for wrapping. 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