Speculations VS pseudo-speculations ??

[Lord Antares]

Yes. People who make great inventions/discoveries almost invariably protect their ideas and make sure they are the first to publish them to an article.

Would you think it would be unreasonable to say that if everyone made their ideas public before publishing them with their name attached to it, that no one would EVER steal them?

 

I don't doubt that you wouldn't, but there are many different people and many variables. I don't doubt that there are people who would do that.

[Klaynos]

What's the difference between making public and publishing?

[Lord Antares]

For example, if someone posted something that turns out to be correct on a forum without their name attached to it and someone stole it without contacting the originator and claimed it was his own.

Would there be some kind of procedure (asking for the password, checking browser history etc.)? Also, if the ''thief's'' theory went through and someone linked to their forum post as being the first instance of the theory, what would be the procedure there?

 

Also, out of curiosity, what are some of your ideas that were used by other people?

[Klaynos]

If your copyright has been infringed you can sue the author and publisher. I can see the situation where you're post history here for be evidence for copyright ownership. But if they've just taken the idea and written their own work on it then there is no protection for ideas.

[DanMP]

It is typical of the moronic things people with "personal theories" say. They are worried that people will steal their half-formed, half-baked, 100% unscientific ramblings. Other popular lines are pointing out how long they have been working on it (i.e. how much of their life they have wasted, when they could have spent a small fraction of that actually learning something), how desperately important it is, how they are ridiculed/persecuted, that science will prove them right one day, scientists are hidebound and unable to think of new ideas, there is conspiracy, and so on.

 

Please, don't be that guy.

I think I'm not that guy, and definitely not the one not being able to master the Quote button ... If you ask for rigor, please practice it yourself! Also I suggest to refrain from using words like crap and WTF. We are in a science forum.

 

You tend to repeat over and over again your lines about crackpottery, and to bully (see #67) people you don't know, over things they didn't do. I suggest you to wait until I post my theories (& you properly read them), before making statements about them/me and posting ramblings about how moronic I act. Offering a diagnostic before properly examining something is 100% unscientific. It seems that you are not that sharp as I hoped (see #66) ... or maybe just full of prejudice ...

 

About the forum "timestamp" and the protection of my work, I think I was correct. Maybe it is not the best place and the best protection, but it is enough for me.

[CharonY]

For example, if someone posted something that turns out to be correct on a forum without their name attached to it and someone stole it without contacting the originator and claimed it was his own.

Would there be some kind of procedure (asking for the password, checking browser history etc.)? Also, if the ''thief's'' theory went through and someone linked to their forum post as being the first instance of the theory, what would be the procedure there?

 

Also, out of curiosity, what are some of your ideas that were used by other people?

 

In short, no. Being correct has absolutely no relevance to the matter. Only whether the work in itself is complete and with sufficient details (i.e. with supporting experiments and/or calculations). Even if you posted experimental results, there is little to stop someone else to replicate these findings on their own and publish it. The only way to show that it was in fact plagiarized is when significant parts are actually lifted from the post. Otherwise you do not have much of a leg to stand on. And if it is not detailed enough to be a proper publication it does not account to much. A potential case could be made for certain repositories, such as arxiv, provided that the publication is close enough to count as plagiarism. Proving that for a random blog or forums is quite a bit harder.

Again, just using the idea counts for nothing. In fact, relatively free exchange of ideas without expecting credit is par of the course.

 

That being said, scooping is also not that unusual, which is why generally you tend only to present stuff that is either unique or (almost) published. Still, it is not unusual that big labs pick up an idea and finish faster than a poor, underfunded assistant prof, for example.

Edited March 30, 2017 by CharonY

[Strange]

Yes. People who make great inventions/discoveries almost invariably protect their ideas and make sure they are the first to publish them to an article.

 

 

Inventions, yes. Via patents are whatever.

 

Scientists may occasionally feel the need to publish before rivals working on the same thing, but that is not quite the same thing. No one is going to accuse them of stealing the idea, because they publish a paper based on their ten years of research a week after someone else publishes their similar research.

 

There are, of course, occasional examples of plagiarism. But they are usually pretty obvious.

About the forum "timestamp" and the protection of my work, I think I was correct. Maybe it is not the best place and the best protection, but it is enough for me.

 

 

All it protects if the copyright in the published text. Not the idea.

[StringJunky]

I would be flattered immensely if someone lifted an idea of mine of this forum, if I posted one, regardless of whether it was attributed to me or not. Just knowing is enough that it was good enough and from an amateur. The reality is that it's pie-in-the-sky, given the level of training, knowledge and resources required nowadays to make an impression in science. This is a hypothetical discussion about something happening with nearly zero chance of occurring, by any neophyte, here or anywhere else. Eight years ago when I joined here, I naively thought that a non-scientist could do significant things, but not now....it's too hard without the specific training and long experience.

Edited March 31, 2017 by StringJunky

[Lord Antares]

/cut

 

Thank you for your input. That was helpful.

 

Going by what you said, if Einstein hypothetically posted the complete theory of relativity on SFN, it would actually be protected as it is complete, coupled with calculations, derivations and evidence? And if I stole it and sent it to a scientific journal, he could successfully sue me? Of course, in this hypothetical scenario, relativty isn't known yet.

 

But, if so, this means it only applies to theoretical work and not physically engineered inventions, right? Because the latter require a patent.

 

 

No one is going to accuse them of stealing the idea, because they publish a paper based on their ten years of research a week after someone else publishes their similar research.

 

This doesn't make sense to me. It takes significantly less time for someone to steal an idea and reformat it, rather than invent it from scratch. If you give them, say, a month instead of a week, how would they know he didn't just steal if he didn't have evidence to the contrary?

Similar things happened to Newton - Leibniz and Darwin and the other guy (sorry, forgot the name). Although the published it at roughly the same time (and it took years to do so), there were still claims of plagiarism.

[Klaynos]

 

Thank you for your input. That was helpful.

 

Going by what you said, if Einstein hypothetically posted the complete theory of relativity on SFN, it would actually be protected as it is complete, coupled with calculations, derivations and evidence? And if I stole it and sent it to a scientific journal, he could successfully sue me? Of course, in this hypothetical scenario, relativty isn't known yet.

 

 

As long as they didn't copy the text then the copyright wouldn't have been infringed and there is nothing Einstein would have been able to do.

 

During my PhD someone published an easy but rubbish version of what I was trying to demonstrate. In the end it turned out that the hard version isn't really possible with current fabrication methods. If we'd have been able to get it to work it'd have been so much better. But that's a risk you take when you make decisions like that.

[Lord Antares]

I guess I misunderstood this then:

 

 

Only whether the work in itself is complete and with sufficient details (i.e. with supporting experiments and/or calculations).

 

So, as Strange said, it is copyrght infirgement only if the text was copied word for word (or very similarly worded)? Then yes, it isn't safe, but that only proves the point that valuable and evidence-supported ideas SHOULD be protected and wanting to protect them isn't crackpottery in itself.

 

 

During my PhD someone published an easy but rubbish version of what I was trying to demonstrate. In the end it turned out that the hard version isn't really possible with current fabrication methods. If we'd have been able to get it to work it'd have been so much better. But that's a risk you take when you make decisions like that.

 

But doesn't that mean that it wasn't rubbish? Sorry to say this but it sounds like he had a better version of it, seeing how it was simpler and it worked.

[Klaynos]

But doesn't that mean that it wasn't rubbish? Sorry to say this but it sounds like he had a better version of it, seeing how it was simpler and it worked.

Rubbish is not really the right word, it showed the effect but the signal was much much smaller than the what should be possible using he method we were looking at. We decided not to do the method they used as we were aiming high. The signal they measured isn't really strong enough for the potential commercial applications and we'd already shown the physics worked on different structures.

 

I have a whole chapter in my thesis on how not to make the samples and one probable measurement of the effect. The sample wasn't regular or large enough to model using sensible symmetries and computers were not really capable of modelling the whole sample area. Even our crappy sample showed a signal much strong than they got with something that looked much nicer.

 

Now the area I work in there are only 3 or 4 experts on it and we're all pretty open with each other as to what we're doing to try and reduce duplication but produce results that are intercomparable.

[DanMP]

I would be flattered immensely if someone lifted an idea of mine of this forum, if I posted one, regardless of whether it was attributed to me or not. Just knowing is enough ...

This is very close to what I feel. I'm not interested in copyright protection. I want my ideas to be displayed, scientifically debated and, if considered worthy, disseminated and tested.

 

The "timestamp" may be useful for getting some recognition, possibly just among friends and colleagues.

[Strange]

Going by what you said, if Einstein hypothetically posted the complete theory of relativity on SFN, it would actually be protected as it is complete, coupled with calculations, derivations and evidence? And if I stole it and sent it to a scientific journal, he could successfully sue me? Of course, in this hypothetical scenario, relativty isn't known yet.

 

 

If you copied the text, largely verbatim, then you could be sued for copyright infringement.

 

If you rewrite the whole thing in your own words, then there would be nothing he could do. (My understanding is that mathematical equations are not, in general, protected by copyright.)

So, as Strange said, it is copyrght infirgement only if the text was copied word for word (or very similarly worded)? Then yes, it isn't safe, but that only proves the point that valuable and evidence-supported ideas SHOULD be protected and wanting to protect them isn't crackpottery in itself.

 

But there is no mechanism to protect ideas.

Similar things happened to Newton - Leibniz and Darwin and the other guy (sorry, forgot the name). Although the published it at roughly the same time (and it took years to do so), there were still claims of plagiarism.

 

This frequently happens. And it is often the case that the name most associated with a theory is not the first person to have come up with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy

 

The "other guy" was Wallace. He sent his work to Darwin who then presented it (as Wallace's) along with notes about his own work, at the Royal Society. Hard to say who should get priority. It should probably be called the Darwin-Wallce theory of evolution by natural section. It is not clear why Darwin's name is remember but Wallace is largely forgotten.

[StringJunky]

This is very close to what I feel. I'm not interested in copyright protection. I want my ideas to be displayed, scientifically debated and, if considered worthy, disseminated and tested.

 

The "timestamp" may be useful for getting some recognition, possibly just among friends and colleagues.

Right.

[Lord Antares]

 

But there is no mechanism to protect ideas.

 

By that I mean, if you have something you really believe to be tangible and reasonbly worked out, you shouldn't post it anywhere, but instead try to finish it. Hence the argument from crackpots that they don't want to post their whole ideas here, as they may be stolen. While it obviously doesn't apply to those specific cases of said crackpots, the general idea of not wanting to post it is sound then.

 

 

 

This frequently happens. And it is often the case that the name most associated with a theory is not the first person to have come up with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy

 

Thanks for this information.

[Strange]

By that I mean, if you have something you really believe to be tangible and reasonbly worked out, you shouldn't post it anywhere, but instead try to finish it.

 

 

I would publish it as widely as possible, and discuss it with your peers, as the best way of getting feedback to improve the idea. The idea that someone could come up with a valuable new idea all alone is pretty unlikely.

[CharonY]

I guess I misunderstood this then:

 

 

 

 

I think you missed the second part, which alludes to the difficulty of proving that something was directly lifted (as opposed to came up and published it independently). Anything outside of direct plagiarism that is. There may be instances that are so unique and so specific that it may suffice. But it would be the extremely unusual exception rather than the norm.

 

But in the end it is also clear that an anonymous forum is not a good venue to present novel science outside of mathematics. Incidentally, this is also where most novel ideas presented here fall apart.

 

Or to put it differently, if we go beyond just and idea and to, say, full blown theories with well-developed support, it requires a platform of peers to figure out the usefulness of it. If it does not become part of the scientific discourse just by being there.

Edited March 31, 2017 by CharonY

[Lord Antares]

 

 

I would publish it as widely as possible, and discuss it with your peers, as the best way of getting feedback to improve the idea. The idea that someone could come up with a valuable new idea all alone is pretty unlikely.

 

But according what you guys are saying, there is a (small) possibility that someone might steal the idea and develop it quicker if it is in its infancy stages.

 

I guess what you are trying to say is: if you compare the amount of help you might get from others, especially professionals to the small chance that someone might see it and steal it for themselves, the former pays off much more. I would have to agree with that.

 

 

 

But in the end it is also clear that an anonymous forum is not a good venue to present novel science outside of mathematics.

 

Why is mathematics an exception?

 

 

 

Or to put it differently, if we go beyond just and idea and to, say, full blown theories with well-developed support, it requires a platform of peers to figure out the usefulness of it. If it does not become part of the scientific discourse just by being there.

 

Well, in theory, IF you are discussing it with the right people, it might be equivalent to peer review, but I see what you mean. Basically, you know that peers will help for certain, but you don't know how it would work out on an open forum. Peers will also, on average, spend more time on it and go more in depth.

[Strange]

 

But according what you guys are saying, there is a (small) possibility that someone might steal the idea and develop it quicker if it is in its infancy stages.

 

 

I don't believe that is true. Or at least, the probability is so small it can be ignored. (About comparable with the Tooth Fairy being real.)

[swansont]

But according what you guys are saying, there is a (small) possibility that someone might steal the idea and develop it quicker if it is in its infancy stages.

 

If you present the idea, it's not stealing if someone builds on it and ends up with something new.

[Lord Antares]

 

 

I don't believe that is true. Or at least, the probability is so small it can be ignored. (About comparable with the Tooth Fairy being real.)

 

I acknowledged that in the next sentence. I wouldn't say that low, but low enough.

 

If you present the idea, it's not stealing if someone builds on it and ends up with something new.

 

It is if the second person doesn't credit the first person duly.

[CharonY]

 

 

Why is mathematics an exception?

 

 

 

I was mostly thinking about natural science. The reason being that in most areas you need some level of experimental support. In mathematics, depending on what your conclusions are, you may not need those.