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glassuser ago

Einstein’s papers, theories, mathematics, documentation, were almost 100% plagiarised from others. He combined the prior published works of several people into one paper and claimed ownership of all of it. His so-called theories were nothing more than a composition encompassing the prior work of men like James Maxwell, Hendrik Lorentz, Joseph Larmor, Olinto De Pretto, Robert Brown, Ludwig Boltzmann, Friedrich Hasenöhrl, and many more.

In a paper he wrote in 1907, in part responding to (already-virulent) accusations of plagiarism, Einstein declared that plagiarism was perfectly acceptable as a form of ethical research, stating “… the nature [of physics is] that what follows has already been partly solved by other authors. I am [therefore] entitled to leave out a thoroughly pedantic survey of the literature…”[6][7][8] In other words, scientists all build on each others’ work, so Einstein could freely compile the work of everyone before him and re-present it as his own, with no obligation to even mention them or their work. His view of ethical science was like building a tower where each person adds one stone and, if I add the last stone, I not only take credit for the entire design and construction of the tower, but I own the building.

The crap of it is that almost all of this has always been perfectly acceptable in academia - as long as you cite your sources. You can copy like hell from anywhere, using anything you want, even if your conclusions are just simple additive incremental steps, as long as you document the source you copied from. And you'll probably get far more credit than you deserve for that.

He probably could have done pretty much everything he did exactly the same, plus adding citations, and with the media manipulation coverage he had to smooth it over, he probably would have come out just as well if not better.

But the arrogance, greed, and complete lack of care and understanding of the culture he was working in belies what seems to be an inherent nature. It really should make you stop and think for a minute...