Change in Moderation?

Hi,my apologies if my post has created some confusion. The paper is not plagiarised, it was graded as a first class dissertation that I submitted as part of my Cambridge degree - they are extremely strict on the issue of plagiarism and I had to sign papers to declare that I had not plagiarised the work of others. I also had the fortune to consult directly with several of the authors I referenced since they work in the department I am attached to. Only parts in quotation marks are directly taken form other articles or books. I used several diagrams from Vinicius and Lahr because they are the only authors to have produced such diagrams to illustrate visually some of the expectations of the various theories. I included those mainly for the benefit of the biological anthropologists assessing my paper, since (inevitably) they would know less about the subject that I do, given that I researched it for about 2 months. It is not a published paper (although Cambridge University can do whatever they want with it) and they take about 1 year to be published anyway. I posted it in unaltered form.The nature of work that is based on drawing on the research of others and then critically evaluating all the differing opinions and results, means that you are expected to back up assumptions or claims by referencing authors that can support it. So for example, in this section:....somatic retardation generally requires a weakening of growth allometries confirming that all trait growth allometries should converge toward isometry (i.e. no shape or brain/body size ratio change) (Shea 1989; Godfrey & Sutherland 1996; Williams et al 2002)....When I reference Shea, Godfrey and Williams, I do so only to point out that they too have indicated in their work that somatic retardation would result in a convergence towards isometric growth. With multiple sources independently arriving at the same conclusion, it adds extra weight to that point. If I had not done this then there would be no evidence to back-up my claim. My dissertation is actually relatively free of these citationsWhen I read the original post by a student being taught about neoteny in humans, I instantly recognised what he was talking about. I'd been really interested in these theories aswell and thought neoteny made partial sense. But my extended research into the subject completely changed my mind, and so I felt this person would be interested in reading about my opinions of it.Finally, I could not find any webspace for me to upload this paper to, as I realised having 6000 words in a forum post would be undesirable. However, I also noticed that noone had replied to that topic for months and so thought it would just appeal to the topic starter if he came across it, I wasn't expecting anyone else to show much interest. If I have anything to post in the future I will try and host it somewhere as you've asked. Thank youNicolasThis message has been edited by Nicolas Gallagher, 11-27-2004 07:48 AM

I have already linked it to web space now following the complaints of others. This is not a thesis, it was my dissertation, the first dissertation must be around 6000 words and the second no more than 10000...although I'm not sure why people should presume the requirements of my degree course or essentially imply that calling it a "dissertation" is a lie.I assume that you have little knowledge of this area of scientific research and so it seems odd that you feel qualified to label it merely a "survey" of the topic or "extremely brief". Suggestions that I cut-and-paste this from somewhere or have just fabricated aspects of my argument, based on people skim-reading, are also quite surprising. I would never think of making those kinds of comments about something that I had not bothered to look at in detail. I did not post for any reason other than to provide relevant information for the topic starter, in a seemingly abandoned topic. If I'd know it would become a centre for debate about forum violations or claims of plagiarism then I would have thought again.all the bestNicolas Gallagher

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The paper is not plagiarised, it was graded as a first class dissertation that I submitted as part of my Cambridge degree

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Surely this indicates that I wasn't submitting a 6000 word PhD thesis to the forum (a thesis is a HUGE work, taking place over years). A dissertation (masters in this case) can be a theoretical critique and analysis of existing works or subjects, just as scientific journals are full of such work of varying lengths. Our dissertations must be 6000 and 10000 words as part of the masters degree, as an exercise in writing articles for journals (as many are good enough for that anyway). New research does not have to be presented in a thesis anyway.I never claimed to have undertaken my own research, and this subject (bar examination of the chimpanzee foetal growth allometries) is more a debate about what the agreed research results indicate. My critical approach to the subject is also in marked contrast to most authors in the field, I am not simply repeating the conclusions of someone else (i.e. it contains original critiques, analysis and contributions to the debate). It is an extremely complicated area, as evident by the fact that numerous authors contradict themselves or fail to even define heterochronic processes properly. Results are one thing, but analysis of those results is quite another, and the results in this area of research have often been misinterpreted in my opinion.It seems that you jumped to the wrong conclusions about what that paper was and what I was aiming to achieve with posting it. Like I said before, I only posted it for the original topic starter who was interested in this topic (and hadnt been replied to for 5 months), I had no other motives. I had not even planned to post again unless specifically asked about the paper by the original poster. I think your response was fairly presumptious given that you had not read my comments fully

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I think you can pretty much rely on the fact that when I see a 6,000 word post that I haven't read the comments fully.

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I was refering to the comments surrounding the paper, which clearly labelled it as a Cambridge University degree based dissertation. You falsely assumed, without benign questioning, that I was trying to pass this off as PhD work and hence was lying. PhD work is called a thesis and is not part of a "degree", nor is original thought constrained to thesis work. By definition, given the grading of that paper, it cannot have been unoriginal

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The Forum Guidelines specify that you shouldn't post lengthy material here

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I didn't know that, it isn't there anymore, it was only for the topic starter.

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Most of the complaints at EvC Forum are from Creationists claiming biased treatment. We try to compensate by holding evolutionists to higher standards.

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You implied that I was lying about the nature of the work. You made these implications without even paying attention to the explanation I had posted just messages before yours and at the top of the original post. You also made assumptions about the content of what I posted without any knowledge of the subject in general. Perhaps you should hold yourself to the same exacting standards you seem to be asking for, or tread with more caution before making accusations in the future.I do not want my paper to be hosted by websites other than my own. Good luck with the forums and I'm sorry that my original post has caused such complaint here, clearly I misunderstood the nature of these forums, which seems to be about general discussion.NicolasThis message has been edited by Nicolas Gallagher, 11-29-2004 11:33 AM