8Tho Daily Tar HeelWednesday, September 23, 1987
latlg
95th year of editorial freedom
JILL GERBER, Editor
Amy Hamilton, Managing Editor
Sally Pearsall, News Editor
JEAN LUTES, University Editor
DONNA LEINWAND, State and National Editor
JEANNIE FARIS, City Editor
JAMES SUROWIECKI, Sports Editor
FELISA NEURINGER, Business Editor
JULIE BRASWELL, Features Editor
Elizabeth Ellen, Arts Editor
Charlotte Cannon, Photography Editor
CATHY McHUGH, Omnibus Editor
Research fraud is a bad apple
The Honor
Code may seem
like a vague and
board
often unenforcible Op.ll.Qn
set of ethics. Many ;
people who cheat are not caught, and
the code makes cheating easier for
unsupervised students who are temp
ted by a teacher's turned back. How
ever, the precedent the code sets for
later academic work, especially scien
tific research, is as important as any
immediate and tangible results of the
system.
At an undergraduate level, one
freshman plagiarizing an English 2
paper will not have serious repercus
sions for the class as a whole. On a
professional research level, the pub
lished results of one scientist are
incorporated into further research by
other scientists, and thus a false
conclusion could contaminate a whole
series of projects. One bad apple will
spoil the barrel.
And there are plenty of bad apples.
June Price Tangney, a lecturer in
psychology at Bryn Mawr College,
surveyed 245 scientists at an unnamed
major university and discovered that
32 percent suspected a colleague of
falsifying data. Of these suspicious
scientists, 54 percent had failed to
; check further or take action to remedy
'the situation.
Tangney said that researchers fail
to point the finger at deceitful col
leagues because they are afraid that
they will be seen as troublemakers,
possibly with an axe to grind. This
should sound familiar to anyone who
has ever agonized over turning in a
fellow student.
The reasons for committing
research fraud should also sound
familiar to any student. Scientists
depend on grants to continue their
research, and distribution of grants is
largely based on past results. More
prominent and successful scientists will
naturally be more attractive candi
dates for a foundation's support. The
pressure to "publish or perish"
becomes great enough for some to
illegally enhance the success of their
research. The Damocletian sword of
Grading which hangs over the under
graduate's head becomes that of
Funding over the scientist's.
Students at UNC and many other
universities labor under a formal code
of ethics which governs their work, and
theoretically this honor system carries
over into further academic research.
However, in the ethics statement of
the American Association of Univer
sity Professors, there is ho specific
guideline that encourages professional
scholars to take action against possible
fraud.
If such a code is needed at the
amateur level of undergraduate study,
then certainly it is needed at the level
of professional research. And with
$105.2 million allocated for research
funding at UNC, the professional
community would do well to investi
gate the validity of research findings.
Football fans sacked for a loss
The 1987 National Football League
season may have ended Monday night
with the New York Jets 43-24 drub
bing of the New England Patriots. The
NFL Players Association, as threa
tened, went on strike immediately after
the game.
The issues involved are numerous,
and those on both sides are steadfast
in their views. The players' grievances
center on the issue of free agency. They
demand the liberalization of a free
agent policy that has produced only
one free agent move in the last decade.
The familiar specters of roster size,
drug testing, minimum salaries and
guaranteed contracts also haunt the
proceedings.
The players' case is strongest on the
question of free agency. The recently
expired collective bargaining agree
ment allowed teams who lost free
agents compensation in the form of
draft choices. The NFLPA proposed
that compensation not apply to free
agents with more than four years of
NFL experience. The players claim
they are restricted in choosing their
place of employment, unlike other
professions.
The players' reasoning is correct.
Owners argue that free agency would
harm competition, as the richest
franchises would garner the majority
of the talent. The argument is wea
kened substantially because the bulk
of owners' revenue comes from the
NFL's network television contract,
which is equally divided among all 28
teams. The players, although paid
handsomely the average annual
salary is $230,000 are effectively
prohibited from seeking to improve
their working conditions. The players'
affluence does not mitigate their right
to unrestricted movement.
Regardless of the differences in
negotiating stances, both the players
and the owners have a common stake
in resolving the issues swiftly. Both
parties stand to lose huge amounts of
revenue an average of $15,000 per
game for the players and millions in
TV profits for the owners. They also
risk endangering the good will of a
football-crazed public. If reason
prevails, the players and owners will
quickly end the deafening silence now
filling NFL stadiums. Chris
Chapman
The Daily Tar Heel
Editorial Writers: Chris Chapman, Jim Grecnhill, Mike Mackay and Brian McCuskcy.
Editorial Assistants: Julia Coon and Sharon Kcbschull.
Assistant Managing Editors: Ruth Davis and Deirdre Fallon.
News: Jeanna Baxter, Matt Bivens, Meg Craddock, Ruth Davis, Laurie Duncan, Kimberly Edens,
Mark Folk, Kristen Gardner, Lindsay Hayes, Michael Jackson, Kelly Johnson, Michael Jordan, Helen .
Jones, Sharon Kcbschull, Hunter Lambeth, Brian Long, Mitra Lotfi, Leigh Ann McDonald, Justin
McGuire, Smithson Mills, Lee Ann Necessary, Rebecca Nesbit, Susan Odenkirchen, Cheryl Pond, Charla
D. Price, Andrea Shaw, Clay Thorp, Nicki Weiscnsee and Judy Wilson. Brian Long, assistant business
editor. Rachel Orr, assistant university editor.
Sports: Mike Berardino and Patton McDowell, assistant sports editors. Steve Giles, Dave Hall, Clay
Hodges, Jim Muse, Andy Podolsky, Chris Spencer and Langston Wertz.
Features: Hannah Drum, Carole Ferguson, Jennifer Frost, Laura Jenkins, Corin Ortlam, Lynn Phillips
and Kathy Wilson.
Arts: James Burrus, Scott Cowen, David Hester, Beth Rhea, Kelly Rhodes, Alston Russell and Rob
Sherman.
Photography: Tony Deifell, David Minton, Matthew Plyler and Julie Stovall.
Copy Editors: Karen Bell, Julia Coon, Laurie Duncan, Lisa Lorentz, Toby Moore, Karen Smiley,
Rachel Stiffler and Kaarin Tisue.
Cartoonists: Jeff Christian, Bill Cokas, Greg Humphreys and Trip Park.
Campus Calendar: Mindelle Rosenberg.
Business and Advertising: Anne Fulcher, general manager; Patricia Glance, advertising director; Joan
Worth, advertising coordinator; Peggy Smith, advertising manager; Sheila Baker, business manager;
Michael Benfield, Lisa Chorebanian, Ashley Hinton, Kellie McElhaney, Chrissy Mennitt, Stacey
Montford, Lesley Renwrick, Julie Settle, Dave Slovensky, Dean Thompson, Amanda Tilley and Wendy
Wenger, advertising representatives; Stephanie Chesson, classified advertising representative; and Kris
Carlson, secretary.
Distribution Tucker Stevens, manager;
Delivery Leon Morton, manager; Billy Owens, assistant.
Production: Bill Leslie and Stacy Wynn. Rita Galloway and Leslie Humphrey, production assistants.
Printing: The Chapel Hill Newspaper
Readers' Foramni
Love and courtship, American style
t was a scene George Sand or Frederic
Chopin could have immortalized in a
Jipoem or a prelude. We were atop
Mount Jefferson. The sun was about to
set. Several feet away from us, Caroline
and Mrs. Worth, her mother, chatted as
women do so seductively well, though with
visible secrecy. On a cliff-hanging rock of
our own, Mr. Worth and I exchanged a
pair of binoculars and peered into the
immensity of the country stretched below,
mountain after plain after mountain
interspersed with modern-looking towns
and highways. Here lay North Carolina,
Virginia, Tennessee and with a little
imagination, its aging television antenna
piercing through the haze way to the
northeast the Empire State Building.
Fortunately, Sand and his effusive
Chopin died long ago. This was no time
for poems or songs so much as for
diplomacy. A girl was introducing me to
her parents for the first time in that ageless
ritual that still cannot be mastered or
avoided. The lyrical setting made things
a little easy, although the drive up to Ashe
County had been nothing but nervous
expectations. Hiding in patriotism, Caro
line and I played Aaron Copland's "Appal
achian Spring" on the car stereo, followed
by some silly melodramatic tidbits of the
baroque and the 70s, but nothing, not even
a heated argument over the merits of "The
Magic Flute" could relax us.
Courtship is a dangerous business in
America. It is looked at with much
suspicion since it remains a habit of the
Old World never quite understood in the
pragmatic New World. Like a Roman
army on a rampage the tendency for
Pierre Tristam
Post Impressions
couples here is to go from A (first contact)
to Z (bed) without minding the 24 steps
between, let alone creating the 1,001 steps
beyond.
Caroline and I, if only for nostalgia's
sake, could not neglect certain revelries like
a dinner, declarations inspired from
Pavarotti's Neapolitan arias, excrutiating
separations of an hour or two and
inevitably, the blessing of parents, omni
present no matter where they are. Courtly
propriety has its place. And in this case
it led straight to the heart of Jefferson.
Far from the suspicious looks of city
folks, far from the characteristic coolness
of Protestants of the plains, far from the
condescending stares of college-town
academics, I was welcomed with hospital
ity comparable only to that of a Arab
sheikh, though good Turkish coffee was
not available.
I almost thought such hospitality
peculiar to North Carolina's mountains,
and more especially to Ashe County. The
sight from Mount Jefferson was convinc
ing enough. Everything, including those
staples of American architectural inele
gance malls looked serene and perfect
in a way that justified Mr. Worth's
("Allen,'' I now could say) having never
lived anywhere else.
Even more appealing was Ashe County's
distance from the so-called realities of
everyday life, let them be the demise of
the Persian Gulf or the designs of Judge
Robert Bork, the temper of the economy
or that of a roommate, the presumptions
of a boss or of a professor, the overblown
consequences of a grade or of a job
interview . . . Ashe County seemed safe.
True, the secluded landing strip in the
distance, Allen pointed out, was occasion
ally used by traffickers as an ideal drop
off for Colombian dust. Wealthy Floridi
ans were buying up land in sweeps,
upsetting the county's calm with their
greedy real estate ventures. Crime was
slowly becoming part of the norm, or at
least trying to. Ashe County residents
might even have to start locking their doors
at night.
But none of those ills, microscopic
compared to those of the surreal world
beyond, mattered to me at all. For I was
now convinced that the pleasures of
courtship and majesty of the mountains
were created together on the Seventh (not
the Third) Day as the safest refuges from
the pains and sorrows caused by the faulty
creations of the other six.
As evening came and with it the end
of our Seventh Day, Caroline and I saw
that it was not so good, especially since
we could not live a one-day week. With
Chapel Hill waiting in the wings, however,
there was yet the pleasure of a few dinners
at Cracovia and the expectancy of another
trip to Jefferson, probably before the
turning of the leaves.
Pierre Tristam is a graduate student in
history from Carrboro.
Bork's assets
numerous
To the editor.
Mike Mackay's editorial
"Bork nomination is injustice"
of Sept. 21 was unfair and
totally inaccurate. It totally
ignored Judge Robert Bork's
excellent qualifications for the
Supreme Court and, instead,
chose to portray him as an
extremist.
This is clearly not true.
During the time in which Bork
has served on the District of
Columbia "Curcuit Court of
Appeals, not one of his deci
sions has been overturned by
the Supreme Court. Further
more, we should remember that
for this position Bork was given
the unanimous approval of the
Senate.
While Bork was teaching at
Yale, he did what law profes
sors are encouraged to do. He
proposed new and different
ways of interpreting the law
and the Constitution. This is
designed to open up fresh
debates of uncertain points.
Many of Bork's critics, how
ever, are describing these ideas
as being an indication of his
extremist views.
Bork is one of the most
respected legal scholars in
America. He was a professor
at Yale for a number of years
and has most recently served
as a federal appeals court judge
for the District of Columbia.
In both positions he has fol
lowed the philosophy of judi
cial restraint.
It is for this philosophy that
he is now being opposed.
Judicial restraint is the belief
that judges should interpret the
law, not make it. Today, too
many judges are stepping out
side of their constitutionally
appointed area of responsibility
that of interpreting. Instead,
many activist judges are using
the law to advance their own
agendas.
I do not find it ironic at all
that the Bork nomination coin
cides with the 200th anniver
sary of the Constitution. I find
it quite appropriate. It is time
to respect the Constitution, and
place justices on the Supreme
Court who accept the fact that
their responsibility is limited to
interpreting the law as made by
the legislative branch. Bork
would be such a justice.
EDWARD YEAGER
Senior
International Studies
Biden deserves
absolution
To the editor:
Up till now we only had to
worry about James Surowiecki
butchering sports articles, but
thanks to his editorial "Fine
words do double duty," (Sept.
18), we now have to read his
pompous, overwritten tripe in
such areas as politics.
Jim, it's really intriguing of
you to pass judgment on some
thing you know nothing about.
If you had listened to Sen. Joe
Biden's explanation of the
plagiarism incident, that, by the
way, occurred 22 years ago in
law school, you would have
found that it was a stupid
mistake, not the "willingness to
pass off another's work as his
own," as you stated. Biden said
that he did not properly note
the source of his quote in his
law paper, but he did give credit
to the author in his paper. He
did not malevolently misrepre
sent anything, he just did not
use proper notation. It should
have been obvious, even to
certain garden vegetables, that
if he had deliberately plagiar
ized five pages of his paper, he
would have been thrown out of
school instead of just being
chastised by the dean of the law
school. Obviously, the dean
was satisifed with his
explanation.
Also, if Biden did inadver
tently plagiarize his paper, that
event was so long ago that it
shouldn't in any way preclude
his becoming president. Just
think, Jim, if people hold your
mistakes against you for your
whole life, youH never get a job
working for any newspaper in
this country after some of your
articles. Your editorial was not
all bad; you did get to show
off some of your vast writing
skills. You even used the word
"penumbra." Hey, new thesau
rus, Jim?
From now on stick to cov
ering your beloved Big East,
and please, whatever you do,
don't cover Student Congress
or town council meetings.
ROB FRIEDMAN
Senior
Political Science Economics
Cradle concert
misjudged
To the editor:
After reading Rob Sher
man's article on the Sonic
Youth concert ("Playing with
confidence, Sonic Youth blows
'em out at Cat's Cradle," Sept.
17), I came up with one out
standing question: Did Sher
man attend the same concert
I did on Sept. 15?
Sherman not only bored us
with his socio-economic anal
ysis of Chapel Hill's psuedo
deprived? leather-clad youth
(which not only is a drawn-out
topic but totally misplaced and
pointless in this article), but
made a major issue of describ
ing the crowd at the Cradle as
a herd of pretentious, misled
adolescents, which they were
not. This show was atypical in
that it could boast of a
genuinely enthusiastic, mixed
audience.
Sherman blindly overlooked
that the Cradle could not have
been "bursting with high school
students outfitted with eyeliner
and bad attitudes" simply
because the age requirement
was 18 (which made his ques
tion of "how these kids get their
parents to let them stay up so
late on a school night" equally
ridiculous).
Also, Kim Gordon did not
sing the majority of the vocals.
And the vocals were only
unintelligible if you were totally
unfamiliar with Sonic Youth's
music. And the music was only
unintelligent if you didn't
appreciate it to begin with, as
Sherman clearly didn't.
What then, pray tell, was he
doing reviewing a concert he
obviously didn't like or under
stand, and obviously wasn't
paying attention to?
BELISA VRANICH
Senior
Psychology
Open your eyes before criticizing editorials
To the editor:
I am writing in response to the letters
"GOP loves education, too" (Sept. 17) by
Ken Costner and "Mrs. Dole bows to no
one" (Sept. 18) by Steve Long and Angela
Sigmon.
In the first letter, Costner justifies the
Reagan Administration's educational cuts
with the Constitution. State governments
may be technically responsible for paying
for education, but federal support is also
needed. Since the states have received
support at a certain level over an extended
period of time, they are caught unprepared
when the support is quickly and drastically
cut. Since most states, including North
Carolina, have a constitutionally balanced
budget, they cannot magically come up
with the money to replace federal support.
Therefore, when the federal government
cuts support to a state like North Carolina,
it is not an act of "merely returning the
responsibility of education to the state."
It is an act which creates a void; either
taxes go up, education gets cut, or
something else gets cut. Another ludicrous
policy enacted by the current administra
tion is the taxing of student financial aid,
grants and scholarships as income. What
was the reasoning on this gem? Let's see,
to help soothe the loss of revenue from
huge tax breaks to the rich, let's start taxing
poor college students receiving financial
aid. Yeah, that's the ticket! That's the
Republican ticket.
In their letter, Long and Sigmon claim
that Mrs. Dole's resignation from the post
of secretary of transportation was not a
Republican mandate but an urging from
"some of Bob's major supporters." Well,
exactly who are Bob's major supporters?
Could they be Republicans? Can you not
read between the lines? What did you
expect Mrs. Dole to say? "Yes, I have been
told to step down by members of the
campaign." Ultimately, the point is that
she was seriously pressured to step down,
especially when airline traffic and service
is a mess. Would you expect Sen. Dole
to resign his seat if his wife decided to run
for that office? He isnt even resigning his
position for his own campaign. I think it
is obvious whose career is first priority with
the Dole family and that some of President
Reagan's appointments of women to high
level positions are viewed by the Repub
lican Party as tokens that can be withdrawn
at any expedient time.
, I do believe that Jill Gerber and the DTH
editorial staff have thought about these
matters before writing. I think it is time
for you to begin to think and quit blindly
accepting what Ronnie and Co. hand down
from Washington.
ANDREW MARTIN
v Senior
v Mathematics