A country that doesn’t care about science

He is a faculty member who was accused of plagiarism in the book titled "Business Administration" which he co-wrote with Asst. Prof. Yahya Fidan. He was found guilty by the Higher Education Board, or YÖK, in Oct. 2005 and stripped of his academic tenure. The YÖK ruling emphasized that he used excerpts without any reference in 32 different points in the book.

What is plagiarism? It is "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work." It is simply to steal someone else’s ideas!

Let’s say YÖK made a mistake or was involved in politics. But the Ankara First Administrative Court approved the decision that Dinçer committed plagiarism and overruled Dinçer’s decision to appeal. (Jan. 2008) Following YÖK’s "plagiarism decision" Dinçer appeared in so many TV programs and said he would appeal to the Council of State. But following the First Administrative Court’s decision, he backed off. Therefore, Dinçer himself admitted that he committed plagiarism.

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After he was appointed as the new Labor and Social Security Minister, I got in touch with a few academics abroad, some of who are Turks. They couldn’t believe the appointment of someone who committed plagiarism as a minister. They said a person committing the biggest shame in the academic world could not even be a deputy, not alone a minister.

"Here we live in Turkey!" I replied to them.

Picture this. Minister of Labor chairs a commission for minimum wage increase. Trade unions insist on some certain figure and the minister resists to them. He makes an attempt to say, "According to the scientific study I askedÉ" Let’s say that you are a trade union representative, what would you do? Or what would you want to say to him but not?

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I thought that opposition would be raised against Dinçer’s appointment and the main opposition party would raise hell. I waited for some time. But I was wrong. Still, I erred because the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, deputy Neclat Arat was also found guilty of plagiarism in 1982.

The pot calls the kettle black! I have waited for the leftist-nationalists to raise hell but I was wrong again because their professor Kemal Alemdaroğlu also committed plagiarism! The same old! I accept that all politicians are the same but don’t we have faculty members, academics and scientists in this country? Isn’t there a single scientist who has devoted himself in science Turkey? Aren’t they offended by Dinçer’s appointment as far as professional ethics are concerned? Why is no one asking anything?

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From now on, if a professor warns a Ph.D. student, "My son, don’t even think about plagiarism!" And if the student asks why, how would the professor answer to this? I am deeply hurt as I watch how science cheaply surrenders to politics in my country!