Academic dishonesty

[mt3t3l1]

No: HPFGUIDX 139415

I'm not a Potions master, but I do have a graduate degree in 
Biochemistry, a field of study which is a little bit like Potions. 
And I've had the chance to work my way through quite a few protocols 
(the scientific equivalents of Potions recipes).

Del said:
It's the *skill* the students develop and demonstrate that matters, 
their ability to produce a certain result under certain 
circumstances -including the method they are given. So using another 
method makes the whole exercise worthless. 


Sherry said:
The results are what matters.

I have to agree with Sherry. When a biochemists are given a protocol 
(say, to do something like perform a Western blot) the natural 
tendency is to look for ways to improve on the protocol. In a large 
lab, the ideas for improvements could come from the newest graduate 
student all the way up to the head of the lab. In no case is the 
person making the suggestion ever given credit for doing so. The 
suggestion is simply tried, recorded into the lab notebook, and if it 
turns out well, adopted as a modification to the previous protocol. 
Eventually there will be so many modifications that the original 
protocol may be practically unrecognizable. But no one will receive 
any acknowledgment for their contributions along the way. Why? The 
results are what matters.

Because of this, papers dealing with the development of a particular 
procedure are not highly regarded in the scientific community. They 
are often helpful; they may provide necessary steps along the road to 
advancing scientific knowledge; but what counts in science is the 
validity of the result, not the particular technique that is used to 
reach it.

In the Wizarding World, values may be different. I do remember that 
Snape was angry when Hermione helped Neville fix a potion that Snape 
was expecting to use to kill Trevor the toad. But in the Scientific 
World, Neville would only have gotten into trouble if he had taken 
some of Hermione's potion and claimed that it was his own. Taking 
Hermione's advice, or following the scribblings that somebody wrote 
in the margins of the protocol would not be objectionable in any way 
as long as the potion turned out correctly.

Merrylinks