Caitlin at GIS Lounge reports on a cartographic controversy surrounding President Carter's latest book. It would appear that maps in Carter's book are very, very similar to maps published in 2004 by someone else.
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Typical of the most incompetant of presidents. What a Narcissistic egotist!
This is a insane allegation, of course maps of the same region on the same subject would look similar. It is laughable.
They look to me, a thematic cartographer for 22 years, as though they were both made from the same source information, but by different people.
Compare two black and white maps of, say, Lewis and Clark’s route, and they will look similar, too
I teach GIS and if these were 2 of my students, I would not accuse them of Plagiarism, I would agree with the comment above, it looks like they used the same base layers, but the maps are different styles. That said, Dennis Ross stated that these data were NOT available and that he created the layers… Thus, if the data was not publicly available, then it IS a clear case of plaigerism…
As a former geography major and user of GIS I am also of the opinion that the maps could have been made independently using the same data sources and choice of layers. It is more likely that the details of the ideas for doing the map were borrowed than the actual map.
In the old days when maps were hand drawn, there would have been a stronger case for calling Carter’s map suspicious, but with GIS the generation of a map is a mechanical process and a coincidental close resemblance between maps by different people may result. Where the maps have been taken from a GIS and imported to another program like Adobe Illustrator for final cosmetic additions it is sasier to detect copies since these are more “freehand.”
There may well be objections to the conceptualizations Carter uses to represent — many would say misrepresent– the situation in the middle east, but there does not appear to be an overwhelming case for map plagiarism.
The first comment is interesting…especially when compared to who is sitting in the White House right now.
I agree. Laughable accusations against Carter.
Any author, or would-be author, should know to ask for permission from the publisher and/or author before going ahead with publication. Just ask and perhaps ye shall receive.
I agree with Troy about the first comment, the author of which misspelled incompetent and capitalized the adjective form of Narcissus.
If two maps of the same area, created in the same era using, similar (largely mechanical) cartographic techniques, addressing the same thematic concerns, drawn to similar scales and using the same (or similar) projections look the same, why should that generate so much controversy?
The first comment was made a a rude and biased person. President Carter is a most competent person. His work Our Endangered Values is a must read. John in the first comment needs to review our recent history. I would say a Nobel Peace Prize honoree is far from incompetent. I’ll wager that John thought he was being cute. That is far from the case. His remarks were those of an uninformed nit-wit.
This is from the National Review Online? They aren’t reporting the news. They are Republicans that attack Carter, Clinton, and every other Democrat by making something out of nothing. How different can 2 black and white pictures of the same region look? Keep in mind that these are the same guys that have defended George Bush’s actions for the last 6 years so their credibility is pretty low.
KUDO TO JIMMY CARTER!! Its about time exPresident Carter finally saw the light, HEHAS THE COURAGE TO SPEAK THE TRUTH FOR ALL TO HEAR. THAT LAND IS PALESTINE and never was anything other. Balfour is an agent of Rothchild and that treaty is null and void a buy out for the British Goverment. The cartographic plagerism is irrelevant compared to the Truth he is broadcasting to the Whole World and that is that the real ANTI-SEMITES ARE THE ISRAELIS and their rule of APARTHIDE AGAINST THE PALESTINIANS.