A degree of doctoring
QUESTION Was there an attempt to strip Dr Martin Luther King of his doctorate?
Martin Luther King completed the draft of his theology dissertation at Boston University while serving as the full-time pastor at Dexter avenue Baptist Church. the thesis was entitled Comparison Of the Conceptions Of God in the thinking Of Paul tillich and Henry nelson Wieman.
in 1991, 36 years after it was submitted, an investigatory committee, comprising three professors in Boston’s School of theology and one from american University, was appointed after researchers at Stanford University unearthed plagiarism in King’s work as a graduate student.
the committee concluded that King had copied sections of his thesis and that ‘Dr King plagiarised in the dissertation by appropriating material from sources not explicitly credited in notes, or mistakenly credited, or credited generally and at some distance in the text from a close paraphrase or verbatim quotation’.
King appropriated virtually all of his first draft of the introduction verbatim from an article by Walter Marshall Horton. the chapter explaining tillich’s ideas was largely lifted from previous works, and quotation marks and explicit references were missing.
Despite its finding, the committee said ‘no thought should be given to the revocation of Dr King’s doctoral degree,’ an action the panel said would serve no purpose.
But the committee did recommend that a letter stating its finding be placed with the official copy of Dr King’s dissertation in the university’s library.
that King’s reputation and his life made the university unwilling to retract his degree upset many academics and some questioned the validity of the work.
Mike Hawthorne, St Ives, Cornwall.
QUESTION Why are junior barristers ‘called to the Degree of an Utter Barrister’?
UTTER is an archaic form of the word ‘outer’. Historically, the training of barristers took place within the inns Of Court and by members of the inn.
the students and benchers (senior members of the inn) would sit in the centre of the room set out like a court room. the students would sit in the middle, within the bar, and when called to ‘the utter bar’, left the middle of the court and took their places outside, signifying they were no longer students.
By the early 1600s ‘bar’ referred mainly to the bar in courthouses that separated the officers of the law from those not admitted into the legal profession.
Laura Westwood, Chester.
QUESTION Which is heavier, the air we inhale or exhale?
THE composition of inhaled/exhaled air varies widely depending on humidity and exertion but, generally speaking, exhaled air is heavier than inhaled air.
this is because each molecule of O2 your body uses for metabolism is exchanged for one molecule of CO2. that means your lungs trade lighter molecules (32 Amu — atomic mass unit) for an equal number of heavier molecules (44 Amu). the carbon is supplied by the breakdown of sugars in the body.
Your nose, throat, mouth and lungs efficiently humidify the air you breathe. the relative humidity of exhaled air is usually 100 per cent. therefore, the air you inhale almost always contains less water vapour than the air you exhale.
these two effects together amount to a significant mass. a portion of the mass you lose during the night (1 to 2 per cent bodyweight) is due to exhaled air.
Dr Ken Warren, Glasgow.
QUESTION Does anyone know the story of World War II airman Stanley Streeter, whose likeness Bernard Arnold used to create a painting of St George?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, i discussed the shooting down of the Mosquito by friendly fire with my mother (Diane Heward, nee Salisbury) who remembers the events very clearly on that fateful day in april 1943.
She had already escaped, by seconds, a bomb dropped a month earlier that destroyed many houses at the bottom of Shelley road in Hove where she lived
it also inflicted severe damage on her own house which was nearly opposite the explosion. this is her account of that particular day (april 2, 1943).
‘there was the sound of a low-flying aircraft approaching from the SouthEast and air raid sirens sounded. it was around midday, and schoolchildren like myself were heading home for lunch as there were no school meals at that time.
‘i had just turned into our road as the sirens started and the Canadian aa battery on top of the ABC Cinema in Portland road, Hove, opened fire on the aircraft. i rushed indoors and dived into the anderson air raid shelter along with my brother, mother and another boy from the street as the noise of the plane and aa gunfire grew louder.
‘My older sister was further behind and caught out in the open and recalls seeing the aircraft being hit by aa and catching fire.
‘Being exposed like that, the situation suddenly became even worse as cannon shells on-board the aircraft started to explode from the heat.
‘it gave the appearance that it had opened fire on the children in Portland road, thus also giving the impression that it was indeed a German raider, possibly in disguise.
‘as the aircraft lost altitude, the pilot bailed out, and it crashed onto the railway embankment near Olive road Bridge in Hove (close to where a German fighter had previously crashed) killing the navigator (Stanley Streeter) who was unable to escape because of his injuries.
‘the pilot was taken to Hove General Hospital to be treated for his severe wounds. Local residents were led to believe the Canadians had little choice but to open fire on the Mosquito as it had not been able to identify itself properly, possibly due to earlier damage, combined with the fresh memories of Hove’s worst air raid less than a month previously.’
Paul Heward, Hove, Sussex.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow, G2 6DB; fax them to 0141 331 4739 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.