方舟子引用美國案例替自己辯護是很脆弱的。著作權不保護“想法”(idea)。著作權保護的是“原創表達”（original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression)。但任何想法都是要通過某種表現方式表達出來的。想法與表達之間並沒有絕對明確的界限。兩個不同的作品是兩個不同的表達。判斷一個是否構成對另一個的侵權有兩個要素：（1）被指控侵權者是否曾經接觸原作；（2）被指控作品與原作的相似程度。這兩者都是具體問題具體分析的事實問題。後者，需要進行比對分析。如果比對結果出現驚人的相似，甚至可以假定被控抄襲者曾經接觸到原作，而不需要直接證據。
問題在於，如果方舟子《推測出來的動物》的一文屬於抄襲，那原文在哪裡呢？方舟子文中當然不會有這個明確信息，否則他就拿不到稿費了-- 《中國青年報》是絕不會給一篇抄襲的文章支付報酬的，因為刊登這種文章反而會損害報紙的聲譽。 那麼讓我們做兩個基本假設：（1）原文是英語；（2）原文是在網上的。剩下的任務就是用什麼關鍵詞作為搜索引擎的輸入。在沒有更多信息的情況下，我選擇了方舟子文中一些關鍵詞的英文對應：Alexander social mole Africa predict. 結果出來的第一篇文章是“The Predictive Power of Evolutionary Biology and the Discovery of Eusociality in the Naked Mole Rat”。作者是華盛頓大學生物系的Stan Braude，發表在1997年七月的《美國科學教育學報》上（Citation: NCSE Reports, 17(4): 12-15）。Braude博士參考了一大堆文獻，以及Nancy Berg和Keith Butler等人的建議、意見才寫成那篇文章。
原文：“Alexander could have pointed out that there are far fewer species of birds and mammals than there are species of insects, or that birds and mammals have only existed for 160 million and 250 million years respectively, while insects have existed for 350 million years... Instead he asked himself what characteristics a eusocial vertebrate would have if it had evolved.”
原文：“Alexander predicted that a eusocial vertebrate's nest should be (1) safe, (2) expandable, and (3) in or near an abundance of food that can (4) be obtained with little risk. These characteristics follow from the general characteristics of primitive termite nests inside logs. The nest must be safe or it will be exploited as a rich food source for predators. It must be expandable so that workers can enhance the value of the nest. It must be supplied with safe abundant food so that large groups can live together with little competition over food or over who must retrieve it.”
原文: “Alexander described this social vertebrate in a series of guest lectures at [various univerisities] and Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff in 1975 and 1976. At Flagstaff, mammalogist Terry Vaughan suggested to Alexander that his hypothetical eusocial rodent was a "perfect description" of the naked mole-ratHeterocephalus glaber. He further described the burrowing East African mammal and suggested that Alexander contact Jennifer Jarvis, an authority on African mole-rats. Jarvis had studied the ecology and physiology of naked mole-rats but at that time nothing was known about their social system. ”
