方舟子引用美国案例替自己辩护是很脆弱的。著作权不保护“想法”(idea)。著作权保护的是“原创表达”（original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression)。但任何想法都是要通过某种表现方式表达出来的。想法与表达之间并没有绝对明确的界限。两个不同的作品是两个不同的表达。判断一个是否构成对另一个的侵权有两个要素：（1）被指控侵权者是否曾经接触原作；（2）被指控作品与原作的相似程度。这两者都是具体问题具体分析的事实问题。后者，需要进行比对分析。如果比对结果出现惊人的相似，甚至可以假定被控抄袭者曾经接触到原作，而不需要直接证据。
问题在于，如果方舟子《推测出来的动物》的一文属于抄袭，那原文在哪里呢？方舟子文中当然不会有这个明确信息，否则他就拿不到稿费了-- 《中国青年报》是绝不会给一篇抄袭的文章支付报酬的，因为刊登这种文章反而会损害报纸的声誉。 那么让我们做两个基本假设：（1）原文是英语；（2）原文是在网上的。剩下的任务就是用什么关键词作为搜索引擎的输入。在没有更多信息的情况下，我选择了方舟子文中一些关键词的英文对应：Alexander social mole Africa predict. 结果出来的第一篇文章是“The Predictive Power of Evolutionary Biology and the Discovery of Eusociality in the Naked Mole Rat”。作者是华盛顿大学生物系的Stan Braude，发表在1997年七月的《美国科学教育学报》上（Citation: NCSE Reports, 17(4): 12-15）。Braude博士参考了一大堆文献，以及Nancy Berg和Keith Butler等人的建议、意见才写成那篇文章。
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. ”
