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Proceedings Start Against Portland State University Professor Whose Carefully Crafted Fiction Helped Expose the Rot Within Some Sectors of Modern Academia
Peter Boghossian, an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University in Oregon, led a trio of scholars last year who submitted to leading publications what they called "intentionally broken" papers on gender, race and sexuality. Several of those absurd pieces were published. Portland State University has now started disciplinary proceedings against Boghossian. From a report: The Oregon university's institutional review board concluded that Boghossian's participation in the elaborate hoax had violated Portland State's ethical guidelines, according to documents Boghossian posted online. The university is considering a further charge that he had falsified data, the documents indicate. Last month Portland State's vice president for research and graduate studies, Mark R. McLellan, ordered Boghossian to undergo training on human-subjects research as a condition for getting further studies approved. In addition, McLellan said he had referred the matter to the president and provost because Boghossian's behavior "raises ethical issues of concern."
...The absurdities of Academia.
Clearly proof that our Universities are broken.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Ah, of course; shoot the messenger. Time honored "head in sand" technique.
That'll solve the credibility problem!
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
... not a good idea to point out that the Emperor wears no clothes after all. The Emperor's minions will come after you with sharpened knives... and actions to revoke your tenure.
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-- "In addition, McLellan said he had referred the matter to the president and provost because Boghossian's behavior "raises ethical issues of concern.""
The ethical concern being that Boghossian displayed some ethics?
For this really to be carefully crafted, they'd have to have a control group, where they craft equally (im)plausible scientific papers to a large variety of fields and show that particular fields are especially prone to publishing shoddy papers.
As it is, we all know shoddy papers can slip through to publication, publishing a few more proves nothing. Intentionally trying to slip shoddy papers through does seem like something a scholar should not be doing, and disciplinary action is appropriate.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
why do these even exist? Are there deep mysteries about gender and race that we struggle to understand? Or are we just trying to justify the need for useless paycheck collecting parasites at "academic institutions"?
AmiMojo should read this quote: "These fields of study do not continue the important and noble liberal work of the civil rights movements,” they write. “They corrupt it while trading upon their good names to keep pushing a kind of social snake oil onto a public that keeps getting sicker.”
That applies to ANY SJW. You are a disgrace to those who actually fight for equality and social justice and things that matter.
Because he should be able to gut Portland State and wear it like a skin suit because these papers were obvious parodies. IIRC one of them was some sort of "intersectional queer experience in dog parks" paper.
On the activist side, they seriously push ideas like it is racist to warn black people that an old building is not up to modern earthquake codes and might kill them if one hits. Cuz you know, white people only want to scare black folks out so they can gentrify the neighborhood.
And note: this is why the alt-right is gaining ground slowly, but steadily. That siren song "wouldn't it be nice if all of these assholes went away one way or another" starts to sound really fucking appealing after having this sort of bullshit shoved up your ass and backed by amenable authorities.
Under their rules, Sokal's hoax should have been punished.
The reactions of these academics (The ones who try to punish the people who did the hoax) is clumsy because it highlights their own intellectual mediocrity and eventually the poor value of their entire field if this procedure ends up being approved by the profession. They should thank Boghossian for exposing reviewers as frauds and claim they would not have been caught by such a hoax.
But they aren't even smart enough for this. They will pass for people trying to protect a scam at the expense of dumb college "students".
Social studies already have a very poor reputation.
Every assault on social science is a good one, once we debunk it as religion-as-pseudoscience, and quarantine it appropriately, the world can finally move on.
then don't complain when you get in trouble for breaking the law.
But I'm not even buying that. Like I said, there were plenty of ways to effective research the Social Justice Warrior movement and discuss the backlash to it. There was no need or reason to write phony papers with made up research. If you have a point to make, make it legitimately.
Not that it really matters. To be blunt You'd have better luck defending pedophiles than SJWs. The amount of hatred directed at that group is astonishing, especially given what little actual power they have. Seriously, we elected a Christian Dominionist (Mike Pence) to the second highest office in the land and the atheist and skeptic community can't shut up about SJWs. I don't get it. There are so many bigger fish to fry.
All that said I'd like to see some genuine analysis of the anti-SJW backlash. The left need to address it and get past it so that real economic policies can be pushed forward. Right now we're stuck with the same trickle down economics we always had while freaking out about some powerless girls saying silly things in college.
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Heretics aren't dangerous because they're wrong. They're dangerous because they might be right. And here's a heretic with proof he's right. Hanging AND burning is not good enough for such a horrible person.
I think the parent post containing this quote hits the nail on the head. The individual in question has shown rampant foolishness exists in the educational system, and the system is reacting to defend itself. The same thing happens to some individuals who expose glaring IT security holes (and correctly notify the owners rather than sell off knowledge of the vulnerabilities) - instead of being thanked and the holes patched up, the individuals are excoriated as bad actors and the holes are retained.
If the educational institution in question was honestly bent on continual improvement, they would be focused on how to better the environment so that blatant horseshit wouldn't be put on a pedestal (published) rather than being filtered out. Sure, the individual intentionally created the material to be horseshit, but isn't even worse when material that is also certainly horseshit even though it wasn't meant to be such is published? The peer review process is supposed to filter out horseshit, and testing the system to see whether it works seems like a good idea to me. Shooting the person who found a fault in the system isn't going to encourage the elimination of faults in the future.
This action suggests that the university holds these journals up as some impeachable resource.
Does it? I'm not so sure. To me, it reads more like the university holding that trolling non-academic journals is an activity that's below the expectations of a professor.
Note that a lot of the "journals" they submitted their shit to weren't reputable journals. And at least one of the reputable ones they submitted to rejected their submission. One was even a "pay $650 and we'll publish your shit" non-peer-reviewed journal.
While the publishing industry is a giant parasite on academia, and the for-profit-junk-journals are the worst of the worst, is it really in this professor's scope of work to troll them? This wasn't seemingly a real academic study, which might have passed muster. It reads a lot more like them just dicking around.
When most of us dick around and pull hilarious viral news stunts instead of working, our employers generally don't look upon that fondly.
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Anyone who did this would be utterly unpersoned. Feminism is the new Catholic Church, burning heretics and witches and mounting crusades against the unbelievers.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."