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from the won't-be-fooled-again,-or-will-they? dept.
Portland State University has initiated disciplinary proceedings against their philosophy professor Peter Boghossian for conspiring with colleagues to submit more than two dozen satirical papers to feminist theory and race-studies journals in an effort to prove those disciplines are academically fraudulent. The hoax papers, some of which were accepted by journals and which were revealed back in October, made Boghossian and his cohorts the international toast of "free thinkers" concerned that college campuses have become paralyzed by political orthodoxy.
After their ruse was revealed, the three authors described their project in an October article in the webzine Areo, which Pluckrose edits. Their goal, they wrote, was to "to study, understand, and expose the reality of grievance studies, which is corrupting academic research." They contend that scholarship that tends to social grievances now dominates some fields, where students and others are bullied into adhering to scholars' worldviews, while lax publishing standards allow the publication of clearly ludicrous articles if the topic is politically fashionable.
Sources:
The Chronicle of Higher Education : Proceedings Start Against 'Sokal Squared' Hoax Professor (archive)
Willamette Week : Professor Who Authored Hoax Papers Says Portland State University Has Launched Disciplinary Proceedings Against Him (archive)
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday January 12 2019, @04:09PM (11 children)
For those who want to separate out politics and want to know what the university might be ethically and legally REQUIRED to do in this circumstances, I just found a much better article [nymag.com] that involves interviews with those in human-subject research, IRBs, etc.
Bottom line from that link:
The article goes on to note some disagreement about whether falsified data in this case constitutes grounds for investigation, but again, most experts agree this is a concern for academic conduct that at least should trigger an inquiry.
Now, we can all have a nice debate about whether IRB protocol is too conservative. But it's tied to federal funding. It's something every researcher at every university has to be aware of. The author here took to YouTube because he knows he'll have a better chance with ignorant public opinion where people don't know the kind of ethical guidelines universities have to follow for research. That's grandstanding.
Doesn't mean there aren't politics involved at this university. Maybe there is. But if you're interested in nuance rather than polemical BS, you might read the link I posted here to understand what is actually required for a situation like this in academia.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 12 2019, @05:01PM (8 children)
If you want to understand why some people seem so predisposed to assume bad faith on PSU's part, and academia in general, check out collective narcissism. If you've ever had to deal with an individual with narcissistic personality disorder, it all makes so much sense. An NPD is always right, anyone who challenges an NPD is literally the devil and anyone praises the NPD is the best, most brilliant person. Gaslighting, scapegoating, love-bombing, projection, etc -- all defining traits of an NPD, are also standard operating procedure for these authoritarians who are having a collective reactionary freakout to social progress.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 12 2019, @09:13PM
Also DARVO - Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
When I first learned about the DARVO tactic favored by narcissists it was like a light was turned on, illuminating so much of what I've experienced.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 12 2019, @11:24PM (1 child)
Does that description remind you of anyone who's been in the news a lot lately? Specifically anyone big, fat, ugly, small-handed, orange, and with the political acumen of a large bag of dog leavings...?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @12:42AM
The authoritarian personality type is designed to be subservient to people with narcissistic personality disorder. Its like hand-in-glove. That's not to say that NPD and authoritarianism are mutually exclusive in specific individuals, plenty of NPDs are also authoritarians. Its just that being an authoritarian makes a person especially susceptible to the persuasion techniques of the NPD. See flying monkeys [wikipedia.org] for a common one-on-one example where NPD's typically control subservient NPDs. If anything, successful NPDs are adept at activating authoritarian tendencies in people who wouldn't be particularly authoritarian under normal conditions. They get them jazzed up which makes them more vulnerable to the NPD's other techniques. For example - hyping status insecurity (racial, gender, etc). And that insecurity is precisely what drives boghossian and his crowd.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 13 2019, @06:26AM (4 children)
Or we could just discuss the merits of the case instead of fantasy psychology that is entirely irrelevant. The investigation already happened and a conclusion came out that was other than a complete dismissal of the investigation. That's a strong indication that something went wrong with the investigation right there.
Now, I don't think it's a secret that I don't respect the idea of institutional review boards in the first place. Here, it's particularly nasty since it's being used to suppress the speech of the professor in question. Even though employers normally have a right to condition employment on the public behavior of their employees, they forgo that right when they encourage, as most universities do, including Portland State, an atmosphere of open speech.
Thus, here's my counterargument against the above claim. First, there's real disagreement about whether ethics boards should have this sort of power. Second, the review board was stretching a lot to condemn the professor for these particular actions. Think about it - "human experimentation" and "falsification of data"? Sure, the interpretation was barely valid, but here's the important point. They could have interpreted it as not human experiment and falsification of data with equal legal validity. My view is that when regulation allows for an action to be both legal/allowed and illegal/unallowed, the presumption should be on it being legal or allowed.
Then there's the conflict of interest in the review board since as was claimed in a faculty letter, the research could have blowback on the university as punishment.
Notice the emphasis on the reputation of the university and harm it could do to students. Absurd, but something that could easily warp the conclusions of a review board.
Finally, the board was created as a condition of federal funding:
That means when its federally-mandated actions hinder the free speech rights of one of its professors, it becomes a violation of the professor's First Amendment right to speech.
Calling this concern some weird psychology buzzword completely misses the point. There's reason for the concern when an investigation of academia gets attacked in this way.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @08:46PM (1 child)
You are one of those reactionary authoritarians who is deep into the collective narcissism. And guess what? Your butthurt screed in response basically confirms it. The thing about narcissists, you are all so pathetically thin skinned. You shit on the people you resent and act like y'all are just clinically describing the facts without any political correctness. But when even a hint of that gets turned around on you, you go ballistic.
We see through your bullshit and we ain't having it any more.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 14 2019, @04:48AM
I notice you never ever say why you hold that opinion.
Why would a post presenting a sensible correction ever be considered evidence for "thin skinned"? It's interesting how accepting unquestioningly an asinine argument is considered more of a virtue here. Maybe being thin skinned, even when it actually happens, is by far the lesser of evils?
And by "shit", you mean what? "acting like y'all are just clinically describing the facts" isn't much of a thing.
I think there's a pop psychology word that completely describes what's going on here - "projection". For example, an AC (perhaps you?) blathered [soylentnews.org] on about "DARVO" (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) as if it were peculiar to narcissism. You are definitely going through the "ARVO" part with an attack that is without substance and then accusing me of "shitting" on you as if you were the victim (though how that supposedly works through the internet is left unmentioned). So odd that a supposed behavior of narcissism is discussed and then prominently described in your above post. But I suppose you'll just deny that my accusation is true, and then repeat the DARVO behavior.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 13 2019, @09:59PM (1 child)
Seems to me that over the years you have demonstrated a real antipathy for psychology. Recently I had an epiphany. The problem is you don't understand yourself, I mean like your motivations and biases are a complete cipher to your own mind. You are a poster-child for living the un-examined life. And the idea that other people can figure you out using science really chaps your ass.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 14 2019, @04:55AM
Indeed. Ranting on the internet is not the place for psychology. You know nothing of the people you're speaking about.
It's a common weakness of many fields of knowledge. You're exposed to it for the first time and then think that you can readily apply it anywhere without consideration for whether you know enough to apply it, much less apply it well enough to be of benefit.
And hurling thoughtless insults is sure to make me examine my life.
Let's suppose that were true. So what is said chapping of the ass to you? Doesn't sound like you care except as a means to nettle me. Someone who can modify my behavior via brutal torture would also chap my ass. If it were as you say, it's a cruel use of knowledge.
But that's an "if" that's not true. The obvious sign that you're not using science, is that you don't deal in observation. Asserting things isn't observing things!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 12 2019, @10:24PM
You know, if PSU really wanted to smother this kind of "research" this ain't the way to do it. The "smart" play is to just turtle up and wait for it all to blow over. I mean the internet had collectively forgotten about it months ago. Instead they are drawing attention to it all over again.
If you hate progressives then you just think these people are bunch of malicious idiots who forgot about the streisand effect because idiots are gonna idiot and evil people are gonna do evil.
On the other hand if you think academics who study human interaction might be a little bit smarter about how humans behave than the average entitled multimillionaire, you might think there is something other than just evil doers doing evil here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 14 2019, @01:42PM
The problem is that they've gone beyond a "reasonable" investigation to concluding that wrong-doing occurred. For example:
The proper solution should have been that the board agreed that approval wasn't obtained for human experimentation, but wasn't required due to the nature of the research in question. Same with the falsification of data analysis. Pranks and hoaxes operate differently and it's silly to shoehorn this into the pretense of formal research.
A key problem I see here is because the IRB protocol is tied to federal funding, it is subject to the laws that bind any federal actions, in particular the First Amendment. The hoax is a great example of a constitutionally protected act of speech. For example, the press and various protest groups have engaged in pretending to be someone else in order to ferret out wrongdoing (as long as the actions were done to further the investigation rather than for direct gain). College professors have no less protection. The First Amendment doesn't make exceptions for research. It's one thing to perform a perfunctory investigation to determine that the IRB doesn't have jurisdiction over the matter and that the nature of the supposed violations is negligible and unworthy of further consideration. It's another to be threatening and punishing the professor with serious sanctions via a contrived interpretation of the regulations and supposed code of ethics the IRB is enforcing.
So what's the problem with that? That's where a lot of his support is. And no one doesn't need to know the "ethical guidelines" as well as the experts to witness an act of injustice.