Tu quoque
Research misconduct is in the eye of the beholder; so is evidence; so is replication; so is falsification; so is peer review; it’s all, all in the eye of the beholder. Knowledge is power, therefore I don’t need to make sense.
[T]he firing of Churchill reveals a very pernicious kind of exclusionary dogmatism in scholarly research and writing and media reporting. The firing of Professor Churchill for alleged research misconduct…ignored all Indigenous evidence and perspectives that are critical of Eurocentric versions of the history of the European invasion of the Americas. Research misconduct is in the eye of the beholder. Euroamerican teachers and scholars have taught and written for several centuries that Columbus discovered America. That is a more profound and easily provable case of research misconduct than anything of which Churchill has been accused.
Gary Witherspoon confuses teaching the content of a textbook with research, which is odd, since he is apparently an anthropologist, so one would assume he must have learned at some point along the path to becoming an anthropologist what research is and what it isn’t. Maybe he has a bad memory, maybe he’s just forgotten what research is. Couldn’t someone tell him though?
The whole article goes on in the same vein, citing what a 1987 textbook said, what an 1864 Rocky Mountain News article said (that’s not a typo – 1864, a century and a half ago), what Ben Nighthorse Campbell said about the massacre that the Rocky Mountain News misunderstood a century and a half ago – all apparently in aid of the point that research misconduct is in the eye of the beholder. In other words, these other people over here killed ten people and ate them for lunch, so why are you making such a fuss about my killing one person and eating her for lunch? In other words, it’s infantile and jaw-droppingly stupid. It’s also a pretty brazen example of epistemic relativism in all its tinsel glory.
It really is tragic, as are the comments below the article, a series of straw-persons descending towards personal abuse. Those of us in academia who strive to operate on rational grounds can only shake our heads, and hope to carry on above the fray…
If ‘research misconduct is in the eye of the beholder’, how can anything be an ‘easily provable case of research misconduct’?
He’s an anthropologist. ’nuff said.
Ward’s self image:
http://ourworld.cs.com/CoolRdr76/churchill.jpg
So, if you intend to fake your research, plagiarise and generally be an academic bad-hat, the trick is to start by being an offensive asshole, then claim that those who point out your academic bad-hattery are in fact motivated by resentment at your prior assholery.
I dont know why the university didnt just fire Churchhill for what he said, after all its a tax payer funded body at least in some part, I bet the same university wouldnt have any problem firing someone who frequently gave racist speeches.
Because if it were possible in the USA to fire academics from publicly-funded institutions just because they had opinions people didn’t like, large swathes of the country would contain no academics to the left of Rush Limbaugh.
I appreciate that the juxtaposition of ‘academic’ and ‘Rush Limbaugh’ in one sentence may induce nausea in some sensitive readers, so please feel free to substitute your own examples.
Ophelia
Hey, remember what you wrote about anthropologists in WTM?
’nuff said.
Chris and Andrew
I know – I almost made the anthropologist point in the post, but it seemed like a cheap shot, or too obvious, or something, so I refrained. But yeah. Sad, isn’t it.
I can’t be bothered to decode the anthopologist references to find out exactly what you think of them, but I offer you Scott Atran as an example of an anthropologist who is also a Good Bloke. Is there some evil characteristic of anthropologists which he displays?
Nope (not that I know of anyway). No, but cultural anthropology as a field has certain…tendencies…
There’s Margaret Mead; there’s the Napoleon Chagnon matter; there’s Frederique Apfel Marglin. Just for example.
While I do agree on the general point regarding Anthropology, sadly Margaret Mead’s work in Samoa has fallen into the category: Unable to be proven/disproven.
Thank you X-tian missionaries.
As for the hiring and firing of Academics. Still amazed (and grateful) that Singer has not been knocked out of Princeton.