Merged Arday life and death

[Emily's Cat]

Absolute rubbish. He wouldn't have been awarded his PhD unless they were satisfied. It's all above board, investigated and bona fide. Can I ask, why do you care a darn about the private life of some random professor? Do you take a close interest in all professors?

Random professors teach the next generation. I'd like all of them to have integrity, as I think that's a socially valuable and necessary attribute.

 

[Vixen]

I don't think his PhD committee examined his biographical claims. They are not all above board, and until recently they were not investigated.

I care about the obvious deterioration of academic standards. Why don't you?

Perhaps you'd better contact John Moore Liverpool Uni without delay to express your disapproval in a strongly worded letter.

 

[Emily's Cat]

What psychological comfort do you get from this person's public takedown? What crime did he ever commit?

I mean... I hear you, and I get where you're coming from... but there are entire threads dedicated to dancing on the graves of other public people on ISF, and I don't see you having this same kind of reaction in those. Perhaps you're just unaware and wandered into this one by accident?

 

[junkshop]

...Can't see you moaning about the dim Prince Charles and his Oxford degree...

And once more you confidently hold forth about a thing you have no idea about, and get it wrong.

Chucky³ neither holds nor claims any degrees from Oxford. He does have a batchelors from Cambridge, though. Oh, and a masters, also from Cambridge.

Also, not a prince anymore. Not for over three years. He's a king now. Do try to keep up.

 

[Vixen]

Random professors teach the next generation. I'd like all of them to have integrity, as I think that's a socially valuable and necessary attribute.

And you know this professor out of literally thousands is the bogeyman because...?

 

[Ziggurat]

He didn't say he appeared in the '60's/70's 7-up TV programme.

Yes he did.

He was likely referring to a contemporary programme of the same name in his community circle.

That's his excuse. There is no such program.

Other marathon runners say his running claims are doable and not at all unusual.

No they don't.

He was a professor at Glasgow.

But not at Ohio State.

I dare say when he visited the USA he described himself as a 'visiting professor' colloquially.

Nobody does that.

There might well have been threats made to him.

How gullible are you?

Why are you so desperate to believe the far-right eugenicists without an iota of evidence?

Why do you keep making excuses for the abundant evidence?

What psychological comfort do you get from this person's public takedown?

What psychological distress do you suffer when you consider that maybe he is a fraud?

 

[Emily's Cat]

And you know this professor out of literally thousands is the bogeyman because...?

I don't. I wish to hold ALL professors to a very high standard. There may be more out there who are full of crap - I'd be happy to expose them all and remove them from positions where they can influence youth.

 

[Ziggurat]

Perhaps you'd better contact John Moore Liverpool Uni without delay to express your disapproval in a strongly worded letter.

Have you ever been in a PhD committee? Do you even know what they do?

 

[Emily's Cat]

@Vixen why are you so bothered by this individual professor being identified for plagiarism and fabulism?

 

[Vixen]

I mean... I hear you, and I get where you're coming from... but there are entire threads dedicated to dancing on the graves of other public people on ISF, and I don't see you having this same kind of reaction in those. Perhaps you're just unaware and wandered into this one by accident?

Well, we had Captain Tom and his daughter, who really did 'fleece' his charity to enrich herself and her husband, paying themselves a fat salary and building extensions with the proceeds, for which they were heavily criticised for by the Charity Commission. I can't see that Jason Arday has done anything even remotely similar to have been labelled a fraud.

 

[Vixen]

Yes he did.

That's his excuse. There is no such program.

No they don't.

But not at Ohio State.

Nobody does that.

How gullible are you?

Why do you keep making excuses for the abundant evidence?

What psychological distress do you suffer when you consider that maybe he is a fraud?

I guess some people delight in other people's misfortune.

 

[Vixen]

@Vixen why are you so bothered by this individual professor being identified for plagiarism and fabulism?

Er, it's current affairs.

 

[Vixen]

Have you ever been in a PhD committee? Do you even know what they do?

Of course I know what they do and how they work. Arday's qualifications are bona fide regardless of whether or not you approve of them.

 

[LondonJohn]

I wonder if the suicide was largely triggered by the imminent book launch. It's full of these fairy-stories, though interestingly some of the stories that were in the original book proposal didn't make it into the finished product. The next thing that was going to happen was that people were going to scour that book and look for evidence of his claims. Evidence he knew they would not find. The story would run and run. But mostly I think he had finally been forced to admit to himself that he'd been living a whole bunch of lies for decades, the persona he'd built up and curated wasn't who he really was, and he couldn't take it.

The people around him, who must have known all this, bear a large burden of responsibility for not telling him straight that he was inevitably going to be found out one day, and he'd be well advised to stop it.

Totally agree. Incidentally, there's a report that when Arday spoke with a friend the day before his suicide, he (Arday) told his friend that his book publication tour to the US had been cancelled. I suspect, like you, that Arday realised his whole persona (academic and "personal achievements") was going to be demolished piece by piece, and he couldn't handle the prospect of far more humiliation and exposition.

I also agree with you and others that various academic institutions - chiefly (it would appear) Liverpool John Moores Uni and Cambridge Uni /Jesus College - will probably come out of this saga looking dreadful. There seems to be more and more reliable evidence that Liverpool John Moores didn't properly check Arday's dissertation for plagiarism, and - worse still - doubled down on defending him and his dissertation when the first claims of plagiarism were raised. And Cambridge/Jesus face obvious charges of a serious lack of due diligence regarding Arday's professorial appontment.

 

[LondonJohn]

Of course I know what they do and how they work. Arday's qualifications are bona fide regardless of whether or not you approve of them.

Until they're not, of course. Poor line of argument.

 

[LondonJohn]

Perhaps you'd better contact John Moore Liverpool Uni without delay to express your disapproval in a strongly worded letter.

It's called Liverpool John Moores University. Get it right.

 

[Ziggurat]

Why does anyone care a darn what a random professor does in his spare time? His marathon and fundraising efforts (he's credited with raising £100,000) are his private interests and nothing to do with lecturing. Why the need for busybodies to 'dig up dirt' on him?

Arday himself obviously thought people would care. That's why he wrote a book about it. And Simon & Schuster also thought people would care, which is why they agreed to publish it. And according to Arday, they gave him a $1.4 million advance on it. That is a lot of expected caring, which Arday himself invited.

 

[Ziggurat]

Of course I know what they do and how they work.

I doubt it.

Arday's qualifications are bona fide regardless of whether or not you approve of them.

Again, PhD committees don't examine biographical claims. They never examined how many marathons he ran. They never examined whether he was a visiting professor at Ohio State.

 

[Ziggurat]

I guess some people delight in other people's misfortune.

I don't delight in any of this. It's a tragedy. Arday should never have been in this position to begin with, and had he not been given a job he was manifestly unqualified for, had he been properly scrutinized from the beginning, he would not have experienced such a public downfall and might still be alive today. I would much prefer that outcome.

But you seem to want an obvious fraud to have continued in a prestigious position at Cambridge with no consequences for his lies. Why?

 

[LondonJohn]

I doubt it.

Again, PhD committees don't examine biographical claims. They never examined how many marathons he ran. They never examined whether he was a visiting professor at Ohio State.

I suspect that, in the cold light of day, the various investigations will find that Arday's PhD dissertation was significantly plagiarised, that most of his academic claims will be disproved, that there will be no credible evidence found to support his claims regarding his childhood and early adulthood, and that his various "personal achievement" claims will either be disproved or found to have no credible supporting evidence.