Merged Arday life and death

[P.J. Denyer]

I have to admit I'm open to the possibility that academia is full of plagiarists and fantasists, and that Arday was only singled out because of his race.

To be fair, we should probably subject everyone at Cambridge to the same level of scrutiny. I propose we start with all the admin and academics involved in elevating him to the professorship. We should also take a good look at his thesis review committee or whatever it's called.

I can't imagine this normally being such a big story outside academia or his own field, it's just not the sort of story the mainstream UK media is usually interested in, offhand I can only think of two reasonably similar stories in recent years, the authors of "The Salt Path" a supposed autobiography that turned out to be complete fiction, that got some traction because the book was very popular and it's claimed 'miracle cure', and George "Iain Duncan" Smith, former leader of the Conservative Party and sometime potential Prime Minister whose CV turned out to be a masterpiece of fiction. But neither of them got anything like this mainstream coverage, although I think Smith's should have got a lot more. He suffered no consequences for his lies at all.

I'm not excusing what Arday did or saying it's wrong that things like this are brought to light and those who do so are appropriately sanctioned, but the attention it got in the mainstream press in the UK seemed totally out of proportion to what I would normally have expected.

 

[Emily's Cat]

There is a right to reply, which would give journalists a legitimate reason to contact him. But, once he had contacted the police and a lawyer to ask people to stop contacting him, I say that should be respected, as we all have the right to silence, not just with regard to policing, but also not speaking to journalists.

Or you know, just stop answering the phone.

There are TONS of people who have been hounded far more viciously than Arday was, and for whom no compassion has been in evidence.

 

[Emily's Cat]

he knew his jaiket was on a shoogly peg

 

[malbui]

For those of us still fascinated by the idea of Transactional Analysis, this has been a crushing and spectacular use of "Look What You Made Me Do"

 

[Ziggurat]

I'm not excusing what Arday did or saying it's wrong that things like this are brought to light and those who do so are appropriately sanctioned, but the attention it got in the mainstream press in the UK seemed totally out of proportion to what I would normally have expected.

One of the reasons the Arday story is getting so much attention (and rightly so in my opinion) is that it's not just a story about a liar. It's also a story about a prestigious institution that promoted and protected him, and which should have known better. We're still waiting for the institution to be held accountable.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I could go either way.

On the one hand, I tend to think it's the distance, not the time. On the other hand, "marathon" tends to invoke thoughts of something competitive, where making good time is an important part of the effort. Jogging a marathon-like distance doesn't have quite the same feel.

I can't find the story, but I seem to recall there was a long-distance runner who ran the length of South America, one marathon per day. But he was already an established runner with a documented body of work. And his journey was also documented as he undertook it.

So I come back to, if this were his only sensational claim. In that case, I'd say, "27 miles every day, that's like a marathon a day, man! Good on you!"

One of my prior supervisors ran ultramarathons. In the months leading up to a competition, I'm quite sure they ran at least marathon-distances at least a few times a week. IIRC, they would run two 50-miles stretches the couple of weeks prior to the actual event. But at no time did they claim to be"running marathons" for the reason you note: it implies a competitive race.

 

[theprestige]

I can't imagine this normally being such a big story outside academia or his own field, it's just not the sort of story the mainstream UK media is usually interested in, offhand I can only think of two reasonably similar stories in recent years, the authors of "The Salt Path" a supposed autobiography that turned out to be complete fiction, that got some traction because the book was very popular and it's claimed 'miracle cure', and George "Iain Duncan" Smith, former leader of the Conservative Party and sometime potential Prime Minister whose CV turned out to be a masterpiece of fiction. But neither of them got anything like this mainstream coverage, although I think Smith's should have got a lot more. He suffered no consequences for his lies at all.

I'm not excusing what Arday did or saying it's wrong that things like this are brought to light and those who do so are appropriately sanctioned, but the attention it got in the mainstream press in the UK seemed totally out of proportion to what I would normally have expected.

The scale of his nonsense was newsworthy in its own right. And of course we shouldn't forget that he and Cambridge were happy enough to promote his professorship as a larger news item.

ETA: I do admit that I'm open to the proposition that Cambridge University is a small, mean thing, that does nothing worthy of note or serious interest to the larger public. Certainly their elevation of Arday suggests they are not a serious institution, and do not deserve public acclaim.

 

[Rolfe]

I am not a doctor or anything remotely related to medical field.

That said, I think medical degrees often function differently than others. Most of the science degrees at the universities I'm familiar with didn't require any kind of thesis for a Bachelor's, and most only required a "thesis-light" research project for a Master's.

My BSc also required an oral exam (as well as a mini-dissertation on a research project we had done - mine was about testosterone metabolism in dogs). I remember there was a timetable for all the students to be examined, and I looked at that before booking tickets for an opera matinee the same week. Then they changed the timetable to fit in with something the external examiner was committed to. My new time was smack in the middle of the matinee performance.

I found another student who was happy to switch times with me, and went to the head of department to authorise this. No dice. No deviation from the published timetable. Tough.

I remember being most put out when I read the examiner's table of notes for all the students that afternoon, upside down - it was on the desk in front of him - and realised that I had already been pegged as a 2:1, regardless of anything I said. What a waste of a good ticket. (I saw a friend was noted as borderline first/2:1, but she got a 2:1 like me in the end. She must have performed poorly in the viva.)

Honestly, this is normal in my world. I had no idea is wasn't normal in everyone's.

I did lecture at Cambridge University for a couple of terms, to the undergraduate veterinary students, to cover for my counterpart who was on study leave. I very much doubt that I was accorded the title of "visiting professor" though! And I don't remember being involved in the subsequent exams I can't say if orals were standard there but I would be very surprised if they weren't.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I can't imagine this normally being such a big story outside academia or his own field, it's just not the sort of story the mainstream UK media is usually interested in...

Were it some second tier school, sure. But Cambridge is a pretty big deal.

 

[Emily's Cat]

One of the reasons the Arday story is getting so much attention (and rightly so in my opinion) is that it's not just a story about a liar. It's also a story about a prestigious institution that promoted and protected him, and which should have known better. We're still waiting for the institution to be held accountable.

In all seriousness, I think Arday is the least of the story. Were it not for the oodles of a) racists and b) wokesters making Arday the center of their attention, I think the focus would have been on Cambridge - where it ought to be.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

The scale of his nonsense was newsworthy in its own right. And of course we shouldn't forget that he and Cambridge were happy enough to promote his professorship as a larger news item.

ETA: I do admit that I'm open to the proposition that Cambridge University is a small, mean thing, that does nothing worthy of note or serious interest to the larger public. Certainly their elevation of Arday suggests they are not a serious institution, and do not deserve public acclaim.

The Conservative Party is a pretty significant organisation in Britain too, but 'IDS' got virtually no attention whatsoever. The point wasn't that it shouldn't be a story but that normally in the British media it wouldn't be.

 

[EHocking]

You can see a copy of the Turnitin report for Arday's thesis linked at the bottom of this substack article. The matches to Zwozdiak-Myers are mostly in the interpretation/discussion/implication sections, contrary to claims that they are in the literature review. These sections also contain extensive plagiarism of other sources. The plagiarism is the type often seen in student work, where citations taken from the plagiarised source appear within one continuous segment of matching text. This can make it appear that sources are acknowledged, but the pattern matching report flags that the sources are actually taken secondhand from an unattributed source. This is not a matter of using quotes without correct conventions.

One question is why this was not picked up when the thesis was examined, as Turnitin would have been in regular use by then.
At every institution I have studied or taught in, it was clear that a finding of plagiarism does not require intent (although intent is considered when determining penalties). There is no way an undergraduate essay should pass with this much unattributed content, let alone a PhD thesis.

Arday practically admitted to plagiarism. At least that’s how I interpret his words/excuses.
He then used “his autism” as an excuse for these “errors”, and that similar “errors” could be found in any professor’s work e.g.,

Arday said some errors in his early academic work arose because of his autism, as he relied on using mimicry to make sense of information. Similar scrutiny would find similar errors in work by other academics, he said.

 

[Rolfe]

Autistic people are famously truthful to a fault.

 

[theprestige]

The Conservative Party is a pretty significant organisation in Britain too, but 'IDS' got virtually no attention whatsoever. The point wasn't that it shouldn't be a story but that normally in the British media it wouldn't be.

My hypothesis is that Cambridge attracted too much attention to Arday, to the point where the story couldn't be ignored by the media.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

My hypothesis is that Cambridge attracted too much attention to Arday, to the point where the story couldn't be ignored by the media.

I'd certainly agree that was part of it, and so was Arday's own extreme self promotion, but academic scandal is really not the kind of scandal the British press is normally interested in.

 

[smartcooky]

The most unfortunate thing

Jason Arday's death is terrible. So is using it to attack journalism

sarahditum.substack.com

But it was also a serious story. It fell plum into the narrative of DEI-run-amok: Arday was significantly underqualified for his job at Cambridge, which was thrilled to have appointed the youngest black professor in its history. The story also raised questions more broadly about academic standards in the humanities, regarding both Arday's education (Liverpool John Moores), which awarded his doctorate, confirmed that he had received just one in-person supervision while writing his PhD, which was later found to have substantial signs of plagiarism) and the​

education he provided to his own students.​

And this is the problem I have with things like DEI and "affirmative action". On the surface, they sound like a really great idea - give people with fewer chances in life a hand up to get a job or appointment to a position they might otherwise not have the opportunity to get, or indeed, to win academic qualifications they might well be intrinsically capable of achieving, but never have the chance to achieve through no fault of their own. But its only when you drill down to the way it works, and see some of the results, that you start to find the flaws in the thinking. Inevitably, when you hire people based more on the colour of thir skin, or their sex, you are risking this sort of thing that happened with Arday - placing a person who is not qualified to do the job in a position where they are unable to function to their best advantage. But quite aside from that, in your drive to have women and black people in your workplace, you may have denied a more qualified candidate who otherwise would have got the job.

I am a firm believer in "best person for the job" regardless of all other factors. You have to be blind to their race, to their sex, to their ethnicity, and any other factor that is not directly related to their ability to do the job you are asking to them to do.

 

[theprestige]

I'd certainly agree that was part of it, and so was Arday's own extreme self promotion, but academic scandal is really not the kind of scandal the British press is normally interested in.

That probably does a lot to explain why Cambridge thought they could get away with this kind of nonsense.

 

[angrysoba]

If Arday were a little more clever, a little more cynical, and a little more resilient, he might have survived by switching sides. He could have dined out for years, on narratives of how Cambridge doesn't care about qualifications, and set him up for failure.

Daniel Muñoz (@bigifftrue)

You know the irony is that Arday could easily write one of the greatest autobiographies of all time if he just said what he did in his life and how he did it

substack.com

 

[d4m10n]

To be fair, we should probably subject everyone at Cambridge to the same level of scrutiny.

Came across an interesting quote about this process today:

We’ve built this reverse panopticon where the gaze of a hundred million people converges on a single point, and it turns out all those concentrated eyeballs have the force of a ten-kilowatt laser, they start stripping off the skin, they peel a man like an orange. Put anyone you like in the machine and turn it on—vicar, imam, sweet old widower tearing up bread for the ducks with his trembling hands—and before long you will discover something that retroactively justifies putting them in the machine.​

Personally, I'd much rather that elite intuitions institutions brought back elite-level gatekeeping up front rather than outsourcing the process to the online mobs after the fact.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I am a firm believer in "best person for the job"

I am a firm believer in " able to do the job".