Merged Arday life and death

[Emily's Cat]

It's intuitionistic logic. In intuitionistic logic, the law of excluded middle does not always hold, which is to say intuitionistic logic does away with the a priori assumption that sentences are either true or false (even within an interpretation). The formal semantics of intuitionistic logic can be stated using Heyting algebras instead of Boolean algebras; it is also possible to state the formal semantics using Kripke semantics, as for modal logics.

Some (but by no means all) of the practical applications of intuitionistic logic involve type checking of the sort that's involved when you compile a computer program. This is more important for programming languages with sophisticated type systems than for programming languages rooted in the 1950s and 1960s.

I yield. If nothing else I don't know what any of this means.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Anyway, I think we are way off track.

It makes no sense to dismiss history and philosophy etc... specifically within the context of The University of Cambridge, which was the place where Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alan Turing all did philosophical work which had huge implications for maths and computing and much else.

If you dismiss it as Mickey Mouse stuff then Cambridge has always been Mickey Mouse and Jason Arday would have fit right in.

Who dismissed the entirety of philosophy as mickey mouse?

 

[angrysoba]

I'm pretty sure I'm the one that provided that definition. I could be wrong, I suppose. I don't imagine it's a novel definition.

And? Yes, of course some things are testable and demonstrable. I don't think I've said otherwise.

Then the distinction doesn't hold!

Here, let me try a different approach. As a generality, based on nothing but your own intuition and feelings about it... what percent of all areas of physics would you say is testable and demonstrable? What percentage of all the areas of philosophy would you say is testable and demonstrable? Would you consider those intuitive percentages to be close together?

No idea! It's something of a meaningless question anyway.

Okay.

I think it's trivially true. But I also have a strong impression that other people in this thread do NOT think it's trivially true.

Again, I have no idea. I have not heard anyone say that. The closest is you.

This gets complicated for me to put into words. That's a me thing, so bear with me please.

A thing can be a thing, completely independent of any observer, or even any knowledge that the thing is a thing. An observer isn't necessary for a thing to be a thing. But if there isn't an observer, nobody knows that the thing is even a thing in the first place. We cannot know what we don't know exists.

That said, of course people can look at a thing from different perspectives, and draw different conclusions. Because most things look different when seen from different perspectives. I think that's trivially true too, isn't it?

Yes, pretty trivially true. Few dispute that if you look at things from different angles they look different. But if that is the point you are making it is not really that interesting, is it?

But those perspectives don't make truth and falsehood relative. It makes them at best incomplete.

Exactly as I have said. Then you said some things are not demonstrable. Which is not that interesting either. We don't know what Louis XVI's thought was and have no way of knowing that. But that is not really what is meant when we do history.

The truth or falsehood of a thing is independent of the perspective from which it's viewed.

Exactly.

But if there is only one way of looking at it, a false conclusion may be drawn, and if only one person looks at it and says "it's a blargedyflarg!" then nobody knows it's anything other than a blargedyflarg. The only way to determine whether it actually is or is not a blargedyflarg is to find a way to test it. If a way to test it - which necessitates a different perspective to at least some extent - finds that it is NOT a blargedyflarg, then it's been demonstrated to be false. If that test concludes it's a blargedyflarg, then other tests will be done, and will continue to be done, until we're confident that the likelihood of it actually being, in reality a blargedyflarg, is high enough to be accepted as true.

?

Our limited and sometimes wrong interpretation of things doesn't alter what they actually are.

I know.

The objective world exists independent of observers.

I know.

All of which is now immensely esoteric, probably a bit sophomoric on my part, and a rather spectacular (but fun and interesting) diversion from the topic of the thread.

I think it is time we moved on.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Not true at all. All hard sciences are highly abstract at the higher theoretical level. As for being objectively black or white: not so! My ex-SO did double Philosophy and Physics (as a science). He specialised in Quantum Theory. There is a HUGE amount of fierce debate, disagreement and controversy at the Quantum Physics level because it is so abstract.

QM is definitely falsifiable. All you need is to find something that goes against the maths. And it wouldn't have gotten to be called a theory if it didn't explain SOMETHING better than simpler explanations. You know, Occam's Razor and all that.

 

[smartcooky]

For the umpty-ninth time he was CLEARED.

For the eleventy-seventeenth time its IRRELEVANT. This is not a court of law - there is no double jeopardy in play here.

If you are cleared of plagiarism by the first check, you can still be NOT cleared by a later investigation.

Arday copied and pasted whole swathes of Paula Zwozdiak-Myers'thesis, over 100 passages, WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION.

HE STOLE HER WORK!!!!

 

[smartcooky]

Who dismissed the entirety of philosophy as mickey mouse?

Oh, he'll be having a snarky swipe at me (as usual).

I said that Sociology is a Mickey Mouse degree - he just exaggerated what I said beyond all reason.

Sociology IS a Mickey Mouse degree

 

[Nessie]

I think there is a link between Arday and the murder of Henry Nowak, whereby the white British public are increasingly incensed by any form of DEI and preferential treatment of ethnic minorities. There are a lot of social media commentators and journalists who have found that stirring up anger makes them money and so they find instances where they can stir up that anger, increasing the chances of such a story going viral and there being a pile on.

For example;

I was reported to police over the Arday case. I was just doing my job

My investigation into alleged plagiarism was undertaken seriously – journalistic enquiries should not be a matter for Scotland Yard, writes THE reporter Jack Grove

www.timeshighereducation.com

"At Times Higher Education, we cover stories of this sort frequently: in June a French science communicator was stripped of his PhD and we covered the matter. That article attracted little complaint"

A French man plagiarising is not news worthy. A black man at Cambridge is.

 

[Vixen]

Arday lied about the work they did. They took someone else's idea and words, and presented it in a manner that other people without prior knowledge were likely to assume where his own product. That's the entire point of plagiarism being unethical in the first place, and in some cases subject to civil or criminal charges of reckless disregard or fraud.

Then Arday used the results of that unethical behavior in order to secure a prestigious and lucrative position. Very likely (but still speculatively) due to other back-story embellishments and/or fabrications intended to deceive the hiring committee.

Then leveraged that prestige and the reputation of the school in order to further gain some degree of minor celebrity within academic circles, in addition to increasing their own financial gain.

You don't see anything wrong with that? Like nothing at all?

Vixen, buddy. This reads as almost personal for you. If that's the case, I'm sorry.

Some of us are capable of being objective and seeing the bigger picture and reality exactly for what it is.

You can dig up dirt on virtually anybody.

As Rufus Wainwright put it, "Do I disappoint you, for just being human?"

 

[Vixen]

... and therefore they never do?

... because nobody ever breaks the law?

They can be sued via easy to access, for the common person, Employment Tribunals.

 

[angrysoba]

I think there is a link between Arday and the murder of Henry Nowak, whereby the white British public are increasingly incensed by any form of DEI and preferential treatment of ethnic minorities. There are a lot of social media commentators and journalists who have found that stirring up anger makes them money and so they find instances where they can stir up that anger, increasing the chances of such a story going viral and there being a pile on.

For example;

I was reported to police over the Arday case. I was just doing my job

My investigation into alleged plagiarism was undertaken seriously – journalistic enquiries should not be a matter for Scotland Yard, writes THE reporter Jack Grove

www.timeshighereducation.com

"At Times Higher Education, we cover stories of this sort frequently: in June a French science communicator was stripped of his PhD and we covered the matter. That article attracted little complaint"

A French man plagiarising is not news worthy. A black man at Cambridge is.

Instead of an elaborate theory, maybe there are more prosaic explanations available.

I think that if the THS had been able to do their job and not be warned off by the police and legal threats, and if Cambridge had done their job and taken the claims of plagiarism more seriously earlier, and if people had been a little more skeptical about various other claims made by Arday, then things wouldn't have reached the level they did.

Perhaps it may have remained buried in the pages of the THS.

 

[Vixen]

"Some other person got in on personal privilege, therefore Ardays were completely merited"?

Read the post I was responding to (Trausti) about his claim ppl like Arday are 'substandard' in academic quality.

 

[Nessie]

Instead of an elaborate theory, maybe there are more prosaic explanations available.

I think that if the THS had been able to do their job and not be warned off by the police and legal threats, and if Cambridge had done their job and taken the claims of plagiarism more seriously earlier, and if people had been a little more skeptical about various other claims made by Arday, then things wouldn't have reached the level they did.

Perhaps it may have remained buried in the pages of the THS.

If Arday had been white and he had used the police and a lawyers to warn off those who were asking about his work, I do not think the story would have got anywhere near the attention it has.

 

[Rolfe]

Jeez what a horrible person. I remember hearing about that. I also remember being pretty irritated about the fraud involved. I will say there's some difference in that Holmes' lack of ethics doesn't reflect poorly on the very intuitional system that backed her initial credibility. It reflects poorly on the influence of family and the ability to leverage their reputations and accomplishments, and it reflects poorly on venture capital.

I'm a clinical biochemist. Analytical methods and in particular the borderline fraud involved in selling do-it-yourself analysis instrumentation to general practitioners has been a large part of my work. It kills patients.

I knew from the start that Holmes was claiming the impossible. So did everybody who knew anything about it. But experts were not listened to. The concept was so seductive people wanted to believe.

There is a subtle difference here though. Holmes was a fraud and was claiming to have a product that did things it manifestly couldn't do. But I think she believed it was possible. I think she had taken the exhortation "fake it till you make it" too literally. She had no real idea of the insuperable barriers to ever making it work and pressed ahead with her overblown claims in the belief that development would eventually produce a working product.

Jason Arday wasn't into fake-it-till-you-make-it. He didn't have a vision of a future where he was, somehow, transformed into a competent scholar. He was going to go on forever waffling garbage and getting paid for it.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I think there is a link between Arday and the murder of Henry Nowak, whereby the white British public are increasingly incensed by any form of DEI and preferential treatment of ethnic minorities. There are a lot of social media commentators and journalists who have found that stirring up anger makes them money and so they find instances where they can stir up that anger, increasing the chances of such a story going viral and there being a pile on.

For example;

I was reported to police over the Arday case. I was just doing my job

My investigation into alleged plagiarism was undertaken seriously – journalistic enquiries should not be a matter for Scotland Yard, writes THE reporter Jack Grove

www.timeshighereducation.com

"At Times Higher Education, we cover stories of this sort frequently: in June a French science communicator was stripped of his PhD and we covered the matter. That article attracted little complaint"

A French man plagiarising is not news worthy. A black man at Cambridge is.

Not quite that equivalent. In the French guy's case, the university started investigating immediately, he got his PhD pulled, and that was that. Good. That's the system working as intended. Not much more to comment after that for the average bloke enjoying his fine wine and cheese.

Étienne Klein didn't send a PR firm sent to threaten Arrêt Sur Images into stopping investigating. He also didn't have the institution defending him NOR a whole slew of keyboard warriors fanning the flames shouting "THAT'S RACIST!" if you dare even comment on him, like was the case with Arday. I'm also not aware of Étienne Klein being a media troll and making outlandish other claims about his achievements and previous work experience. He was somewhat popular on radio, among the tiny niche of people who actually listen to radio about science stuff, but that was about it.

Basically there was no real reason for most people to be excited over Étienne Klein. Meanwhile, one has a lot of non-race reasons to be dismayed at the Arday brouhaha and specifically how Cambridge handled it.

Frankly, the most notable aspect of the Étienne Klein saga is how they didn't notice the plagiarism, when some of those he copied and pasted from were the professors on his thesis committee. I mean, at least Arday copied from a post-grad student at a completely different university. But none of these guys recognised whole passages from their own papers? Mild head-scratcher right there. And it did cause discussions about academic integrity, AS IT SHOULD.

Also frankly, Arday could have learned a thing or two from Étienne Klein. Like, he could have kept his head down and not tried to be a media super-star with the most outlandish claims, and most people wouldn't have given a damn.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Also, link to the Étienne Klein saga that doesn't require any registration:

https://www.science.org/content/article/french-physicist-and-media-star-loses-doctorate-after-plagiarism-investigation

 

[smartcooky]

I knew from the start that Holmes was claiming the impossible.

She had no real idea of the insuperable barriers to ever making it work

As far as I could see, it was Star Trekesque...

Jason Arday wasn't into fake-it-till-you-make-it. He didn't have a vision of a future where he was, somehow, transformed into a competent scholar. He was going to go on forever waffling garbage and getting paid for it.

This

 

[Rolfe]

Yeah. I used to say to students, one day I suppose there will be things like Dr McCoy's transponder. Just point it at the patient and see all the data. But meanwhile, in the real world, we have to learn about UV spectrophotometry and ion-sensitive electrodes and immunoassays and so on.

 

[Darat]

If Arday had been white and he had used the police and a lawyers to warn off those who were asking about his work, I do not think the story would have got anywhere near the attention it has.

I agree but you have to look at, so to speak, the context. Much was made of his being black when he was appointed, he got a lot of attention because he was black and young(ish). It is sadly not surprising that he is being used - by some - as an example of why a black person shouldn't hold such positions. For others he is being used as an example of the rights' remarkably successful rebranding of their old strawman "political correctness" as "DEI". For some he has ceased to be an individual and become an avatar.

 

[Vixen]

You can't possibly be serious.

You seem to be accepting an incredibly shocking and movie-esque claim with no shred of evidence at all... because they can't prove it's not true?
Furthermore, you seem to be suggesting that because Arday is black... we shouldn't even be allowed to seek proof?

This isn't a religion, and even if it were, I have no problem being an atheist.

The proof of misrepresentation in your job application is for the employer to investigate, not random jealous colleagues. The timeline is that an academic, David Harris, of Plymouth Uni got journalist, Groves, of TES, onto Arday because he perceived Arday as some kind of an 'Ali-G' figure because of his perceived focus on woke and inclusivity. Groves sniffed a story because, he, like Harris, decided it was not possible for anyone to do that level of running or have selective mute autism until age eleven and then only learn to read at 18. Just because you disbelieve something doesn't make it okay to hound the the target of your incredulity to death.

We've all been in workplaces where certain individuals engage in jealous rivalry and office politics, the main weapon being undermining by you or your perceived adversary. Claiming credit for their ideas, suggesting a 'better' idea then theirs, spread rumours of nepotism ('Just asking'), micromanaging, watching their every movement, their 'incompetence', ignoring them in the corridor, all kinds of shenanigans go on. This is absolutely rife in academia. A friend of mine was suddenly removed from her beloved office at London University overlooking a lovely garden, which she had occupied for years, by such a colleague out of sheer spite (she believes).

So no, I am sceptical the hounding of Arday was based on any pure motive.

A pure motive would have entailed going through the correct channels.

 

[Vixen]

Okay? Why do you persist in thinking that I'm bad mouthing archaeology or sociology or other soft sciences in some general way?

Although to be candid, I am unable to see any practicality in being able to differentiate comb ware culture from stone age. I don't know what comb ware culture even is, and I don't know what relevance stone age culture has any of our lives. There may well be some... but I have no idea what it would be.

The relevance is that some of us have a keen interest in discovering who we are and how we got here by looking at the past.