Merged Arday life and death

[Vixen]

His own ass? No. But I do think it's very possible that he's just taking Arday's word for it. I'm not sure why you dismiss this possibility.

If Afzal actually tracked down documentation of a formal diagnosis for Arday (or testimony of someone who gave such a formal diagnosis), he should absolutely present that to the public.

Bwahahahahahahahahaha!

Oh man, I needed a good laugh today. Thank you.

Who do you think has more authority, you or the official investigator appointed to investigate Cambridge University?

Hey, everyone, ignore Afzal, Ziggurat on a chat list knows better!

 

[Ziggurat]

Who do you think has more authority, you or the official investigator appointed to investigate Cambridge University?

I think authority is beside the point. Evidence is what matters.

You have presented no evidence. Afzal has presented no evidence. You and Afzal are making the positive claim, not me. Therefore you have the burden of proof, not me.

You're really bad at this.

 

[Vixen]

I think authority is beside the point. Evidence is what matters.

You have presented no evidence. Afzal has presented no evidence. You and Afzal are making the positive claim, not me. Therefore you have the burden of proof, not me.

You're really bad at this.

Mr. Afzal, O.B.E. has direct access to Arday's personnel files. That's how he is able to confirm it with confidence, rather than qualify his statement with, 'it is claimed'. IOW it is verified.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Time well spent

 

[theprestige]

Mr. Afzal, O.B.E. has direct access to Arday's personnel files. That's how he is able to confirm it with confidence, rather than qualify his statement with, 'it is claimed'. IOW it is verified.

My employer's personnel files have never included information about my medical diagnoses.

 

[Ziggurat]

Mr. Afzal, O.B.E. has direct access to Arday's personnel files. That's how he is able to confirm it with confidence, rather than qualify his statement with, 'it is claimed'. IOW it is verified.

You're making a lot of assumptions here. You can't back up any of them.

 

[theprestige]

Who do you think has more authority, you or the official investigator appointed to investigate Cambridge University?

Hey, everyone, ignore Afzal, Ziggurat on a chat list knows better!

Jason Arday was awarded credentials and titles he hadn't earned and did not deserve.

Appealing to Afzal's awarded credentials isn't the play, here.

 

[Rolfe]

How does one get to be "highly respected" anyway? Asking for a friend.

 

[Emily's Cat]

So, at best, historical context combined with the personal anecdotes of the author? It sounds like an interesting way to make things relatable etc but as a resource it sounds like it'd be 1:1 with a normal autobiography.

It's a normal autobiography masquerading as academic work.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

It's a normal autobiography masquerading as academic work.

Well, sorta. Just with more navel-gazing fluff and making up stuff about what it proves about the whole culture.

E.g., if I just write that I was bad at football in school and no team wanted me, it's just an autobiography. If I go on tangents about what it says about society's obsession with competitive athletic performance and its effect on young males -- without even asking any other young males -- it's an autoethnographic study.

I won't put any smiley there, because I'm dead serious.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

My employer's personnel files have never included information about my medical diagnoses.

Dunno about the UK, but both here and in the US even asking about medical history is flat-out illegal.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Actually, I'd question even whether it tells you much about the individual either.

One thing that serious poll companies do is randomise question order and phrasing to compensate for the following effect: people tend to agree with whatever you're asking. So we'll answer yes more than no. (E.g., if you ask a group of people "should we bring back conscription?" vs "should we stick with a voluntary army?" you will get different numbers in favour of conscription.) Or when it's a multi-choice that's not "yes" or "no", we tend to pick the first one more.

So I will say that autoethnography is actually one step worse than just a sample of one. I know what my interlocutor thinks, since it's me, and I'll agree with myself.

Anchoring, phrasing, ordering, and fatigue all play a part in survey design. People frequently don't understand how vital phrasing can be in what sort of a response you get.

I enjoyed my time helping develop and evaluate complex surveys.... but I don't miss it. Setting up a 30 question forced-choice in a way that would let us actually get the info we needed was educational and exhausting.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You think this highly respected figure (OBE) pulled it out of his arse?

I think that highly respected figure likely just took Arday's word for it, and accepted Arday's self-description. Same as you've done.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Well, sorta. Just with more navel-gazing fluff and making up stuff about what it proves about the whole culture.

E.g., if I just write that I was bad at football in school and no team wanted me, it's just an autobiography. If I go on tangents about what it says about society's obsession with competitive athletic performance and its effect on young males -- without even asking any other young males -- it's an autoethnographic study.

I won't put any smiley there, because I'm dead serious.

I dead-seriously agree with you completely.

 

[theprestige]

Dunno about the UK, but both here and in the UK even asking about medical history is flat-out illegal.

That's my understanding. In fact I'm pretty sure that even when requesting ADA accommodations, your doctor doesn't need to disclose your diagnosis to your employer. They just need to disclose your specific work-related limitations, so that the employer can start the interactive process of finding a reasonable accommodation.

For an employer to then turn around and put in the person's file, "... so therefore they must be autistic" seems insane to me. But I don't know; maybe it's normal at the school Vixen attended.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

That's my understanding. In fact I'm pretty sure that even when requesting ADA accommodations, your doctor doesn't need to disclose your diagnosis to your employer. They just need to disclose your specific work-related limitations, so that the employer can start the interactive process of finding a reasonable accommodation.

For an employer to then turn around and put in the person's file, "... so therefore they must be autistic" seems insane to me. But I don't know; maybe it's normal at the school Vixen attended.

Sweden is still in the EU, so my uninformed guess would be that it must be illegal there too.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Anchoring, phrasing, ordering, and fatigue all play a part in survey design. People frequently don't understand how vital phrasing can be in what sort of a response you get.

Precisely, my eloquent feline colleague.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

But to return to the topic of Arday and his controversial thesis, he didn't just plagiarise it, he also turned it into a joke. And I'm not even talking about the grammar errors introduced while trying to make it less obviously plagiarised. He also cut down the number of (plagiarised) participants to just 4 who agreed with him, and the number of axes evaluated to 6, which you might notice is less than the number of participants whose answers he copied. (And also didn't match the percentage numbers he copied in that thesis.) That thing wouldn't pass the muster in any science, or at least not the hard ones. I'm sure not even in Sociology, well, at least not how it used to be back in the day when it was a sub-discipline of statistics and thus a sub-discipline of mathematics. I don't think I could have passed a 6 axes analysis of a sample of 4 as statistically significant even in a high school physics lab, much less university.

I mean, for big anime boobs' sake, it's barely above the level of "I'm not racist, I have black friends and they agree with me." And by barely above, I mean it's cherry picking someone else's sample, instead of just flat out making up their existence.

Even the thesis he copied was rather underwhelming in sample size, but ok, we're not talking about a scientific paper. His was a complete joke, even if it weren't plagiarised (which it was.)

But I guess we're talking about the philosophy of <insert other field> about <insert another field>, so it's not up against a lot of competition, nor held to scientific method standards.

 

[Emily's Cat]

That's my understanding. In fact I'm pretty sure that even when requesting ADA accommodations, your doctor doesn't need to disclose your diagnosis to your employer. They just need to disclose your specific work-related limitations, so that the employer can start the interactive process of finding a reasonable accommodation.

For an employer to then turn around and put in the person's file, "... so therefore they must be autistic" seems insane to me. But I don't know; maybe it's normal at the school Vixen attended.

Meh. My application had a list of conditions that are considered disabilities, but filling it out was voluntary. They've never asked me for proof of my epilepsy... but then the only accommodation I ask for is a "battle buddy" to keep an eye on me going down the stairs during a fire drill.

 

[smartcooky]

How does one get to be "highly respected" anyway? Asking for a friend.

Easy.

If @Vixen thinks you're credible, and you say things that comport with her chosen narrative, then you are referenced by the epithet "Highly Respected" (like Dr Dewi Evans).