Merged Arday life and death

[Vixen]

If you are going claim that Arday was not a DEI hire then you are either being dishonest or you are living in a fantasyland, completely out of touch with the reality of the ultra-progressive mindset that prevails at most modern universities.

Arday was not hired because he was 'DEI' [sic]. There was a vacancy either created or existent for the Sociology of Physical Education. There was a proper (as laid down by prior edict) application and interview process, including gaining references and checking qualifications.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

lol! I think this is what they mean when they say “soft subjects” mean spouting bollocks and farting out a couple of hackneyed quotes to make yourself sound profound.

The difference is that we're just some randos shooting the wind on an internet board, not writing a philosophy paper.

 

[Vixen]

Falsifiability.

At what point have I demonstrated derision?

I have noted that the hard versus soft is reference to the type of study, and the unforgiving nature of a field that allows only correct or incorrect. I noted that "mickey mouse" doesn't mean worthless, it merely means easy to obtain relative to some other subjects. I have no ill will toward those degrees, and many of them are quite valuable. I myself have a career where I am never, ever, ever actually right - I'm usually just close enough to be useful. Some of my closest colleagues are in marketing and communications, and I find their input and skills to be extremely beneficial when trying to convey a complex idea to executives or customers.

Yes, 'easy' (relatively) was the original meaning of 'Mickey Mouse' degrees and as famously labelled by a UK Politician in response to an abortive attempt at social mobility, in which a scheme was set up whereby people could gain qualifications via online courses. A lot of these courses attracted scammers who got paid for producing them. For example, 'Film Script-Writing', which whilst useful, I'm sure (I sent off for it) was hardly subjected to academic rigour and the scheme was soon scrapped. Sociology has NEVER been a 'Mickey Mouse' subject. It is an old established and well-respected discipline, with weighty 'men of history' such as Comte, Durkheim, Strauss, Derrida, Hegel, etc., etc. The reason right-wingers deride it is because it is associated with 'woke' and 'Marxism'- I did psychology (conservative with a small 'c') and we had the Sociology Department in the next building. This was a hotbed of student activism, trotskyism, SWSO, and people selling all kinds of socialist newspapers at the door. I think studying Sociology awakens students awareness of class society and the disadvantages and privileges of different sectors of society and this radicalises them - and almost every new generation of youth goes through this appraisal of the society we live in.

So yes, Arday was hired in such a 'woke'- acknowledgment realisation that for many Black youths in deprived areas, sport and PE is one way they find self-realisation, and Arday having come from an African immigrant working-class background and knowledgeable from personal experience in how to mentor PE coaches fit the bill of a contemporaneous need in Sociology as a discipline, i.e, offering the intellectual side.

 

[Wudang]

Irrelevant!

I was responding to the claim that plagiarism accusations were restricted to words and not ideas. The charge is that he also stole interview responses. That is passing off other people’s fieldwork as his own. He apparently also claimed to have initially transcribed his interviews and run an Nvivo analysis on them, then removed the claim later. Very dodgy! In addition, there is no evidence of putting his work to an ethics board, which his institution apparently demanded. Very naughty!

Agreed that shows there were serious issues with his work, not just copying words.
The argument that his impact factor was high enough to justify his hiring is plausible but not solid. I think if I could be bothered it might be interesting to check the history of how he was quoted. Ie did multiple authors quote his work independently which would be impressive or was he quoted by someone whose own work led to Arday being quoted which would be less impressive. For example a friend of mine appears as an “et al” on several physics papers as he wrote the Fortran code to analyse the results, often outside his own area.

 

[angrysoba]

Arday was cleared.

You don't know what you are talking about.

He was cleared by LJM's, but what I was referring to was a later paper.

Read this please.

 

[theprestige]

I do think Ardey would still be alive to day, if the story of an academic lying about his past and plagiarism, had got a few news stories that lasted a day and no internet pile on.

He also would have kept his job, which is an unacceptable outcome.

 

[Vixen]

With room for nuance, the general difference between a hard science and a soft science is that in a hard science you can be concretely, unquestionably, unequivocally wrong. There's no interpretation or different perspective that can be allowed in the question of whether or not that airframe will withstand the specified force - it either will or it won't.

Noting that something is a hard science doesn't mean the content is harder. It means it's inflexible and unbending. Your math either maths or it fails completely. Your perspective on the impact of thai bodhisattva sculpture on the other hand, can't really be wrong, it can only be uncompelling or unconvincing.

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.

 

[Wudang]

He also would have kept his job, which is an unacceptable outcome.

I suspect so as a number of articles have told of others who were found guilty of plagiarism and just had a finger wagged at them. I wonder if in these days of “publish or die” they see a need to keep the publishing stats high regardless of quality. Speculation.

 

[Vixen]

Not to derail, but I've never really understood the difference between inquiry and enquiry, inquiring and enquiring. Would you mind taking a moment to explain?

(Of course, if this is another will/shall thing, I'm Scottish, you're doomed to failure.)

To my mind, an inquiry is a more sceptical method of reviewing an issue -gathering facts - whereas an enquiry is just a request for information, such as 'What time do you open?'

'Will' is in the German sense of the word of intent or wanting to do something, especially in the future. 'Shall' is an absolute affirmation.

 

[Wudang]

A quick skim of grammar etc word sites shows a consensus that they mean the same but inquiry is preferred for more formal requests and processes.

 

[Vixen]

Vixen, why are you so determined to defend Arday? I'm not intending this as antagonistic, I genuinely don't understand why you're so invested in defending the honor of this person.

I can't see he's done anything wrong.

I could contact you, say I'm a journalist for THE WASHINGTON POST and that I have found out things about you from when you were a student, which I am about to publish as a major scandal. How would you feel? Would you not go into a panic when you remember that time you were given too much change at the donut store and you failed to hand it back or a hundred and one things go through your mind, when you said on a dating site you were 6'2" but are really one foot shorter, or what about that time you made a clever quote in a dissertation without giving credit because you thought the source would be obvious to the examiner...but now you are a leading professor at Harvard; your whole reputation could be ruined, and you are asked to resign or be sacked. So you start panicking, have a nervous breakdown. Your academic friend tells me to lay off because you can't cope with my queries. So you think I have a greater right to badger you based on a self-righteous hunch and the sniff of a scoop, than your right to not be contacted?

 

[Vixen]

Are you... are you now taking the position that a pig's head actually did show up?

I'm sorry, Vixen, but are you sober?

Seriously, the GUARDIAN reporters, one of whom is said to have exchanged bad feelings between himself and Arday in the past, set about joining the mainstream media pile-on, claiming to check the various stories disseminated by the likes of Cofnas et al, decided erroneously that where they could not establish something happened, then it followed - is their poor logic - that Arday lied. So, they asked the local butcher if they had sold a pig's head at the alleged time. They said, no. This led to a conclusion Arday fantasised it. Dreadful rubbish! Another investigator found that a hog had been sold or found at around the date concerned. Whether or not there was a pig's head delivered to his family home can't be determined by asking the nearest butcher! Rolfe claims this story can't be true because Brits are well-disposed to immigrants who behave themselves and are polite, and in any case, it's Muslims who are targeted by pork. But many Africans are also Muslim. So you can't prove something by stating that it's opposite is more likely. The GUARDIAN's most damning claim is that Arday asked them, "Why don't you just believe me?" which to my mind is an absolutely fair question. Why automatically disbelieve everything the dreadlocked Cambridge Professor tells you as though it is a given he should not be in that post? To add insult to injury, after Arday died, Katherine Viner, GUARDIAN editor, doubled down and made out it was their duty to investigate him.

 

[Ziggurat]

You're embarrassing yourself. A serial liar lied. You're twisting yourself into knots trying to make excuses for his lies, and come up with a rationale for why we don't know 100% that this specific lie was a lie.

There's a pattern here, and everyone can see it. Both to Arday, and sadly to your posts as well.

 

[Vixen]

One publication writing one article, and it's not even published yet, which was where he started trying to silence the press, isn't a whole lot of scrutiny tbh. Especially for someone who previously loved the attention and actually was writing that sensationalist autobiography.

This sounds like envy, not logic.

 

[Vixen]

Its the principle that is at stake. You put sub-standard people in teaching positions, you will turn out sub-standard students as the next generation in that field. If you don't think that is a problem going forward, then I can't help you. As Samuel Johnston said... "I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding."

Universities should be demanding excellence as the standard for appointment to a professorship. The more prestigious the university, the higher the standard should be, and Cambridge is one of the most prestigious!

Arday had been in his post since 2023. Clearly, he was considered satisfactory...until 'race realist' Nathan Cofnas decided to target him as part of his race hatred campaign.

"I am the Great Accuser" ~ Satan

 

[Vixen]

Apparently he was in a group that included "two women of colour", which I don't think is the same. The NYT reporting on it suggested that he was the only black candidate, so they were presumably of a different ethnic background.

View attachment 74823

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/world/jason-arday-cambridge-canada-meta.html

Cofnas hasn't published anything since 2024. Kettle, meet Pot.

 

[Vixen]

By an institution desperate to show that there was no failure on the part of the university.

Still cleared. After an investigation.

 

[Ziggurat]

Arday had been in his post since 2023. Clearly, he was considered satisfactory...

That’s precisely the problem.

 

[Vixen]

You're embarrassing yourself. A serial liar lied. You're twisting yourself into knots trying to make excuses for his lies, and come up with a rationale for why we don't know 100% that this specific lie was a lie.

There's a pattern here, and everyone can see it. Both to Arday, and sadly to your posts as well.

'Sadly', 'everyone can see' 'a pattern here' in your posts, too.

 

[angrysoba]

Agreed that shows there were serious issues with his work, not just copying words.
The argument that his impact factor was high enough to justify his hiring is plausible but not solid. I think if I could be bothered it might be interesting to check the history of how he was quoted. Ie did multiple authors quote his work independently which would be impressive or was he quoted by someone whose own work led to Arday being quoted which would be less impressive. For example a friend of mine appears as an “et al” on several physics papers as he wrote the Fortran code to analyse the results, often outside his own area.

Well, a couple of problems with Stanley's argument, aside from his ludicrous claim that plagiarism does not include copying someone else's words:
1.) is that the article he argues has the highest citation count is the one that is flagged up by Retraction Watch as having copied the words of informants from someone else's work as though they came from his!
2.) is that many of the citations for his work came after he became a professor at Cambridge rather than necessarily feeding into the reasons why Cambridge hired him in the first place.