The Jason Arday scandal, part deux

[KatiePricesKnickers]

As the book launch is coming, let the discussion continue.

First thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5563599-the-jason-arday-scandal?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share
This is lifted from the thread in the education section, which is an interesting summary
https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/the-great-and-unfortunate-story-of?r=8w0woc&triedRedirect=true

Or AIBU with not letting this fade away?

You have the patience of a saint, @Whatevers

Gosh. I don't think I’ve encountered a post with this much distinctly eugenicist flavour in a very long time.

Thanks. It’s important to take regular breaks and hydrate properly.

Eugenicist? Where did I say in any form that people with lower IQ do not have worth and value in our society? Your comment perhaps reflects your own values that only certain roles have any merit?

Do you think the people who keep our street clean, who do repetitive jobs in industry, who teach PE are less important to society? That Jason Arday was some how ‘less’ as a PE teacher rather than a Cambridge Prof?

I suppose you have to when you're dealing with race baiters.

Eugenics isn’t simply the claim that people with lower IQ have no worth. I’m referring to the argument you actually made: that poorer people - and people of certain races - constitute a “lower IQ group”, that giving them greater access to university risks “dumbing down” society, and that higher-IQ people naturally take the lead. That is a hierarchical, hereditarian and racist way of framing social groups. Whether you personally think a street cleaner or PE teacher has value is completely beside the point

Where did I mention race?

You do not put someone with quadriplegia on the front line in a war, or someone with learning disabilities as chancellor of the exchequer from some misplaced sense of fairness.

You seem affronted by the whole idea that some people are more intelligent than others and that this is inherited. Yet presumably you are comfortable with the idea that some people are taller than others and this is inherited?

So we've passed racist and we're now at eugenicist. What's next, Nazi?

The desperation to prevent people from talking about things that you don't think should be true, the attempts to shame and discredit the asking of questions, is partly how we got here.

The current authoritarian approach cannot continue indefinitely, and sooner or later you too will find yourself accused and convicted of wrong speak.

This entire discussion has been about supposed racial differences in IQ and university admissions. Are you now pretending it’s about something else? Nobody is disputing that individuals differ in intelligence, or that IQ has a heritable component. The issue is the leap you’re making from that to assumptions about generalised group differences based on race and wealth, and then the insidious suggestion that those supposed differences justify unequal social and educational outcomes and different social roles across such groups.

Pointing out that some individuals are more intelligent than others is not controversial. Using that fact to construct a racialised and/ or class based hierarchy of social groups and argue that inequality is therefore justified is something different entirely.

I found this article on a lawsuit brought against Harvard by a group of Asian students, which intimates that Harvard feels there are group differences in intelligence, which its admissions system seeks to counterbalance: Harvard admits its preferences - The New Criterion

Well said. It seems we’re going backwards in thought with some long debunked pseudoscience getting dredged up. Is this post truth era still? I feel we’re in the age of anti enlightenment.

Just wondering, apologies if I have missed this but has anyone read JA’s PhD? I’m only about a 3rd through. I’ve only read a friend’s and my husband’s son’s before but I was a teacher for 25 years and… it seems very scholarly and what you might expect. No idea why the random apostrophe wasn’t corrected and I think the title could be more succinct but it seems legit.

And have you compared it with the thesis by a student at Brunel University, published 6 years earlier?

Er, have you read about the undoubted serious plagiarism?
Respectfully, you may not be in the best position to to judge the quality of the scholarship .
I’m not either btw.

She s a teacher of 25 years but doesn't understand the hierarchy of HE accolades. Give her a break.

I've just read the past couple of pages and definitely don't want to get sucked back into this, but I just want to say, I actually did read about half of JA's thesis before giving up in despair that work of such poor academic quality was deemed suitable to award a phd to. It had terrible methodology, confused and biased sampling, misunderstanding of even the most basic statistical methods, simplistic and biased conclusions...it really had it all. Presumably you think it's "very scholarly" because it's written in the standard language used in sociology. Not sure what it says about standards in the teaching profession, but nothing positive, that's for sure.

Tbh the fact that you are impressed by it does explain why the thread seems to have degenerated into a few PP trying very patiently to explain why JA's appointment was not based on merit to people who cannot understand why having a (very poor quality, even if a lot of it hadn't been plagiarized) phd from a third rate university is not an excellent reason to award someone a professorship at Cambridge.

Well how do you mean “what you might expect”? Or “very scholarly” for that matter?

I acknowledged that I’m no expert and it’s a long time since I wrote extended academic pieces. The awarding university however, said issues were minor and the degree remains intact.

A range of independent primary and secondary research. Citations seem to be done correctly. It’s extensive and substantial. Style is academic but readable. Sentence structure controlled, paragraphing logical in structure with linked discourse.

😆 🤣 😂 😹

Yes, they did say that, and that’s one of the many scandals which have come together to create this terrible and tragic situation.
Just to be clear, they failed to respond to the serious plagiarism in the thesis.
I think you need to familiarise yourself with what’s happened, @SevenYellowHammers before posting, otherwise your post won’t make much sense.

Now let's get to the quantitative part. Over to you.

What are your dissertations about?

Thanks for the clarification.

Well I’ve examined and supervised quite a few phds and it’s not “what I expect” really

I suppose whatever the issues with the rest of it, the acknowledgements are unlikely to have been plagiarised, and the grammar and syntax there are not good at all.