10 thoughts about the Jason Arday story, the suspension of Nathan Cofnas, Cambridge and what it represents about universities and politics more broadly.
It is tragic whenever anyone kills themselves. I feel bad for their family and friends. Suicide is never good.
Cambridge is the villain. The university picked a mentally-disturbed, serial fabulist, and told the world he was the most brilliant scholar. He did fabricate things which tricked Cambridge, yes, but they were outrageous and obvious lies. Cambridge was negligent in basic diligence. It would be like if I made up insane combine stats (I can bench 92 reps and run 40 yrds in 2 seconds), and the SF 49ers said that I am the greatest quarterback in human history, an unstoppable force, and then put me out on the field to watch me get obliterated on the first play. You should blame the coach, manager and team that didn’t catch the lie sooner. Yes, I would also deserve some blame, but not the lion-share.
Cambridge’s error reflects a broader obsession with DEI and woke politics at universities that has verged on madness. This madness began with the arts and humanities, and has extended to the sciences. In medicine, we now have annual lectures on climate change and health. Our gender medicine programs are politically, and not science based.
Covid was an extension of woke politics. Hospitals worshipped lord Fauci— mandated shots against all logic or reason— forced unethical boosters— ignored natural immunity— and now have an annual “respiratory season” mask mandate (level of evidence: wishful thinking), and other constant non-evidence based nonsense. Did I mention all the woke training modules? Jason Arday being celebrated by Cambridge is the Emperor has no clothes. Universities are so woke— the only response from the political right should be defunding them. I suspect this is the future: more extreme swings in funding. Eventually there will be a US president who sets the NIH budget at $0— and I am not sure I would disagree. Universities are making no efforts to fix their naked partisan bias; they should not be surprised at future partisan punishment.
Now that Covid is over, woke politics is spilling to other medical debates. Should a woman who is hep B negative have her baby get a hep B vaccine on day 0 vs day 60? A simple— honestly low stakes question— but since it is political, many have lost their minds. Should an extremely commercially lucrative medical product receive further tax subsidies? This would be an obvious no— the private sector can fund it, but because it is political many scream yes. Should doctors tell families to avoid American football? Many questions have ridiculous woke answers these days.
I was more sympathetic to Jason Arday as a troubled individual until I learned that he used the police and legal firm to attempt to silence his critics. That’s even worse than lying in the first place.
Nathan Cofras— I know nothing about this guy other than he broke this story. He holds a lowly appointment in a lowly university. The woke university ecosystem would never let a guy like him succeed. Then they announced he was suspended today. Unlike Jason Arday, no university said he was the most brilliant person on earth— I feel bad for him. It was punishment enough to remain a postdoc at Ghent.
I reviewed the examples of Jason Arday plagarizing, and I believe that yes, he did plagarize, but I think that misses the bigger issue: The work is total gibberish. It is unintelligible, unproven, empty rhetoric. It is hardly scholarship. What is going on? How could anyone think this is valuable intellectual discourse?
I do think demoting the person who hired him makes sense. That person is not fit to make hiring decisions. That would happen in a normal company.
Out of curiosity: I randomly picked 5 universities, and looked up their sociology department faculty. I randomly picked papers written by the faculty. Wow, my mind was blown. At least 60% was similar gibberish. Constant politically charged assertions— no underlying data. Anti-colonialism— everything is somehow a legacy of racial injustice and colonialism. Never mind— no actual data to support that claim. The climate catastrophe— Immigration injustice— the department looks like a Democrat think tank. I would even be ok with that, if it relied on good methods, or maybe even 10:1 included a scholar pushing Republican ideas— I mean even if just for funsies. I could find no example of a Republican idea from a sociologist department.
Another ending to the Jason Arday story might have been James Frey. James Frey was also a person whose memoir was riddled with fantastic stories. For Frey, Oprah was Cambridge. A 800 year old university and Oprah Winfrey— that is about right. After the hurricane of criticism, Frey just did his own thing. He wrote many more books, built his own publishing empire. I can’t say I read his work— it’s not my style— but at least he moved forward productively. Sadly that was the not the ending here.
Ultimately, I think this post by Dawkins is right.
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VInay, you get better and better. This is the best article on Arday I have seen. Many thanks.
Vinay, you and Dawkins have summarized well. The DEI emperor truly has no clothes. Cambridge's promotion (in all senses) of serial fabulist and academic cipher Arday is pure racism. But I don't expect Cambridge to self-correct, demote the people who hired Arday, and heed the wake-up call. Bureaucracies are populated by cowards. They will circle the wagons, blame everyone else, and dig the hole deeper. They only care about survival, not academic merit, which as you found by reading a sampling of sociology papers, is mostly garbage dressed up in the unintelligible prose of postmodern theory.