10 thoughts about the Jason Arday story, the suspension of Nathan Cofnas, Cambridge and what it represents about universities and politics more broadly.
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.
I've always felt it's incumbent on the writer to be understood- post modern theory writers believe the opposite... they think it's the responsibility of the reader to understand what they write- no matter how difficult to read their prose might be
True. As a teacher, I think it is incumbent on the teacher to come down to the level of his/her students. It is not incumbent on the students to rise to the level of the teacher.
Arday---academic black privilege on steroids. Unfortunately, the rule not the exception. The term "social science" should replace "jumbo shrimp" as the most frequently cited example of oxymoron.
Well done Vinay! I appreciate that your observations are common sense and factual. One thing that you could slip in a bit more is that the Covid vaccine mandates were so unethical because the vaccine utilized a new technology that had never tested before and thus there was no safety data. We made our healthy kids take it and Fauci knew that it did not affect transmission. I still get crazy angry when I think of all these university presidents pontificating and showing themselves to be the pseudointellectual empty suits that many of them are in their responses to Covid and vaccine mandates. I won't name names but there were plenty of high level universities spouting utter crap.
I used to teach as an adjunct at an unnamed University (hint-Prasad got his degree there) and I was asked to give a talk on pca etc. in the graduate school sociology seminar. I was appalled at the low level of underatnding of statistics that was displayed by student and professor alike.
When I read point 7 I thought, well- if you go and read other sociology papers you may find similar levels of gibberish ... lol- and you totally covered that with point 8. I remember taking the time to read Jill bidens dissertation when her whole controversy erupted- I just laughed while reading- you can't fault the PhD student for meeting the standards of their chosen discipline.
1) The institutional response to criticism in personnel assessment is to rebound it back to the individual (Arday was vulnerable and a fabulist who conned us), with full promotional institutional leverage in tow.
2) The institutional support leveraged to individuals promoted by the University are legal resources, for both censorship and for retaliation. The global academic playbook, as you've alluded to in your commentary, is exactly the same.
3) Not all "whistleblowers" are of the same ilk as Cofnas; the vast majority of whistleblowers are however, placed in the same basket as Cofnas (a troublemaker who's on the fringes of acceptable society).
4) What's the harm done when the voices of Cofnas, or Arday, get silenced?
Allowing kids to play tackle football is a most consequential decision that should recognize the kid’s size and musculature relative to his peers. It is my understanding that on average, white boys lag black boys in this regard by about 1.5 years at age 14. This is NOT trivial when they are butting heads.
BTW I was sitting about 60 yards away from where Darryl Stingley got paralyzed by Jack Tatum’s tackle. Darryl was hospitalized for months at the hospital where my father served as President of the BOD. Daily meetings with his family, news stories….It was heart wrenching…so much promise…such pain and tragedy.
I did not let my son play football in Oakland for the reason cited in paragraph one. Physically, he wasn’t as mature as many of the other boys.
He did subsequently enlist in the USMC infantry…did quite well physically and is strong and healthy today.
This is such a true and profound comment. Adults seem to forget their own youth. Individuals physically mature at different rates! That should be obvious to every parent. But then too many parents seek to relive their own youth through their children. Many young kids are just not ready for high contact activity in school but will mature later on and often be very fit and active.
Bravo Vinay! Couldn't agree more. And that "level of evidence: wishful thinking" quip is one I intend to pilfer and use as needed. Sadly all too applicable to so many things being promoted in medicine these days.
Stop lying about “free flu shots”—those signs posted by the highway in front of chain pharmacies. The small print: covered by most insurance. Let people pay for these vaccines and see how many take them.
FDA approved a new mRNA flu shot: Dr. Prasad: I would love a post from you on that. Now the flu mandates by health systems for their employees will be causing millions to receive mRNA! Bad news. I’m so glad my employer lifted the flu mandate last year, and the mandatory masking in flu season. They might actually have a brain!!
Does a baby ever need a Hep B vaccine? Is it lifetime immunity? And what about safe sex/one partner for life/no IV drugs instead?
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.
I've always felt it's incumbent on the writer to be understood- post modern theory writers believe the opposite... they think it's the responsibility of the reader to understand what they write- no matter how difficult to read their prose might be
True. As a teacher, I think it is incumbent on the teacher to come down to the level of his/her students. It is not incumbent on the students to rise to the level of the teacher.
Arday---academic black privilege on steroids. Unfortunately, the rule not the exception. The term "social science" should replace "jumbo shrimp" as the most frequently cited example of oxymoron.
Well done Vinay! I appreciate that your observations are common sense and factual. One thing that you could slip in a bit more is that the Covid vaccine mandates were so unethical because the vaccine utilized a new technology that had never tested before and thus there was no safety data. We made our healthy kids take it and Fauci knew that it did not affect transmission. I still get crazy angry when I think of all these university presidents pontificating and showing themselves to be the pseudointellectual empty suits that many of them are in their responses to Covid and vaccine mandates. I won't name names but there were plenty of high level universities spouting utter crap.
I used to teach as an adjunct at an unnamed University (hint-Prasad got his degree there) and I was asked to give a talk on pca etc. in the graduate school sociology seminar. I was appalled at the low level of underatnding of statistics that was displayed by student and professor alike.
When I read point 7 I thought, well- if you go and read other sociology papers you may find similar levels of gibberish ... lol- and you totally covered that with point 8. I remember taking the time to read Jill bidens dissertation when her whole controversy erupted- I just laughed while reading- you can't fault the PhD student for meeting the standards of their chosen discipline.
Nor is this an isolated incident, here as well as across the pond…
1) The institutional response to criticism in personnel assessment is to rebound it back to the individual (Arday was vulnerable and a fabulist who conned us), with full promotional institutional leverage in tow.
2) The institutional support leveraged to individuals promoted by the University are legal resources, for both censorship and for retaliation. The global academic playbook, as you've alluded to in your commentary, is exactly the same.
3) Not all "whistleblowers" are of the same ilk as Cofnas; the vast majority of whistleblowers are however, placed in the same basket as Cofnas (a troublemaker who's on the fringes of acceptable society).
4) What's the harm done when the voices of Cofnas, or Arday, get silenced?
Allowing kids to play tackle football is a most consequential decision that should recognize the kid’s size and musculature relative to his peers. It is my understanding that on average, white boys lag black boys in this regard by about 1.5 years at age 14. This is NOT trivial when they are butting heads.
BTW I was sitting about 60 yards away from where Darryl Stingley got paralyzed by Jack Tatum’s tackle. Darryl was hospitalized for months at the hospital where my father served as President of the BOD. Daily meetings with his family, news stories….It was heart wrenching…so much promise…such pain and tragedy.
I did not let my son play football in Oakland for the reason cited in paragraph one. Physically, he wasn’t as mature as many of the other boys.
He did subsequently enlist in the USMC infantry…did quite well physically and is strong and healthy today.
Cheers.
This is such a true and profound comment. Adults seem to forget their own youth. Individuals physically mature at different rates! That should be obvious to every parent. But then too many parents seek to relive their own youth through their children. Many young kids are just not ready for high contact activity in school but will mature later on and often be very fit and active.
Bravo Vinay! Couldn't agree more. And that "level of evidence: wishful thinking" quip is one I intend to pilfer and use as needed. Sadly all too applicable to so many things being promoted in medicine these days.
Zero $$ for NIH sounds right to me.
And stop federal funding of lucrative products.
Stop lying about “free flu shots”—those signs posted by the highway in front of chain pharmacies. The small print: covered by most insurance. Let people pay for these vaccines and see how many take them.
FDA approved a new mRNA flu shot: Dr. Prasad: I would love a post from you on that. Now the flu mandates by health systems for their employees will be causing millions to receive mRNA! Bad news. I’m so glad my employer lifted the flu mandate last year, and the mandatory masking in flu season. They might actually have a brain!!
Does a baby ever need a Hep B vaccine? Is it lifetime immunity? And what about safe sex/one partner for life/no IV drugs instead?
Agree fully. This really sums up the situation.