Last thing before off my soap box - blog posts by “independent scientists” alleging research misconduct are not evidence of that misconduct in the same way that a peer reviewed article by experts in that field alleging misconduct is. This is an important point, because Schneider is far from the only “independent scientist” with a blog where he does “take downs” of all the corrupt and stupid scientists who always get it wrong. That is the regular stomping grounds of creationists, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, and all sorts of cranks who would absolutely love a system where they could level whatever accusations they want at scientists that if they can gin up enough public outrage the university would have to investigate each and every allegation to the bloggers satisfaction. And there are anti-vaxxers and creationists who do just this with much more impressive academic pedigrees. F*ck all these guys and all of the other amateur science critics who are accountable to nothing except for whatever axe they’ve been grinding and the chip on their shoulder.
edit to head off the replies - the accusations in the article are something I think that the university and department should look in to because while Schneider isn’t the best he’s not quite a complete crank, however, I would urge caution about making conclusions about “UBC-O prof caught doing fake research” based off of only reading this blog post because the author of the blog hasn’t really done his own due diligence and experience has taught me that it’s really easy to selectively present evidence or distort things in a way that isn’t immediately clear to a lay person (which in this area I am, and most of the people in this sub reddit are as well).
edit2: Schneider is “on the right side of things” as far as taking a stand against research misconduct - which is a very real problem - it’s just that he’s rather sloppy and is a good example of “if you find research misconduct, don’t be Schneider be like the people who called out the fake bird genomes” because if you go about it the way Schneider is going about it your criticism probably isn’t going to go anywhere and you might also get sued. On that last point - there is a reason news organizations, even small local ones, have in house lawyers. Defamation lawsuits are real and they suck a big one. A lot of them can also be avoided if you run what you’ve written by a lawyer who can identify what potential defamatory claims you are making, who might sue you over those claims, follow up to see if you are prepared to defend those claims and if not help you delete or reword things so you aren’t going to get f*cked over in court over some small point.
I would like to remind everyone: If you are going to speak truth to power, please don’t half ass it and if you are going to do so in writing under your own name maybe talk to a lawyer first.
edit3: if you want a long but rather funny example of what I mean by talk to a lawyer first if you’re gonna speak truth to power:
(continued)
Last thing before off my soap box - blog posts by “independent scientists” alleging research misconduct are not evidence of that misconduct in the same way that a peer reviewed article by experts in that field alleging misconduct is. This is an important point, because Schneider is far from the only “independent scientist” with a blog where he does “take downs” of all the corrupt and stupid scientists who always get it wrong. That is the regular stomping grounds of creationists, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, and all sorts of cranks who would absolutely love a system where they could level whatever accusations they want at scientists that if they can gin up enough public outrage the university would have to investigate each and every allegation to the bloggers satisfaction. And there are anti-vaxxers and creationists who do just this with much more impressive academic pedigrees. F*ck all these guys and all of the other amateur science critics who are accountable to nothing except for whatever axe they’ve been grinding and the chip on their shoulder.
edit to head off the replies - the accusations in the article are something I think that the university and department should look in to because while Schneider isn’t the best he’s not quite a complete crank, however, I would urge caution about making conclusions about “UBC-O prof caught doing fake research” based off of only reading this blog post because the author of the blog hasn’t really done his own due diligence and experience has taught me that it’s really easy to selectively present evidence or distort things in a way that isn’t immediately clear to a lay person (which in this area I am, and most of the people in this sub reddit are as well).
edit2: Schneider is “on the right side of things” as far as taking a stand against research misconduct - which is a very real problem - it’s just that he’s rather sloppy and is a good example of “if you find research misconduct, don’t be Schneider be like the people who called out the fake bird genomes” because if you go about it the way Schneider is going about it your criticism probably isn’t going to go anywhere and you might also get sued. On that last point - there is a reason news organizations, even small local ones, have in house lawyers. Defamation lawsuits are real and they suck a big one. A lot of them can also be avoided if you run what you’ve written by a lawyer who can identify what potential defamatory claims you are making, who might sue you over those claims, follow up to see if you are prepared to defend those claims and if not help you delete or reword things so you aren’t going to get f*cked over in court over some small point.
I would like to remind everyone: If you are going to speak truth to power, please don’t half ass it and if you are going to do so in writing under your own name maybe talk to a lawyer first.
edit3: if you want a long but rather funny example of what I mean by talk to a lawyer first if you’re gonna speak truth to power:
Part 1: https://www.alabseries.com/episodes/episode-8-lawyer-brain-pt-3-the-counterclerk Part 2 (the part where they get sued by a side character from the above episode): https://www.alabseries.com/episodes/episode-27-coach