Recognizing and Responding to Legitimate and Illegitimate Researchers

[neededalj]

On the heels of my two posts on neuroscience, I'm going to try one that's straight-up about research.

Over the course of SurveyFail, I have seen two different attitudes towards researchers that bother me. I am *not* singling anyone out individually over this; I do not think anyone in fandom deserves blame for any of the shit that went down.

Comments

[jonquil]

As usual, educational. Thank you.

One thing you might add:
"You will notice that THIS professor's CV is prominently located on his webpage, public, and LONG."

And if you look at his vita, he's the *first author* on a lot of papers. The politics of authorship are way complicated, but it's at least an indication of importance.

Finally, I would add that Google Scholar is your friend: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=s.+grossberg&hl=en&btnG=Search

(agh. Hit post too soon.) The first paper listed is cited by *1731* other papers. That's a paper with major, major impact in its field. By contrast, when I looked up Sai Gaddam, I could only find one paper that's in prepress; Ogas's best result, for which he is third author, is 42 cites.

[neededalj]

That's a good point. I added a paragraph to point 1) about people's statuses and job titles.

[jonquil]

I is geeking out.

Another point to add is that Grossberg holds a named chair, which is a BFD, as well as being the department founder. Henry Jenkins, beloved of acafans for studying the culture with respect and learning from his mistakes, is Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and also holds a named chair, Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities.

So, as you say: cues that people should be taken seriously.

Nitty McPickerson

[mecurtin]

Henry has left MIT for USC, where he is "Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts".

[robinspiderson]

Thank you SO MUCH for this post. I'm a neuroscientist and MD. I'm also a member of fandom, under a different name - I keep my fandom and professional ID's strictly separate; this is an LJ created solely for commenting on neuro-related matters - and it's been heartbreaking to see this thing unfold. Not just for all the reasons relating to the survey questions etc., but because of the inevitable and completely understandable mistrust of "science" and "research" that will get reinforced.

So kudos to you for this and for your previous posts. It's great to have someone lay out so clearly the problems with neurocognitive research, fMRI etc. We're nowhere *near* being able to model something as complex as human emotion or sexual/erotic behavior, even if this wasn't being done over the internet in such an uncontrolled and unethical fashion.

[neededalj]

Thank you! I debated for a while before deciding to step up but I wanted it to be clear that Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam weren't just ignorant about the things fandom expected them to be ignorant about (fannish conventions, gender theory) but were Bad Scientists in the discipline they were attempt to claim as their own, too.

[carmarthen]

Thank you both for addressing this from a neuroscience point of view. I'm sure that some people won't take it seriously unless there's a legal name attached (and I can think of lots of reasons not to critique this publicly if you're in the same field), but I hope it will clarify things for other people.

[slashpine]

Hey, thank you both for speaking out on this! From reading cognitive sci. as part of my diss. work, I know just enough to be *deeply skeptical* of their claims - hell, anyone who reads at all in science news or a good newspaper would be. But it is SO COOL to hear from fans who know and do this stuff in RL! Yayy for fandom's diversity and knowledge!

*\o/*

[fail_machine]

I'm not sure if this is entirely fair, but I feel like it would be reasonable to ask for some sort of evidence of a research proposal/grant proposal. Bonus points for it being posted somewhere publicly on a university/government-associated website. At the very least, a project title and dollar amount should be willingly disclosed.

[fail_machine]

ps. thanks for making this post so I didn't have to!

[neededalj]

Thank you! As a participant I would probably satisfy myself with some variation on points 1-3; credentials, affiliation, and proper protocol. However, if someone asked me to collaborate, advise, or provide input of any type on the project itself I would probably request funding information and a research proposal.

[slashpine]

In social research, I would ALWAYS be prepared to show my research proposal, schedule, questionnaire, theoretical orientation, etc., to the community I'm working with

[elfwreck]

This post has been included in a linkspam roundup.

[aquaeri]

Thanks for this, as a fellow (ex-)academic. I personally don't think lots of publications == good stuff (just think of James Watson being spectacularly racist), but that's a minor detail.

[neededalj]

I agree completely that James Watson is a racist jerk. I'm speaking more to people being what they represent themselves as. Which is to say, if James Watson walks into a room and says "I am a respected biologist who has a long career doing biological research" he is telling the truth, and his CV reflects that. Length of CV won't tell you about the *quality* of their work but it will tell you if they have a longstanding academic career and an investment in their professional reputation among their claimed peers.

At this point I find it very likely that Ogi never intended or intends to pursue an academic career, but rather thought he could have a pop-science writing career and neatly escape pesky things like peer review.