SMC: Advice for Researchers Experiencing Harassment

T

Three Chord Monty

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/...-Researchers-Experiencing-Harrasment-2019.pdf

"All researchers should expect their work to be scrutinised by the public, policy makers and campaigners. However, some researchers working on high-profile subjects that attract controversy, such as radiation, climate change, animal research, chronic fatigue syndrome/ME, or gender studies, have also found themselves targeted by people who have extreme views about their research."
 
Three Chord Monty said:
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/...-Researchers-Experiencing-Harrasment-2019.pdf

"All researchers should expect their work to be scrutinised by the public, policy makers and campaigners. However, some researchers working on high-profile subjects that attract controversy, such as radiation, climate change, animal research, chronic fatigue syndrome/ME, or gender studies, have also found themselves targeted by people who have extreme views about their research."
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:sick:
 
Not a good look this close after the SMC does a thing about fake news. Because this is fake news. Being slapped in the face by a tribunal was not enough I guess. As a public charity, isn't there a way to have them put up or shut up? And demand records? This is false and libelous.
The tribunal took evidence under the normal rules of court. The tribunal also concluded of the expert witness for the PACE authors that "It was clear that his assessment of activist behaviour was, in our view, grossly exaggerated and the only actual evidence was that an individual at a seminar had heckled Professor Chalder” and "clearly in our view had some self-interest, exaggerated his evidence and did not seem to us to be entirely impartial. What we got from him was a considerable amount of supposition and speculation, with no actual evidence to support his assertions or counter the respondents arguments." The tribunal panel noted that the Commissioner had referred to Professor Anderson’s “wild speculations” that “young men, borderline sociopathic or psychopathic” would attempt to identify trial participants from the anonymised data, and said that his views “do him no credit”. [251]
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Lying liars telling lies just because they can. Weak.

I am looking forward to the inevitable investigation of Wessely for gross abuse of his position on the board of a charity to promote his personal self-interest and make wild accusations about a vulnerable population. Will probably be long after his retirement but whatever.

I guess "you're wrong and it's harming millions" is an extreme position now. Alongside classics like "please don't hurt me", "do not lie about me" and "this is massive injustice". So extreme.
 
Advice for Researchers Experiencing Harassment

Try doing your jobs properly and you may find the criticism of your 'research' stops.

If you don't know how to do your job properly then there are many occupations that pay well that don't require rigorous adherence to the scientific method, or ethics - such as plumbing.

ETA - Someone saying something you don't want to hear, that you find annoying or embarrassing, that makes you feel ashamed, this is not harassment, despite the way the words been used, as an attempt to deflect
criticism.

Public 'peer' review and comment is not harassment.
 
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Wonko said:
Someone saying something you don't want to hear, that you find annoying or embarrassing, that makes you feel ashamed, this is not harassment, despite the way the words been used, as an attempt to deflect criticism.
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Being held to account, especially via formal mechanisms, is not harassment.

News is what somebody in power doesn't want the rest of the world to know about.
 
I would say, too, that if it gets to the point where people really are doing bad things to you - e.g. threatening and harassing - it does not mean you are the good guy. I'm not sure it's indicative either way.

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To me the biggest problem with this document is that it effectively discourages researchers from reflecting on the validity and ethics of their actions. I think we just discussed a paper on this:

"CFS patients [researchers] did not show core cognitive features of depression [introspection], such as guilt or self blame. We wondered if this was a reflection of their different pattern of attribution (blaming an external cause, namely a virus [all critics and criticism], rather than an internal cause, as the depressed patients [competent researchers] did).
 
Wonko said:
If you don't know how to do your job properly then there are many occupations that pay well that don't require rigorous adherence to the scientific method, or ethics - such as plumbing.
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I think you are being rather unkind to plumbers, who generally achieve things that are useful and morally reasonable.

Possible BPS approaches to a report of there being no hot water coming out of the tap:

1. Publish an economic analysis showing how much money could be saved in power plant development if people realised that cold water coming out of the hot tap is perfectly fine.

2. Suggest that the perceived coldness of the water is rooted in the customer's perfectionist personality, as they have unreasonably high expectations of the temperature of the water coming out of the hot tap.

3. Get large government grants to offer cognitive behavioural therapy to help customers realise that cold water is actually hot compared to ice.

4. Change the unit of measure of the temperature of the water; 10 degrees Celsius becomes 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which sounds positively toasty. Declare that the plumbing intervention has been a success.

5. Accuse any customers dissatisfied with items above of hating plumbers or not following instructions sufficiently well.

6. Write press releases that say that it would be safer to be in Afghanistan than deal with people wanting hot water to come out of their tap.

7. Give fellow BPS plumbers bravery awards.

The BPS approach to a blocked toilet doesn't bear thinking about. No, best to keep them away from anything important. Perhaps put them in a quiet room with some plastic shopping bags to play with?

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