Don't Take Criticism from People you Wouldn't Ask for Advice

[...and related bits of self-help]

Yesterday evening, via the good offices of statistician Professor Alice Sullivan, I found out she, me, and an MP had been given a whole stack of (free) advice.

This comes on the back of the publication of an alarming academic paper in what I understand to be a fairly prestigious academic journal, a matter now under investigation by Greater Manchester Police.

Professor Alice Sullivan @ProfAliceS

1/ This thread has been widely shared, including by @UKRIO It contains some advice which I think is wrongheaded. First of all, if you see someone bragging about child sexual abuse, whether in an academic journal or elsewhere, you absolutely SHOULD report it to police.

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

- Disproportionate reactions You don't need to go to the police because someone on social media said a journal published something bad. Even if the thing was terrible. It doesn't require you to file and brag about a police report. /28 #AcademicTwitter #HigherEd #AcademicChatter

Although what I’m going to call “the Boynton Thread” was written long before Alice went public about the police report she’d made on August 8th, that’s where it went.

[Alice did not discuss her police report publicly until August 24th, when it was revealed in the press that GMP were investigating.]

How did we get here?

By way of background, I first alerted (via social media) the Great British Public to the dodgy paper in question. Yes, I made a gag.

Helen Dale (not on your team, but always fair) @_HelenDale

It's finally here: a PhD in wanking.

This went viral (as things sometimes do) and drew the attention of a lot of people, including Neil O’Brien MP.

In his tweet, Neil understated his case. Shota isn’t just Japanese porn. It’s cartoons depicting sexual relations with minors.

Neil O'Brien MP @NeilDotObrien

Why should hard-working taxpayers in my constituency have to pay for an academic to write about his experiences masturbating to Japanese porn? The non-STEM side of higher education is just much too big, producing too much that is not socially useful. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

Whereupon a large number of idiot academics and continuity Remainers circled the wagons (to be fair, the Venn Diagram for those two groups is basically a circle).

The tweet below provides a link to the best summary of the whole mess.

Stuart Ritchie 🇺🇦 @StuartJRitchie

Here's my summary of the University of Manchester masturbation research scandal, and some of the (incredibly depressing) academic reaction to it:

stuartritchie.substack.comCircling the wagonsThere was no defending that appalling “autoethnography” paper on masturbation. But a lot of academics defended it anyway

Among other things, it turned out the “research” was taxpayer funded.

Throughout the entire farrago, I made my customary argument that much of what the taxpayer stumps up for in the Humanities and Social Sciences is basically inert. Not actively harmful, but no use to anyone else, either. And then, along comes a paper where someone is literally funded for little more than playing with his dick.

This tweet links to a piece that captures the seriousness of the problem.

Thomas Prosser 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇵🇱 @prossertj

NEW: Why the masturbation paper indicts academia Multiple reviewers and editors approved Karl Andersson’s paper and hundreds of readers thought it unworthy of complaint 1/

thomasprosser.substack.comWhy the masturbation paper indicts academiaIf you have been anywhere near Twitter this week, you will have seen the scandal of the masturbation paper. In April, the Qualitative Research journal published an article in which the author described masturbating whilst looking at pornographic drawings of young boys. This was the work of Karl Ande…

So good ol’ Petra, in the Boynton Thread, tells Neil & me to pipe down.

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

When an unethical piece of research emerges, it's our responsibility as a research community to identify, challenge, investigate and address it. Supporting anyone adversely harmed. Those actions also need to be ethical, proportionate, and not spread alarm or amplify distress /9

I’m not a member of your “research community” (and don’t want to be, either). I don’t know any of these people. I’m a taxpaying member of the public and a professional writer. Neil is an MP. I know it may seem shocking, but speaking up is his actual job.

[It’s also my actual job.]

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

- You share the paper with no warning or caveats. That may be on social media, via email, or in a journal club. Not alerting people to sensitive or distressing topics is poor practice - and that applies even more strongly when said research is unethical /14 #AcademicTwitter

You can take your trigger warnings and stick them where the sun don’t shine.

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

In this current case people have already dismissed ethnography, sex research, porn studies, reflexivity, philosophy, first person accounts and studying sensitive topics (CSA) as irrelevant, inappropriate,or unscholarly. That is neither a fair or appropriate response /18 #HigherEd

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

- You use an unethical situation to dismiss what you don't understand. That may be particular areas of study,methods, analysis, theories etc that *aren't* the problem but you assume they are, because you dislike the idea of them or they're not familiar to you /17 #AcademicTwitter

I’m well aware of what all these things are. I had crap like this inflicted on me at university. And because I’m a conservative, I pretended to take such ideas seriously so I could get good results (culminating in a starred first).

Other friends of mine — people unwilling to blow smoke up sundry academics’ arses — finished up with a lower class of honours because they took issue with subjectivity, weird leftie politics, the use of “lived experience” in scholarship, or the way ethnography often appears to be a cover for innumeracy.

Entire academic disciplines are about as genuine as a pile of three dollar bills. They shouldn’t be funded by people like me. If people want to engage in that sort of carry on, they can put their hands in their own pockets, not in mine.

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

- You cast doubt on researchers using methods you don't understand Related to the above, people studying sensitive subjects already face stigma and challenges. Unethical research in said fields makes their job harder. Don't add to it with mocking or shaming /19 #AcademicTwitter

Some desires are bad. Some stigma is good. Some people need to pop down to B&Q, swallow a spoonful of cement, & harden up.

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

- Snitch tagging This is for social media, but there is no need for you to hunt out individuals that may/may not be related to a case of poor research and tag them into conversations. In cases of risk or danger you can greatly inflame situations by doing this /23 #AcademicTwitter

I do agree with this. Snitch-tagging is shitty behaviour and people who do it, especially with large accounts (I’ve had it done to me) are clearly trying to start a binfire.

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

This current case has, in part,gathered attention because homophobic and anti trans accounts are sharing it for their own nefarious reasons. As a scholar you do not want to be involved. You can challenge unethical research while not amplifying or leading hate /27 #AcademicTwitter

BREAKING: “Queer Theory” is cobblers. The funding should be pulled. If your defence of this “field” leads to you defending noncery, then the problem isn’t just you. It’s the entire “field”.

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

Ethical practice is complex and sensitive and I get meanings can be misunderstood. I also know very well the kind of person that deliberately wants to misrepresent and harm,while falsely claiming they’re helping. I can feel the danger signals coming off them. I’m sure you can too

Comment made after Professor Sullivan found the thread & queried whether the UK Research Integrity Office should be treating it as sound advice.

I mean, people who report alleged nonces to the filth are so awful…

Petra Boynton @DrPetra

@ProfAliceS @johnarmstrong5 @UKRIO Interesting you picked 1 part of a long discussion many joined in with - and important replies on policing. My point was performative “tell police” but not doing so and doing nothing else either didn’t help. Of course reporting was important,was done,and AFAIK being investigated

The inevitable reverse ferret. Um, we can see what you wrote.

I hope the UK Research Integrity Office takes the advice below. Meanwhile, Alice incidentally provides a bit of wise counsel that everyone could do with heeding: read things in full before endorsing (or disendorsing) them. Try to think your thoughts through to the end.

Professor Alice Sullivan @ProfAliceS

@DrPetra @johnarmstrong5 @UKRIO I'm glad that you now acknowledge the advice was wrong, well done. I hope @UKRIO will take this on board and delete their link to the thread. I suspect they did not read it in full.

Alice is the person who doesn’t have to take criticism from a person she didn’t ask for advice. Nor, for that matter, do I. Or Neil O’Brien MP.