SV: SV: Rajaram's "horse seal"

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Arun Gupta [SMTP:suvidya at WORLDNET.ATT.NET] skrev 2. august 2000 15:33:
> It is a good hope [ drummed out of Academia ] but unlikely to happen.
> History is used to argue both for and against India's nationhood; and
that
> argument can even be quite violent, as you are aware if you follow the
news.
> So, history is politicized, and that pollutes Academia.

As far as I know, Rajaram is not in Academia to begin with, so there are
good reasons why he hasn't been drummed out :-). BTW, I can't quite see
that this has anything to do with India's nationhood. I for one would
certainly not want to see India lose its nationhood, but I think there are
better ways to define a nation and keep it together than to use the methods
of Rajaram and his fellow travellers. This, however, is a debate that was
closed on the list some time ago, and I shall therefore not try to revive
it.

> Fraud of a similar kind ( false and misleading conclusions from a
> statistical model) and far greater consequence has been perpetrated by
the
> psychometrians ("The Bell Curve") and none of them has been drummed out
of
> [US] academia to my knowledge.  In fact, they occupy tenured positions in
> many major US universities.

I agree with your assessment of "The Bell Curve", although the fraudulent
methods are more sophisticated than Rajaram's. But in fairness, "The Bell
Curve" has received the most dreadful critiques, and must be regarded as
"drummed out" even if the authors haven't been fired from their positions.
One of the quirks of tenure, I believe, is that you cannot - or don't
easily - get fired. (That at least used to be the case with Norwegian
professors at the time when they were "officials". The idea was to secure
their integrity so that they wouldn't have to fear for their position if
they spoke freely on a controversial issue. That status has been changed in
recent years.)

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22 32 12 19
Fax 1:  +47 22 32 12 19
Fax 2:  +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)
Email: lmfosse at online.no