Jason Arday and the Corruption of Science

A Nature editorial on the Jason Arday affair, blaming everyone except Arday himself, chooses progressive ideology over basic honesty and scientific integrity, says Jerry A. Coyne in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here’s an excerpt.

One of the more distressing changes in science is its infection by politics and ideology, a change visible in what I call ‘journal creep’. Until recently, the primary function of scientific journals was to disseminate research. Now, however, many journals have adopted an additional mission: promoting ideological, moral or political positions. This newer mission, which endangers not only the reputation but also the practice of science, is seen clearly in a recent editorial in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals, Nature. …

Nature’s editorial is titled ‘The Death of Jason Arday Must Prompt Deep Reflection’. Unfortunately, the reflection Nature demands does not involve asking how someone with such a thin academic record and a history of exaggeration and lying managed to secure such a prestigious position. Rather, Nature is concerned with assigning blame for Arday’s downfall and death, and the blame falls on everyone but Arday himself.

Most at fault, says Nature, was “persistent media attention” largely fostered by racism. Cambridge also deserves blame both for participating in the “systemic racism in academia” that supposedly made Arday’s life intolerable, and for announcing that they would investigate him, which, says Nature, was a violation of “confidentiality”. But all Cambridge announced was that it was investigating Arday’s “academic qualifications and honorary appointments” as well as allegations of “academic misconduct” — nothing more. Since the media were already intensively focused on Arday, announcing an investigation without giving details doesn’t seem out of line. American universities do it all the time, saying things like: “We are not commenting pending an investigation of these accusations.”

Oddly absent from Nature’s editorial is any serious acknowledgement of Arday’s apparent fabulism, plagiarism, errors and lies. Nor is there any attempt to grapple with the fact that Arday’s decision to publish a memoir with a major commercial publisher further drew the media’s spotlight.

It’s tragic that Arday killed himself. But the frenzy to blame every person and institution for Arday’s death save Arday himself is bizarre. That Nature should join this frenzy lays bare the extent to which even the most prestigious journals have prioritized political sloganeering over truth seeking.

Disparaging merit in favour of equity, shifting research funding towards progressive topics, misrepresenting science by skewing citations towards researchers having approved backgrounds, censoring papers, controlling language and distorting accepted science so that it conforms to certain narratives while proscribing research on topics considered taboo — such symptoms of ideological pollution are present in journals across the sciences. Here are three examples, all involving Nature journals.

In 2023, a group of climate scientists published a paper in Nature making the strong claim that the increase of wildfires in California resulted almost entirely from anthropogenic climate change — a claim instantly picked up by the media. But right after publication, Patrick T. Brown, the paper’s first author, confessed that he deliberately ignored other causes of wildfires because climate change was the narrative that Nature preferred and it would therefore enhance the odds that his paper would be accepted. As Brown wrote:

I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.

This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives — even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.

When journals hew to ideological positions in this way, it impedes the emergence of scientific truth. …

A scientific journal, like a university, should remain ideologically and politically neutral, with the possible exception of matters that directly affect the mission of the journal itself. Pinning blame for the death of Jason Arday on the press and on the University of Cambridge, and flippantly characterising science as ridden with “structural racism”, are not issues within the remit of Nature.

Worth reading in full.