…are threatened by a litigious climate. It’s almost as though some “scientists” would rather sue people than discuss science. [Paywalled]
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here‘s a non-paywalled link.
3 thoughts on “Scientific Norms”
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People of integrity already know this and people without do not care. It is just another example of adults failing to be responsible.
The inmates are in firm control of the asylum.
I’ve heard of similar shenanigans at a math department back in the late 80s or early 90s (from a former grad student who had escaped the mess). Personality differences escalated to whisper campaigns, which then escalated to two or three lawsuits for slander and other things, if I recall correctly. I also remember hearing that the end result was the two primary instigators had mutual restraining orders.
The mess was allowed to get rather big before anyone did anything about it.
I don’t know if it’s gotten worse in recent years or if climatology is more prone to litigative assault than other fields, but this sort of stuff has gone on for a while. I bet I could find examples going back centuries. Sometimes personality conflicts or people just being jerks can end up in court. We aren’t necessarily seeing an unusual degree of breaking of norms.
There will always be vindictive people. But in the past, when something like this happened, others would moderate. Now they are more prone to join in.
I bet the number of lawyers per capita would support this.