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Comment by scabarott | Hacker News Reader

I'm in awe of his skills and intelligence. Sounds like someone who knows how to work smarter. I would have taken that as a learning opportunity.

*edit: Getting a few down-votes on this one. I was being mildly sarcastic but on the other hand it takes some skill and smart thinking to pull this kind of thing off. Also in my experience, bull-shitting is a very valuable and necessary skill at work and in life in general. Arguably it gets you to a position where you can do work of actual substance and get recognition for it.

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Sounds like you're in awe of someone who has learned to play a game to his own benefit, but to the detriment of the larger institution (i.e. science) of which he is a part.

This seems to be a common thread of "lifehack" types

From the original description "detriment of the larger institution" might be inappropriate. After all he gave more than 25 other people a chance to publish.

And if we assume that some of those experiment involved master students then for a few of them that was their first publication. It look like he was kind of a unmoral presence from many point of view, but you cannot ignore that he probably helped many people get more experience.

Again I am not claiming that what he did was right, but it is neither necessarily a detriment to science.

If he’s ok with doing bullshit work (as opposed to real research) just for the sake of gaming the system, why not just do it in the private sector? Is about the impressing people with a Professor title?

Maybe he's waiting for tenure to start doing real research. That's the only winning strategy for this game, as far as I can tell.

You are what you repeatedly do.

It's very unlikely that someone who's spent their entire professional life being one way flips a switch after tenure.

Maybe he's already doing real research, and that stuff is a side "business" to allow him to continue to do so.

Or maybe he's just a scammer.

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