Instead of signing petitions full of buzzwords and posting solitary anecdotes on Twitter, opponents of the paper should write a rebuttal and refute the author's claims.
The fact that the paper is written in a scholarly tone is obviously relevant. If it was spam or "junk mail", or some sort of violent sermon or political philippic, then of course there is no reason for it to stay online. But it's not. It's obviously a real, genuine academic paper.
It serves no ones to repetitively rebut the same mistakes over and over again. While at the same time such papers lend false credibility to damaging ideas.
What do you think about this retraction?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831678/
Much like "free speech", the specific things it's used to support and not support is often more revealing than the claimed position itself.
In my view not about disagreement or agreement. It's about being completely outdated, already debated and abandoned viewpoint from highly active senior citizen. Good for him for being active, but we cant just entertain elderly.
Main support for his viewpoint comes from references to articles from 70's and 90s.
Just to be clear: There is nothing wrong with being old researcher. But we must require the same relevance and rigour from them as we do from the young.
Moreover, only those who specifically seek it will ever be confronted with the paper. No one is forcing researchers to attend seminars or conferences, or otherwise disturbing them. The work is simply made available online for anyone who wants to read it. (Apparently it has already been downloaded thousands of times.)
I disagree with the implication that "outdated", "debated", and "abandoned" ideas should be excluded from publication. The merits of any idea should be determined by endless, open-ended, free debate, without any deference to whatever is and is not presently "in fashion".
Your broader point, about the composition of the academic community and the long tail of elderly professors occupying the limited research positions at universities, is of course a serious concern. Retracting unfashionable papers by older authors is not a solution.
Point being, just because a study is old, doesn't mean it's useless.
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experi...
Frankly, if it weren't for my absolute refusal to support the academic publishing complex and the gatekeeping of knowledge, I'd give his article a read, and would be interested in being pointed in the direction of some of the papers that have challenged his conclusions.