Comment by NoImmatureAdHom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NoImmatureAdHom | Hacker News Reader

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NoImmatureAdHom

You seem driven by some personal interest rather than reason. I'm in the field. Nowak's research has been field-changing. The Hoffman et al. paper is an excellent paper. The assertion that this article "was written to defend MIT president Rafael Reif's decision..." is implausible to the point where it clearly indicates you have no idea what's going on.

There is no payoff for making results go one way or another, for anyone here. It's not a study on whether red wine is good for you that's funded by donations from the alcohol industry. Nobody "pays" Nowak to publish anything, though they do fund his work--and to great effect.

What's more, taking money from bad people isn't ipso facto a bad or dangerous thing. Taking Epstein's money is, on basically any reading of the situation, just fine. Epstein gets nothing from these anonymous donations, and the world gets more science. Though pedophiles are one of the last groups in our society it is A-OK to abuse without limits, I would point out that it is possible for Epstein to be both a pedophile and someone genuinely interested in advancing science for the benefit of all, or out of a sense of wonder.

Someone whose wikipedia page now reads: "Nowak played a role in substantiating Epstein's false claims to MIT administrators that he had given tens of millions of dollars to Harvard"

shouldn't be cited as an impartial authority on anonymous donations. It's relevant.

That's just it! Nobody is taking him as an impartial authority on anonymous donations. This is science. Nobody has to take anyone else's word. You do the research, you show your work. Go look at the math. Go look at the data. It's right there. Nowak's most famous paper doesn't even involve any data!

> Go look at the data.

No, I won't be doing this - my point is that his work is corrupted by his other actions. He publicly lied on the topic of his research, for personal gain, and was caught doing so. Why would I then trust the honesty of his research? There are millions of other researchers who are more deserving of my time.

Science is not completely objective. He can choose what to work on; he can choose how to present it; he can choose what to show and what to hide. It is not worthy just because it is done. Even if I trust that it is correct (and how can I?), it is a biased presentation.

Bingo!

Just so you know, not everyone agrees that Mr. Nowak's contributions to evolutionary biology are all that significant. I'm glad that you do ... but there are highly respected mathematicians who question whether Harvard math should have offered him tenure.

There is often a positive feedback mechanism sometimes at work in these situations whereby the subjective value of an academic's work is often determined as a function of the prestige of the organizations with which he has been associated, which then leads to awards followed by even more prestigious associations.

And accepting almost $7 million from a child rapist like Jeffrey Epstein of course only corrupts this process further.

>taking money from bad people isn't ipso facto a bad or dangerous thing

What makes a 'bad person', in your view?

Haha...I think that varies a lot with the circumstance and my emotional state! For the sake of the argument, it would more precisely be "taking money from anyone you or others might label a bad person". We don't need an objective standard, it can be conditional on a time and person.

Please read my response to your earlier comment.

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