[a_throwaway_6]

It matters because I don't have the knowledge to verify the accusations and the fact that the person that makes accusations of academic fraud is misrepresenting himself as a "researcher" means that they are not a trustworthy source of academic criticism.

[hntrader]

But you do have the knowledge to verify some of the accusations, because much of them don't require any knowledge to verify.

He's often just pointing out logical internal contradictions in the text (point 2) or lies/mistakes about what the author claimed a source said when in fact the source said no such thing (point 4 about WHO and point 5 about NSF).

Also, I don't agree that he's misrepresenting himself. He didn't claim that he had an academic appointment. He claimed that he's a researcher, of which professional academics are a strict subset. After reading his excellent article, I'm in agreement with him that this is a suitable label.

Your other criticisms of his About page are just odd. So what if he puts his hobbies on there, or is reaching out to biology people? That's normal for an About page.

[a_throwaway_6]

Unfortunately, I have no way to tell what is a "logical internal contradiction in the text", because I am not knowledgeable in the subject matter of the text and so cannot follow its internal logic.

I disagree that a "researcher" is a loose label that anyone can assign to themselves without qualifications. For example, a reiki healer could claim themselves to be a "researcher" but this would be misleading.

Writing an article arguing that an author of a book has perpetrated academic fraud is evidence against any claim of careful research. Claming academic fraud is really the nuclear option. The first thing to do when one finds fault with someone else's work is to contact the other person and ask for clarification. If things get to the point where one feels the only way forward is to "go public" with an exposition of the other person's work faults, then one should include the other person's explanations or reactions, if any were given, or details of the attempts made to contact that other person.

As I say above, this was not done to any reasonable degree and the only attempt at anything like it is misleading and links to an email conversation claimed to be an "official response" by UC Berkeley (rather than the book's author) but that is impossible to verify.

The overall impression is of a one-sided argument, lack of transparency, attempts at deception and misrepresentation and overall disreputable and underhanded tactics. Such actions by the article author do not suggest they are a "researcher" of any repute, except maybe in their imagination.

[hntrader]

The contradiction pointed out in the article (section 2) doesn't require domain expertise to understand. Basic comprehension will suffice for that.

The misquoting of sources doesn't require domain expertise to understand.

The misleading way that data is presented in graphics doesn't require domain expertise to understand.

The author's credibility is not relevant when the claims are easily falsifiable by yourself.

You should read Gelman's more positive take on the article. He's someone that's quite credentialed, if that's what you're looking for.

  "I disagree that a "researcher" is a loose label"

It is a loose label that's commonplace in industry.

Researcher isn't synonymous with academic.

  "The first thing to do when one finds fault with someone else's work is to contact the other person"

I agree with what you're saying here. It would've been better to contact him privately first.

[a_throwaway_6]

"Researcher" isn't synonymous with "academic", but it's not synonymous with "blogger" either.

Part of my point is that an actual researcher, i.e. a professional, would have followed due procedure, contacting the author of the book privately and asking for clarifications, and generally giving the other person an opportunity to examine and respond to criticism.

Academics criticise each other's work constantly but this is acceptable because the purpose is to improve one another's work, not to tarnish each other's reputation and drag their name through the mud.

As things are, it is clear to me the blog post above is meant to kick up an internet storm with accusations of "deliberate data manipulation" and the misleading statements about an "official response" from Berkeley etc. These are the actions of a scandal-monger, not a researcher.

[hntrader]

He worked as a research assistant for a professor for three years and is now engaged in amateur research which he shares on his blog, some of which has received positive feedback from some highly credible people.

Also, "researcher" doesn't imply "professional", since amateur researchers exist.

The self-appointed title of "Researcher" is appropriate, in my opinion. There are people in industry who receive that designation ("Real Estate Researcher") that are less deserving.

  "Academics criticise each other's work constantly but this is acceptable because the purpose is to improve one another's work, not to tarnish each other's reputation and drag their name through the mud."

But this is not an example of regular academic work that's being criticized.

This is a book that contains health advice being consumed and actioned upon right now by thousands or millions of laypeople. Guzey is therefore trying to warn regular people who might believe and follow bunk advice and suffer health consequences. He makes this intention clear.

James Randi's service to the public as a skeptic was proportional to the amount of noise he made when he would come across and debunk frauds like Uri Geller. (I'm not saying Walker is a fraud, but the public danger of bunk health wisdom is similar to that posed by conmen like Geller.)

I do still agree with you, however, that it would've been better to discuss the allegations with Walker in private before publishing them. Having read Walker's response now, though, I don't believe it would've made much of a difference. He's still misrepresenting official adequate sleep guidelines, willfully or otherwise, by saying that anyone who gets under 8 hours has "unmet sleep needs", contradicting the NSF.

  "kick up an internet storm with accusations of "deliberate data manipulation""

You're right - the accusation of "deliberate" is definitely a big mistake, and he should remove that since it assumes intent when that hasn't been established.

On the whole, though, aside from sparse mistakes like this (along with the mistake that you noticed of not making it clear that the Berkeley communication was unverified), I feel that the article is rather constrained.

Gelman also noticed this measured tone and explicitly complimented the author on it.

[a_throwaway_6]

I don't know if you've listened to any of Wagner's music? Most of it is long stretches of impossibly delicate melodies, almost lullaby-like, but these are occasionally interrupted by sudden spasms of noise, great blaring horns, thumping drums and men an women vocalising at the top end of the human volume range. I remember a caricature of Wagner drilling into a human ear with a hand-cranked drill.

What I mean to say by this is that when you hear Wagner's music, the impression is of powerful, loud music. Accordingly, when you read an artcile that spends most of its time in a low-key "measured" register but starts off with a big, splashy accusation of deliberate data manipulation, the impression is one of an article written to provoke.

Regarding "researcher", the author could have identified himself as an "ex graduate research assistant", but he identifies himself as a "resarcher", which sounds more important and experienced. This is the tactic of people who want to embiggen the impression of themselves and claim more expertise from themselves. Even if such embiggenment is not necessarily the purpose of calling oneself a "researcher" when one is not a professional researcher, anyone who really really wanted to avoid giving the impression that they are trying to make themselves sound more knowledgeable than what they are, would have shied away from calling themselves a "reseacher".

Finally, "researcher" on its own means absolutely nothing at all. "Biology researcher", "computer science researcher", "neuroscience researcher", "geology researcher" etc, give precise information. The author of the article calls himself an unqualified "researcher" and he is, indeed, unqualified to do so. That is a typical tactic of charlatans the world over and it should give you and everyone else who thinks the author has any expertise to discuss what he's discussing, pause. That goes for the economist blogger also, I don't think he has payed as much attention to the article and its author as I think you assume.

As I've argued at the start of this thread, it is important to understand who is writing the article we are reading. In Ideal Science World it doesn't make a difference who says something, only what they say. In the real world it's not that simple. Because academic integrity is valued extremely highly, accusing someone of academic fraud immediately places the accuser opposite the accused in moral standing. For an academic, his or her reputation (of being a good scientist) is everything. Therefore, when making such accusations, the character of the person making them is important to scrutinise carefully, because simply making an accusation of academic fraud can destroy an academic's career and an accuser may have no other goal than to destroy the accused person's reputation.

When the accusations come from a professional critic (another academic) with a good standing in academia, the chance that accusations of fraud are only made to destroy the other persons' career are harder to accept. But when it's some guy on the internet with a blog, that changes the maths very much indeed. Anyone can throw mud on the internet. Because it's the internet, you need to understand who it is who's speaking, before you look at what they are saying.