He does raise the interesting point that strong taboos are usually hiding something.
Robert B. Laughlin, the controversial professor at Stanford, was his example. It seems to have been personal as one of his friends failed to receive a PhD under Laughlin due to the feuding around a very strong academic taboo being broken.
The implication being Laughlin’s students at the time were denied opportunities as revenge, as they were easier targets to take down than a Stanford professor who just won the Nobel prize in physics.
If true, it’s an understandable motivation to then hold a grudge or ponder about conspiracies behind other apparently inexplicable phenomena.
I guess in that sense it does boil down to an ideological fight.
Can someone investigate their colleagues? Is it permissible to air suspicions openly? Is it acceptable to claim other professors at the university are hucksters and fraudsters with just circumstantial evidence?
He does raise the interesting point that strong taboos are usually hiding something.
Robert B. Laughlin, the controversial professor at Stanford, was his example. It seems to have been personal as one of his friends failed to receive a PhD under Laughlin due to the feuding around a very strong academic taboo being broken.
The implication being Laughlin’s students at the time were denied opportunities as revenge, as they were easier targets to take down than a Stanford professor who just won the Nobel prize in physics.
If true, it’s an understandable motivation to then hold a grudge or ponder about conspiracies behind other apparently inexplicable phenomena.
I guess in that sense it does boil down to an ideological fight.
Can someone investigate their colleagues? Is it permissible to air suspicions openly? Is it acceptable to claim other professors at the university are hucksters and fraudsters with just circumstantial evidence?