46 minutes ago, London Wanderer said:

A fair angle

On a side note, didn’t Liverpool uni confirm he didn’t plagiarise his work ?

If this had nothing to do with Cambridge and was say Sheffield Hallam (where I went) the media wouldn't give a fuck

Why the fuck is it the headline News on the BBC 10 o clock news?

The usual cunts on Twitter are really out cunting themselves with this one.

There really are some horrible fuckers around.

4 hours ago, DirtySanchez said:

If this had nothing to do with Cambridge and was say Sheffield Hallam (where I went) the media wouldn't give a fuck

the more I hear about this, the more it appears that if he was a white professor no one would give a fuck

I'm not really convinced it's simply a matter of race and nothing else

For a lot of people, part of the story was clearly whether he'd been promoted to a position he was unsuitable for by credulous university administrators keen on improving the racial make-up of professors in academia, and I think it's legitimate to at least investigate that

And also that the aggressive defence of him was because was because he was viewed as a man being targeted for the colour of his skin

But there are reasons beyond that, and the simple fact he was black, why the story became as widely reported as it did

It seems to me he was failed by many people, at many stages, and his death is a tragedy

Obviously there will be people on social media motivated by racism but I mean the story itself, the newspapers, academics, etc.

30 minutes ago, Lt. Aldo Raine said:

Obviously there will be people on social media motivated by racism but I mean the story itself, the newspapers, academics, etc.

so stuff I've been seeing is along these lines

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcDtxrcA2EV/?igsh=MXd0cjZhOTgyY3p6cg==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcDUNgDs0Cy/?igsh=MWphZ3c4bzExNXM5NA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcDqE8foghp/?igsh=dG1rcjA1c3M2eTRh

just opinions

nothing really conclusive there but makes you think

then this guy Nathan Cofnas keeps popping up

apparently he's the one who has lead this campaign against him in the academic world and the press

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcEDxYEoJo5/?igsh=MTFkbHV6eWFwMG8xYw==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db0dVD1oeEH/?igsh=MTJsaWdhajI4YnhoaA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db0dVD1oeEH/?igsh=MTJsaWdhajI4YnhoaA==

16 minutes ago, Zico said:

so stuff I've been seeing is along these lines

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcDtxrcA2EV/?igsh=MXd0cjZhOTgyY3p6cg==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcDUNgDs0Cy/?igsh=MWphZ3c4bzExNXM5NA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcDqE8foghp/?igsh=dG1rcjA1c3M2eTRh

just opinions

nothing really conclusive there but makes you think

then this guy Nathan Cofnas keeps popping up

apparently he's the one who has lead this campaign against him in the academic world and the press

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcEDxYEoJo5/?igsh=MTFkbHV6eWFwMG8xYw==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db0dVD1oeEH/?igsh=MTJsaWdhajI4YnhoaA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db0dVD1oeEH/?igsh=MTJsaWdhajI4YnhoaA==

Yeah I've read about him and listened to a few of his interviews online.

He's on record as saying that in a meritocracy - very few black people would teach positions of high office - as he thinks white people were selectively bred for intelligence where as black people were selectively bred (or the environmental selection pressures they faced) favoured strength and power.

Very much a fringe opinion in academia - and not backed by the studies that I've read (or at least read the abstracts of).

That's said - him going after this bloke who has sadly taken his own life is separate and I don't think we should be trying to make him out to be a murderer.

Not saying you are btw - but that's the theme online.

Just now, kent_white said:

Yeah I've read about him and listened to a few of his interviews online.

He's on record as saying that in a meritocracy - very few black people would teach positions of high office - as he thinks white people were selectively bred for intelligence where as black people were selectively bred (or the environmental selection pressures they faced) favoured strength and power.

Very much a fringe opinion in academia - and not backed by the studies that I've read (or at least read the abstracts of).

That's said - him going after this bloke who has sadly taken his own life is separate and I don't think we should be trying to make him out to be a murderer.

Not saying you are btw - but that's the theme online.

PS - this is an extremely dumbed down version of this guys beliefs which are much more nuanced than I've just made out!

20 minutes ago, kent_white said:

Yeah I've read about him and listened to a few of his interviews online.

He's on record as saying that in a meritocracy - very few black people would teach positions of high office - as he thinks white people were selectively bred for intelligence where as black people were selectively bred (or the environmental selection pressures they faced) favoured strength and power.

Very much a fringe opinion in academia - and not backed by the studies that I've read (or at least read the abstracts of).

That's said - him going after this bloke who has sadly taken his own life is separate and I don't think we should be trying to make him out to be a murderer.

Not saying you are btw - but that's the theme online.

nah, not blaming this guy for his death but it sort of starts to look like the motivation for the attention put him on stems from his race and not his actions

26 minutes ago, Zico said:

nah, not blaming this guy for his death but it sort of starts to look like the motivation for the attention put him on stems from his race and not his actions

I think the attention would be put on him anyway given his 'questionable' academic achievements (and rightly so).

But as soon as he opens the race issue - the whole press (predictably) jump all over it.

They're two separate issues for me.

51 minutes ago, kent_white said:

Yeah I've read about him and listened to a few of his interviews online.

He's on record as saying that in a meritocracy - very few black people would teach positions of high office - as he thinks white people were selectively bred for intelligence where as black people were selectively bred (or the environmental selection pressures they faced) favoured strength and power.

Very much a fringe opinion in academia - and not backed by the studies that I've read (or at least read the abstracts of).

That's said - him going after this bloke who has sadly taken his own life is separate and I don't think we should be trying to make him out to be a murderer.

Not saying you are btw - but that's the theme online.

No shit

Cofnas was only one of the people who'd raised accusations of plagiarism, and much of the reporting had been done by the Telegraph and the Times Educations Supplement

What I think the people pointing to instances of white academics commiting plagiarism and the disparity in the media reporting are missing is that, unlike those academics, Arday was seen as a rising star, and something of a poster boy (I don't mean that in the negative sense it sometimes means)

He'd been appointed to a professorship at one of the most prestigious universities in the world at a young age, and was the youngest ever black person appointed to such a position

Rightly or wrongly, that alone gives him a bigger profile

This, combined with his remarkable backstory as a an autistic man who claimed to have been non-verbal until the age of 11 and illiterate until the age of 18 resulted in him being championed in interviews on James O'Brien's podcast, Channel 4, Sky News, being heralded as "the best in the world" at what he does, and having a book about his life story which was about to be published

What started as an accusation of plagiarism then quickly became a story of a fabulist as many of the outlandish claims about his life became apparent, and the story then took an a life of its own

Here's a good article by The Guardian about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2026/aug/01/playbooks-plagiarism-pigs-head-new-claims-surrounding-cambridge-professor-jason-arday

And another detailing some but not all of the claims and questions asked about his life:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/06/rise-and-fall-of-jason-arday

And another about the inconsistencies in the book about his life which has just been published in the US and is shortly due to be published overe here: https://inews.co.uk/news/how-jason-arday-memoir-toned-down-4693839?srsltid=AfmBOoow4mg-OKQqJsvj_com8uy7ROj65gBH3V-_2RXY3FPqKGSH21MP

He also said he had a brain tumour removed and suffered a stroke immediately after, just two weeks before defending his PhD, which seems to be, putting it mildly, unlikely

Has he actually been found guilty of plagiarism ?

1 hour ago, London Wanderer said:

No shit

The evidence is a bit more nuanced than you might imagine. But not strong enough to conclude white people are more intelligent than black people per se.

There IS a gap in raw average scores between white and black populations in some testing contexts. But when you control for environment directly, mixed-ancestry kids raised in similar conditions, cross-fostering studies etc, the gap disappears.

But I don't think intelligence should be considered exempt from genetics in principle. It's heritable like plenty of traits. But heritability within a group doesn't tell you anything about differences between groups, which is the mix-up most versions of this argument rest on.

I don't think we should be squeamish about asking the question though. Or about publicising the results once we have them.

I thought it was genuinely plausible as a hypothesis before I read the studies. Even though I imagined the gap would be tiny and massively outweighed by environmental factors.

Completely ridiculous and disproportionate the amount of media coverage it garnered. Most folk don't give a shiny shite about someone at Cambridge who's been telling porky pies.

Instead we had rolling news on it and cunts runing ad articles on the story for clicks.

They'll not learn their lesson

It is perhaps over the top, however there is this lingering spectre of DEI, which pervades everywhere.

When it happens at such a prestigious institution, it is news.

Everyone applying for any position should be checked out accordingly, and not have that process glossed over.

He must have realised that he was likely to be found out eventually.

2 hours ago, deeane Koontz said:

Completely ridiculous and disproportionate the amount of media coverage it garnered. Most folk don't give a shiny shite about someone at Cambridge who's been telling porky pies.

Instead we had rolling news on it and cunts runing ad articles on the story for clicks.

They'll not learn their lesson

Black lies matter

23 minutes ago, royal white said:

Black lies matter

Not really. Just don't reckon hounding someone to ultimately taking their own life is worth it for something nobody really gives a fuck about.

23 minutes ago, deeane Koontz said:

Not really. Just don't reckon hounding someone to ultimately taking their own life is worth it for something nobody really gives a fuck about.

🙄🙄

48 minutes ago, deeane Koontz said:

Not really. Just don't reckon hounding someone to ultimately taking their own life is worth it for something nobody really gives a fuck about.

Had similar feelings about our Rudy tbf.

2 hours ago, deeane Koontz said:

Completely ridiculous and disproportionate the amount of media coverage it garnered. Most folk don't give a shiny shite about someone at Cambridge who's been telling porky pies.

Instead we had rolling news on it and cunts runing ad articles on the story for clicks.

They'll not learn their lesson

Nobody gives a fuck but we had rolling news for clicks... that's a contradiction, no?

One of the main publications to investigate some of his Kenny Sr. style claims was the Guardian (as posted above). Why? Because it was both in the public interest and interesting to the public.

Now, everything looks incredibly trivial in the context of a man taking his own life, but it seems reasonable to me to report on a (minor but consistent) public figure who turned out to be a compulsive and fantastical liar.

2 hours ago, gonzo said:

Had similar feelings about our Rudy tbf.

My uncle is married to Greys sister. She came to the game on my cousins ticket as he's on holiday.

Asked her if Grey had been mithering any professors on'tinternet.

Was taken in the spirit it was meant.

Rudy did overstep the mark in fairness, though I'm happy to admit being biased and I wasn't necessarily of that view at the time. 🤣

Edited August 16Aug 16 by RoadRunnerFan

Working in an industry that pays great reverence to higher academic institutions and their leading lights this case piqued my interest somewhat

To find that Billy Bullshit has attained a status at such a high level academic institution via a somewhat questionable route deserves investigation. Plagiarism? Professional jealously? Is there a racial element that a black man could be so clever? Whatever. The whole story has seemingly uncovered a serial liar and fantasist and that is very, very wrong at the level that he was at

The question then remains would it be of such interest had he been a Prof at Preston Poly or whatever it’s called now. Of course not. Higher academia and/or industry of whatever sort wouldn’t take their lead from there. They would look to higher institutions where the much more respected folk work

Is it a question of the fact that he was a black man? Hhmm. Debatable in my opinion. I see both sides equally and I genuinely couldn’t say either way

The first link that I clicked on regarding this took me to the Daily Mail. Fuck me they hounded him. Utterly disgusting. Backtracking now horribly. But then I saw what had been published on all sides of the “political” spectrum. No difference really

At the end of the day the whole thing makes me really uncomfortable. He was obviously someone with issues. To end like it did with the media pressure says to me that something is really fucking wrong. Really wrong. He needed advice not a trial by media

3 hours ago, gonzo said:

Had similar feelings about our Rudy tbf.

This wasn't Rudy was it?