Barely a week goes by when someone in NZ tries to sound knowledgeable & authoritative by saying something like, "Well, a Harvard Professor found A, B and C", which tells us we have to be doing "X, Y and Z in New Zealand". Well a barrage of "cluster-fake" allegations are currently being levelled at a leading Professor at Harvard Business School:
The authors detail "evidence of fraud in four academic papers co-authored by a [Harvard Business School Professor] .. because we had concerns that they contained fraudulent data .. We discovered evidence of fraud in papers spanning over a decade, including papers published quite recently (in 2020). In the Fall of 2021, we shared our concerns with Harvard Business School (HBS) .. We believe that many more (of the Harvard Professor's) papers contain fake data. Perhaps dozens .. As you can see on her Harvard home page [the Harvard Professor] has gone on "administrative leave", and the name of her chaired position at HBS is no longer listed".
= "We have learned (from knowledgeable sources outside of Harvard) that a few days ago Harvard requested that three of the four papers in our report be retracted. A fourth paper, discussed in today’s post, had already been retracted, but we understand that Harvard requested the retraction notice be amended to include mention of this (additional) fraud".
When Kiwis have been told to put faith in the "experts", particularly medical ones and modelers and such like these past pandemic years, and to trust their advice, this is perhaps a wake-up call to remain wary at all times. It's not just trust in media that is hitting rock bottom - maybe academics should take a look at themselves also.