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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Retrieving Cases from the "Memory Hole"

At the Scientific Misconduct Blog, Dr Aubrey Blumsohn has instituted his new "Memory Hole" feature. To quote Dr Blumsohn, a memory hole is "a mechanism for removing embarrassing documents, previous crimes and inconvenient bungles. Old documents are revised, and the original copies are consigned to the memory hole where 'not even the ash remains.' It is a mechanism for "smoothing over" the actions of leadership. It is a mechanism of censorship. It is about collective amnesia."

In this feature, which so far has run daily over three days in a "this day in history" format, Blumsohn summarizes important cases of "corruption and poor leadership in science and academia in general, editorial misconduct, the forgotten lessons we should not forget...." Some of these cases are still on-going, but many have been subject of the anechoic effect.

The Scientific Misconduct Blog is here. The three Memory Hole features so far are:
Illusions of Due Diligence (8 October)
When While is Black and Black is White (9 October)
A Society of Sheep (10 October)

These are must-reads. I imagine posts that will appear in the future will be even more important.

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