Originally posted by Semiazas
Too small to read, makes me care less about your book of magic.
I have kept this relatively private for the past few months, but long story short I was left with no choice but to withdraw from my PhD in September of last year.
For those who were rooting for me, I'm sorry to have let you down.
Ultimately, I was unable to become engaged and interested in the project, which was essentially looking at layers of sand to reconstruct the climate history of some desert lakes in order to determine how and when they were active and capable of sustaining human populations.
I was handed the project with little understanding of what it entailed, and all attempts I made to approach the project in more engaging and interesting ways were rejected with no attempt at compromise.
I had been working with my supervisor for several years beforehand, and he was always supportive of me and my extra-curricular work on the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis with my colleagues at the Comet Research Group.
However, in February of 2023, shortly after I began my PhD, I uncovered that a group of American scientists had published fraudulent data in the prestigious journal 'Science Advances' to "debunk" the YDIH, and I sought to bring the issue to light.
When informing the authors of my intent to lodge ethics inquiries with the journal and their respective institutions, one of them tagged my supervisor in their reply, and he called me in to explain myself.
After thoroughly explaining the issue, he agreed me with me that it was very bad but advised against me going public with it.
I didn't know it at the time, but in that moment, I lost most of my remaining respect, trust, and faith in science, and especially the pseudoscientific discipline of archaeology.
A few weeks before withdrawing from the PhD, I lodged ethics inquiries with the fraudster's institutions and the journal that published it, to no avail.
One of the most respected scientific journals in the world refuses to retract fraudulent science because it supports the pseudoskeptic narrative against the YDIH.
Worse still, it turns out that the Editor in Chief of AAAS Journals, which includes 'Science' and 'Science Advances', the very person who told me that the article would not be retracted, literally has a history of fraud himself.
He was chased out of North Carolina University after it was discovered he was overseeing an Academic Fraud racket involving college admissions for professional athletes.
Isn't it funny how fraudsters and corrupt pieces of shit always seem to fail upwards, it's almost as if corruption in science is rewarded, while those seeking to uncover and uproot it are forced out.
I refused to compromise my principles or my integrity to have a career in the discipline I loved.
I threw away both of my prestigious scholarships because they were poison to my soul, and I will never apologise for it.
