[11th Earl of Mar]

Cool... Now we know what Peter Jennings's lead story will be tonight.

[Joe Brower]

[Paul Atreides]

I'm sure all of the Million Mammary Marchers are wailing about "What does it matter, if he was passionate about it?!"

[philetus]

The university allowed him to quit.
In truth he was fired.
It wasn't so much that he lied, but that he got caught.

[Bob]

"[H]is scholarly integrity is seriously in question,"

I don't think it's in question at all. He clearly doesn't have any scholarly integrity at all.

[Graewoulf]

I doubt that Peetah "Nobody out here likes you" Jennings will mention anything about this. Socialist revisionism must not be defeated by proponents such as Peetah.

[FreeTally]

The three-person committee — composed of scholars from Princeton University, Harvard University and the University of Chicago — found that Mr. Bellesiles' work showed "evidence of falsification," "egregious misrepresentation" and "exaggeration of data."

Nice sounding words used in place of simply saying "he made it up as he went along".

[Blood of Tyrants]

Mr. Bellesiles ... criticized Emory's inquiry as "just plain unfair" for focusing on "one small part" of "Arming America."

Truth is only "one small part" according to the left. So small that they often completely forget about it.

[End The Hypocrisy]

>>tenured professor<<

In the past, Emory University has allowed flagrant faculty teaching misconduct to go on without even an admonishment. For example, folks would be very hard-pressed to find a worse lecturer and examiner than Emory's Ted Davis, a tenured "professor" who taught (and perhaps still teaches) European History there (mainly but not always on the Oxford campus). "Cosmic Ted" Davis would basically never lecture regarding the reading materials or what was to be tested. He often said things that were incoherent, and knowingly put students to sleep while collecting his paycheck and barely making himself available AT ALL for after class sessions. His tests would even cover material not covered, and he'd be unapologetic and even rude if folks called such mistakes to his attention. Cosmic Ted would even make fire kindling out of people's exams and papers before they could see what they lost points for, only for Emory's Oxford campus leadership (Mr. Shapiro) to say they didn't have a WRITTEN rule against such an improper practice yet. Basically NOTHING changed after students complained about Ted Davis, and the students who spoke out against this quack were stigmatized and downgraded by Emory faculty members who got brownie points by retalliating against anyone with the audacity to have challenged the Administration. And yet Emory turns up the heat on this OTHER tenured professor. What's with the double standard?

[rudypoot]

I can just hear Babs comment on this: "Who cares if it is all a lie, whoever wrote this should be writing his own history books!"

[xzins]

For what it's worth, when the guy put his trashy book out FREEPERDOM was all over it. They had it correctly pegged after just about one day's discussion.....lies upon misrepresentations upon lies.

Part of what I love about Free Republic.

[dfwgator]

This guy gets the Rigoberta Menchu Award.

[Plutarch]

Looks like the Professor is gunning for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a leftist fraud, which is qualification enough.

[That Subliminal Kid]

[Exeter]

"Mr. Bellesiles said...he could not "continue to teach in...a hostile environment."

Yeh, with all those annoying requirements for honesty, ethics, honor, truth, character, etc. it's no wonder he considered it a hostile enviroment. BTW, if the board that chooses the recepients for the Bancroft Awards doesn't demand that Mr. Bellesiles return his prize, what does that say about the value of its presentations? After all, even Milli Vanilli had to return their Grammys when it was learned they were bogus, too...

[lelio]

Even in defeat based on his actions, like The Torch, he can't help but blame others for trying to block his issue. Well maybe if you weren't such a fraud this wouldn't happen. Seems to be a trend in liberals.

[Fzob]

Bump to savor later

[SkyPilot]

George Will ripped this "professor" to shreds months and months ago. I am glad Emory U finally noticed.

[FourPeas]

Imagine that, an anti-gunner being less than truthful. The real surprise is that it's being reported AND that the university is doing anything about it.

[Fzob]

Prof. resigns; faulty gun research cited
By Melissa Seckora
From the Life & Mind Desk
Published 10/28/2002 12:19 PM


WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Emory University has accepted the resignation of a history professor whose work on the use and ownership of firearms in early America has been widely criticized.

Emory Associate Vice President Jan Gleason announced Friday that Michael Bellesiles' resignation would be effective Dec. 31. Bellesiles is the author of "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture," an award-winning book that appeared to confirm that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right to bear arms and that individual gun rights were unimportant to America's founders.

However, Emory released a 40-page indictment of Bellesiles' research composed by a committee of three historians as well as Bellesiles' 7-page response in which he denied any wrongdoing.

The basic thesis of "Arming America" is there were very few guns in early America and that most of the guns that did exist were old and broken. Bellesiles published an article on the subject in 1996 in the Journal of American History -- a piece that was named "Best Article of the Year" by the Organization of American Historians. The book won the 2001 Bancroft Prize, the most-prestigious prize in American-history writing. Columbia is investigating the possibility of revoking the prize.

But over the past year, critics of "Arming America" claimed that Bellesiles miscounted, misinterpreted and made up substantial portions of the information in the book.

The critics said Bellesiles' work focused on nonexistent probate records that he said he read in San Francisco and in Providence, R.I. However, the San Francisco records were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire, and many of the Providence documents that Bellesiles says he read apparently never existed. Bellesiles has also said that his research notes were destroyed in a flood in his campus office, a story that people at Emory familiar with the flood have cast doubt on.

After questions were raised in the media and in faculty workshops at Columbia, Yale, and other major universities, Emory's dean, Robert A. Paul, convened a panel of historians to investigate the charges. The committee was led by Stanley N. Katz of Princeton and included Hanna H. Gray, a former president of the University of Chicago; and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich of Harvard.

The committee's investigation focused on Bellesiles' use of probate records. Of particular interest was a key table on which the author's thesis is grounded. The committee's report stated: "Evaluating Table One is an exercise in frustration because it is almost impossible to tell where Bellesiles got his information. His source note lists the names of 40 counties, but supplies no indication of the exact records used or their distribution over time. After reviewing his skimpy documentation, we had the same question as (one reviewer) Gloria Main: 'Did no editors or referees ever ask that he supply this basic information?' ... The best that can be said about his work with the probate and militia records is that he is guilty of unprofessional and misleading work."

The committee also agreed with James Lindgren, a law professor at Northwestern University, that the scandal could have been avoided with "more conventional editing" by The Journal of American History, and with Ohio State historian Randolph Roth, who determined that Bellesiles' numbers were "mathematically improbable or impossible."

Additionally, the committee found that "no one has been able to replicate Bellesiles' results (on the low percentage of guns) for the places or dates he lists"; that he conflated wills and inventories, which "greatly reduced the (reported) percentage of guns in estates"; he took a "casual approach" to gathering data; "(raised) doubts about his veracity" in claiming to have worked with records in California; and raised questions about his use of microfilm at the National Archives Record Center in East Point, Ga.

Committee members also called implausible Bellesiles' claim that false data on his Web site was put there by a hacker and his disavowal of e-mail messages that he wrote to researchers, giving the wrong location for almost all of his probate research.

In a statement, Bellesiles said: "All that remains in question are the few paragraphs and table on probate materials. On those paragraphs, Emory's committee of inquiry found no evidence of fabrication, though they do not charge evasion."

"I have never fabricated evidence of any kind nor knowingly evaded my responsibilities as a scholar," he wrote. "I have never consciously misrepresented any data or evidence. ... I will continue to research and report on the probate materials while also working on my next book, but cannot continue to teach in what I feel is a hostile environment."

-0-

Melissa Seckora is an editorial associate at National Review magazine.

Copyright © 2002 United Press International

[Richard Kimball]

In a statement released Friday, Mr. Bellesiles defended his book, refused to concede wrongdoing and criticized Emory's inquiry as "just plain unfair" for focusing on "one small part" of "Arming America."

"I believe that if we begin investigating every scholar who challenges received truth, it will not be long before no challenging scholarly books are published," Mr. Bellesiles said, saying he was leaving Emory because he could not "continue to teach in what I feel is a hostile environment."

Whiney little b*stard, isn't he?