Recognizing and Responding to Legitimate and Illegitimate Researchers

[neededalj]

On the heels of my two posts on neuroscience, I'm going to try one that's straight-up about research.

Over the course of SurveyFail, I have seen two different attitudes towards researchers that bother me. I am *not* singling anyone out individually over this; I do not think anyone in fandom deserves blame for any of the shit that went down.

Comments

[melannen]

Thank you for this post; I saw your first problematic attitude among the early complaints, and was disappointed, but then I was myself trapped by your second one and needed the reminder. (They're qualified phds doing research with a respected university! Surely we can give them benefit of the doubt! ...but then it turned out that they were lying about both the "qualified" and the "affiliated with BU" parts, and I realized I let myself be taken in

[neededalj]

You're right; I don't have very much experience with my independents but they aren't bad by default. I have added an ETA on the post directing people to read through the comments for points people are raising about various fields.

[neededalj]

typo correction: *with independents. I do not have independents, although that sounds vaguely fun.

[jonquil]

Possibly they bring you rum punch while you lie on your divan next to the fMRI?

[slashpine]

Yes, absolutely being an Independent Scholar is ok! Like Hellekson and Busse who edited the very essential fan studies volume, Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New Essays (2006