> Bulstrode hasn’t yet responded to Jelf or Howes in public, but it’s hard to see how her paper can be creditably defended.
> I doubt that Bulstrode set out to deceive.
No, I think she did. If your intentions are good, you would address the concerns and correct the record. Those around her have a _duty_ to strongly encourage her to do so, otherwise they are complicit.
> It’s one thing for a young and passionate academic to make mistakes; it’s quite another for a series of experienced academics to let her make them.
The reason these other experienced academics are onboard is because it fits a narrative that has involved rewriting history in front of our very eyes. You just need to take a quick look at the language used, it has swallowed academia.
To get grants in academia now (particularly in some spaces), you have to justify how it will have some form of social justice impact. The work itself could be completely abstract, but now the results are tainted by the lens you were forced to put on the work in order to receive funding. I am not surprised for example that a University funded a history paper that showed Jamaican metallurgists used ancient black magic, but it was stolen by the evil white man.
There are some pockets of academics holding out, but they evaporate quickly. They are leaving academia and receiving a minimum of double salary in the private sector. Expect to see more and more work like this come out of academia, as they replace these people with those who echo the proper narrative to get the grant funding.