UPDATE: CLASSIFIEDS section refreshed, redesigned, searchable: Go take a look
No. How did you jump to that?
Because as soon as you suggest that the trad print media are responsible for hounding a man (presumably to death in this case) - who do you hold responsible? Do you then enact laws to prevent the media from writing articles? How many articles is too many articles? who gets to choose who writes articles? And as soon as you start down that path - no more free press. That is something that the likes of Musk, Zukerberg and Theil would like very much
"Media hounding [of Arday]" is part of an outrage economy that is lighting up X and Threads right now. Have no doubt that there's folks on those sites getting paid to write posts about how bad it is that Arday was a victim of the right wing racist establishment media. Who's interests does that serve?
Does Farage get to say "There are too many articles about the £5M I have received and my mental health is suffering, they must stop" and is that legitimate when articles about Arday are not? and if not, why not?
Does Farage get to say "There are too many articles about the £5M I have received and my mental health is suffering, they must stop" and is that legitimate when articles about Arday are not? and if not, why not?
Exactly. What should the quota be for articles about Donald Trump? If Fox News runs 100 stories about Trump every day, does that mean that other outlets aren't allowed to run any?
There is a fine and blurry line between press freedom and hounding.
It can vary depending on "national interest" - multi million bungs to politicians or storm in a teacup academic cockups.
Fundamentally we need to find the legal equivalent of don't be a dick
At last, 22 years in this place and somebody finally thinks I'm right
Make that two of us. We have a choice here: carry on trading links that support our previously expressed views, or follow rule number one.
There is a fine and blurry line between press freedom and hounding.
On the contrary, for the trad media; TV and print, there are very firm sets of boundaries, frameworks and laws about what they can and can't do. It's very far from blurry. On the other hand, SM media sees those as their competitors and would like very much to replace them as people's source for news, but have zero interest in having those same frameworks applied to them. In fact; quite the opposite.
I don't think people aren't outraged that a man's killed himself, the shock is real, and while I'll defend the need for a free press, there's no doubt that it was a shabby performance all round. But the alternative - outrage fueled by un-seen, un-heard, perhaps even non-human but still paid for by billionaires with an agenda is so much much worse. Doubly so for Black academics.
If you think the likes of the Times or the Telegraph are outrageous, have you been on X recently?
And as soon as you start down that path - no more free press.
Freedom Of Speech does not mean freedom from consequence. If you say something contentious then that same right applies to everyone else to call you out.
Perhaps Freedom of Press should be the same? Currently they can do what the **** they like with almost absolute impunity, they print headlines which they know full well are fabricated and then on the rare occasions they get challenged they'll print a retraction on page 21 in Flyspeck 3.
I'm all for a free press, but they should be held accountable for what they print. They have a duty of care, and in this they are sadly lacking.
I'm all for a free press, but they should be held accountable for what they print.
They are though, defamation, libel, contempt of court (if they publish on going trial information) there are laws about state secrets, data and personal privacy, laws against promoting terrorism. If you're going to hold the press to high(er) standards than are already imposed , should the current laws (like SLAPP) be used to stop publication? Super injunctions to not only spike stories but prevent people from even talking about the fact that their story have been stopped or mention that there's even an injunction. Are they OK?
You saw the same thing when John Davidson shouted the N word at the Baftas, huge amounts of outrage - especially on-line, directed at a wholly innocent disabled man because of perceived racism. That was a pile on, massive press/media coverage at the time for days afterwards; should that have been stopped? I didn't hear anything at the time that it should've, so why are we treating this story differently?
should that have been stopped?
Attacks on Davidson should have stopped. That’s not the same as “be stopped”. Calling for better behaviour from the media isn’t automatically a call for outside kerbs on them. Critism of the behaviour of the press and other media, especially in the social media space, should be allowed without people jumping to censorship allocations.
I didn't hear anything at the time
Selective reading/memory?
Most of the criticism was aimed at the BBC and BAFTA for having him on mic when in the audience, and not editing his tic out off the broadcast, IIRC, including criticism from Davidson himself. They let him down, and I’m pretty sure they and other broadcasters have learnt something from it all.
I was taking MCTD's advice as well, but here we are.......
That Helen Lewis piece adds no additional info, and has the appearance of a hastily knocked up hit piece regurgitating the same old same old to meet her copy deadline. People who have been alleged to be on the side of TERFs always also seem to be on the Arday bashing side of the argument.
Let's wait and see what the various enquiries say, I'm sure that that will have more nuance and hard data to think over.
I do wonder tho why people online who probably have never given 2 sh1ts about academic standards or press freedom are now riding into battle about it. Is it because they'll suddenly vehemently stand up for academic standards as an exercise in whataboutery rather than admit an unsavory truth about why they really think Arday shouldn't have got the job?
Im impressed by the number of people on this thread who seem to know more than the coroner about how he died. Only this morning the coroner adjourned the hearing to allow the Met to investigate this death as being not natural.
Perhaps you would all like to offer the coroner your expertise and insight that has enabled you to determine cause of death before the investigation has taken place. Link specifically chosen to meet the political views of those who have decided the outcome already.
Im impressed by the number of people on this thread who seem to know more than the coroner about how he died.
A cursory read of this thread shows that you werent exactly shy of sprouting off your own opinion on things starting on the various first page with your deep insight about his phd examiners and liking various extremely speculative posts.
Why do we suddenly need such ****ing high standards?
And as soon as you start down that path - no more free press. That is something that the likes of Musk, Zukerberg and Theil would like very much
The free press is already crippled as far as the likes of them are concerned. There is a reason the billionaire elites have been buying up the media and launching expensive lawsuit after expensive lawsuit (gawker ring any bells?).
We dont, outside of small outfits, have a free press but instead a client press which generally fails to serve our interests. To take Farage do you really think the times stories would have appeared if Murdoch hadnt started veering back to the tories?
They are though, defamation, libel, contempt of court (if they publish on going trial information) there are laws about state secrets, data and personal privacy, laws against promoting terrorism. If you're going to hold the press to high(er) standards than are already imposed , should the current laws (like SLAPP) be used to stop publication? Super injunctions to not only spike stories but prevent people from even talking about the fact that their story have been stopped or mention that there's even an injunction. Are they OK?
"Imposed" is doing some heavy lifting here, and the press knows all the loopholes. The Daily Mail has been running headlines like DOES CUMIN CAUSE CANCER? for years, to which the answer is "of course it ****ing doesn't" but the message is out there, the damage is done and they've got a Teflon ringpiece because they haven't actually claimed anything. And if you think that's a bit of harmless fun I give you the MMR vaccine and Autism.
Even when they do get caught out they know full well that it'll take someone to actually sue them before there's any comeback, there's very little actual "imposing" going on. The mainstream press operates under its own Wild West laws and to claim otherwise is disingenuous I'm afraid.
Do I want censorship? Of course not. But expecting them to at least attempt to tell the truth occasionally really shouldn't be too much to ask. The Daily Express can't even be honest about weather forecasts for gods' sake. In the cases of Arday and Davidson, perhaps the word we're both grasping for here is "integrity"?
Christ, I'm agreeing with Chrismac. Has his account been hacked? 😁
Im impressed by the number of people on this thread who seem to know more than the coroner about how he died.
A cursory read of this thread shows that you werent exactly shy of sprouting off your own opinion on things starting on the various first page with your deep insight about his phd examiners and liking various extremely speculative posts.
Why do we suddenly need such ****ing high standards?
This whole thread is extremely speculative with the vast majority of commenters liking various speculative posts. Just because they happen to have a different view to yours doesn't make them more or less speculative. The number of people with any first hand experience of academia or how coroners work is very small compared to the number of commenters.
This whole thread is extremely speculative with the vast majority of commenters liking various speculative posts
Well spotted.
However you seem determined to ignore the point. Which is you have suddenly found some standards which you now want to rigorously enforce. If you stance had been from the outset that speculation was bad I could respect that although it obviously has issues from a forum perspective.
However it wasnt. You went all in on the speculation and then started lecturing people not to speculate. Its a tad hypocritical.
perhaps the word we're both grasping for here is "integrity"?
I don't really disagree with anything you said there, but again; Free press, people should be allowed (within reason) to 'print and be damned'. Otherwise the chilling effect on investigative journalism is an obvious one because for all the times the Mail prints the sidebar of shame, it's them that often throws light on duck-pond pavilions (or in that case the Telegraph), and it's the THE who wanted to publish questions about Arday but were SLAPPED. I'm reasonably content that the balance is about right. The same can't be said for the Alt-media.
As far as I can tell, the outrage in this instance is just the number of stories, not their content. And given the one source for that story itself was the press, it all seems a bit fabricated .
Free press, people should be allowed (within reason) to 'print and be damned'. Otherwise the chilling effect on investigative journalism is an obvious one
Would you describe this particular case as a fine example of rigorous, impartial investigative journalism?
Would you describe this particular case as a fine example of rigorous, impartial investigative journalism?
There's a strong argument that the original story was just that. But it was a pretty dull, niche story that as many media commentators have said, would never have been picked up if it wasn't a slow news day/parliamentary recess.
The way the wider media then jumped on the story and ran it, that seems out of all proportion to "investigative" journalism and the story itself, which then got picked up by all the "alt-news" crowd and those we know have an axe to grind, whether that's about race and/or the ivory towers of academia.
Perhaps you would all like to offer the coroner your expertise and insight that has enabled you to determine cause of death before the investigation has taken place.
Seeing as you asked, sort of:
All that's been said is that the investigation has been opened and adjourned. This is the case for any unnatural, violent, or unknown death, or a death in detention. The coroner opens the inquest and adjourns as they then have the power to do the evidence gathering, compel witnesses to give statements and so on.
There's no suspicious circumstances that police need to consider, that's on record. So there's no need to wait for any police investigation to happen
So it's now for the coroner to investigate to answer the evidential questions; who, where, when and how. And as part of this will consider the events surrounding the death to see if they materially impacted on the how.
To speculate that it was suicide isn't a huge leap; by elimination it wasn't an unlawful killing because the police have said there's nothing suspicious. If it was a natural causes (eg: heart attack) then that would be known from PM and the coroner can record a verdict and note that no inquest is needed. So what's left - misadventure/accidental or suicide basically. Some suicides are recorded as accidental or open because if there's any doubt that they intended to die then it may be better, even kinder to record a non-suicide verdict (less stigma).
So yes, speculation but hardly uninformed if you have an understanding of the coronial process. But who knows, maybe he did fall off a ladder while changing a light bulb.
Where it may be interesting is as well as answering the four questions, the coroner has powers to add a narrative element and even compel others to do things to prevent future deaths. That may be where without specifically assigning blame*, a coroner might add further reasoning for the course of events. eg: Caroline Flack - cause of death is suicide by hanging, but the actual narrative gives much more in the way of context. And in time I suspect so will this one.
* a coroner can refer back to police as a prosecutable offence if their findings are that eg: neglect is a cause. But neglect is a very high benchmark, and in normal circumstances a coroner does not assign blame - however having sat through and been a witness to my Mum's inquest, and researched others in preparation to being a lay representative - if a coroner wants to make a point without specifically assigning blame they can do it in a way that leaves the recipient of the advice in no doubt that they've been told.
There's a strong argument that the original story was just that. But it was a pretty dull, niche story that as many media commentators have said, would never have been picked up if it wasn't a slow news day/parliamentary recess.
The way the wider media then jumped on the story and ran it, that seems out of all proportion to "investigative" journalism and the story itself, which then got picked up by all the "alt-news" crowd and those we know have an axe to grind, whether that's about race and/or the ivory towers of academia.
He was fraudulently hired for a very high-profile position at one of the most famous universities in the world. The university went to great trouble to publicize his appointment and he happily went along with that and also published an autobiography full of fraudulent claims. It wasn't a "pretty dull, niche story," it was a spectacularly fascinating story about a high-profile fraud by a guy who chose to make himself a public figure.
He was fraudulently hired for a very high-profile position at one of the most famous universities in the world. The university went to great trouble to publicize his appointment and he happily went along with that and also published an autobiography full of fraudulent claims. It wasn't a "pretty dull, niche story," it was a spectacularly fascinating story about a high-profile fraud by a guy who chose to make himself a public figure.
At the risk of repeating myself,
Perhaps because you want it to be true, I don't know that either, but it's sounding a lot like it.
This is a silly thing to say.
You seem very sure, and very keen to tell us just how sure you are.
You might well be right, I don't know. But in a case with so many unknowns and debatables your confidence makes me uncomfortable.
I didn't make the editorial decisions to publish stories about his fraud. Reputable outlets like the NY Times and Atlantic obviously feel that their reports of fraud have a factual basis and can stand up in court, and also that this is newsworthy because he was a high-profile public figure. That's why they published.
I wish Arday wasn't a fraud, but he was. Even if there are people who are delighted that he was a fraud, that has no bearing on the accuracy of the news reports about his fraud and the newsworthyness of those reports.
Would you describe this particular case as a fine example of rigorous, impartial investigative journalism?
TBH, I've no idea. Like most people I reckon I've read a handful of the stories published. To my mind the one's I read tried to be balanced; a couple in the Guardian, one in the FT, and an article in the THE about an article they didn't publish (My wife's an academic and gets a sub) that was only really tangentially about Arday. I doubt few people have read substantially more than that. Certainly not 250.
Here's the plaguey rub though, that number was offered to us (invited to be shocked) by the media itself, and I will bet a Greggs product they've gained subscribers off the back of it. - so who's neutral here? I've no idea if 250 is slightly more, waaay more, a little less, than any equivalent story, and frankly that's true of everyone who doesn't work in the media. It was presented to the public as just as sensational as the original story, and has now become the story. I've no idea if its comparable with say: Trump saying something really stupid, or Farage's handout.
It wasn't a "pretty dull, niche story," it was a spectacularly fascinating story about a high-profile fraud by a guy who chose to make himself a public figure.
What interests the public is not always in the public interest. This isn't the first time that the hounding of people who make themselves celebs has resulted in a needless death.
The fascination of the Press and some members of the public with these cases does smack of "bread and circuses" and I really wish we were better than this as a society. The idea that someone with a vulnerable personality could be hounded to take their own life makes me deeply uncomfortable as someone with a vulnerable personality.
I haven't contributed to this thread, it is miserable reading indeed.
it was a spectacularly fascinating story
It really wasn't.
The idea that someone with a vulnerable personality could be hounded to take their own life makes me deeply uncomfortable as someone with a vulnerable personality.
100% The lack of empathy on display here is depressing. I lost a nephew to suicide at the start of his adult life a few years ago, our family still hasn't healed.
I also have many neurodiverse people in my family, some of whom have a very difficult relationship with what is real and what is fantasy (a lie to everybody else). If I raked over all the bullshit they had come out with over the years and publicly proved it to be false then I've no doubt they would be suicidal.
I was told to back off, that bickering about the veracity of a man's thesis wasn't a good look. So I did, and yet still position-supporting versions of the story continue to be given, and so I want to comment for a last time, and then done.
We are possibly arguing over language but imprecise language can convey a wrong meaning, and sometimes the words chosen are deliberately imprecise for exactly that reason. Some posters past and present have been masters of the 'I never specifically said that' defence.
I said that (large) parts of his thesis were novel research and thinking, and got this response. My emphasis added.
Nobody said that it was entirely plagiarized. The problem is that significant parts were plagiarized. That negates the value of the rest of it.
On loose language - no, no-one said 'entirely' specifically but (quotes from this thread) "we have a guy who plagiarised his thesis"; "His academic efforts appear to have been almost wholly plagiarised - we don't know do we? Answered by 'Yes his PhD thesis was"; "His PhD thesis which you can find here plagiarized this PhD thesis" - there's very little nuance in those statements.
No-one disputes he was a fraud, but commit one fraud or tell one lie and you're a fraud, fact. Doesn't mean everything they do before or after is of no value. We can argue whether parts, large parts, extensive parts, whatever of his thesis were plagiarized, or were they just lazy attribution style, either way amounts to the same, that they are not original.
But to say that his PhD was of NO value as a result, or to cancel his other work which was highly regarded by virtue of reference and citation, leaves the impression that everything he ever did was a sham, and that is not the case. His legacy is flawed of course (including some renewed scepticism of his other work) and I suppose any future reference to his work will always carry some hint of raised eyebrow.
Babies and bathwater, or something. But when looking at the value of his academic output, we need to look at all of it.
OK, it's said. I'm out.
He was fraudulently hired for a very high-profile position at one of the most famous universities in the world. The university went to great trouble to publicize his appointment and he happily went along with that and also published an autobiography full of fraudulent claims. It wasn't a "pretty dull, niche story," it was a spectacularly fascinating story about a high-profile fraud by a guy who chose to make himself a public figure.
At the risk of repeating myself,
Perhaps because you want it to be true, I don't know that either, but it's sounding a lot like it.
This is a silly thing to say.
You seem very sure, and very keen to tell us just how sure you are.
You might well be right, I don't know. But in a case with so many unknowns and debatables your confidence makes me uncomfortable.
Are you saying that we can NOT be sure that the majority of claims he made were complete nonsense?
I don't see that it's something someone "would like to be true" or "not like to be true". It is what it is.
Had some of these claims been investigated properly early on, then maybe the guy could have backed out of the hole he was digging for himself before it all got so bad that, in his mind, suicide was the only way out.
I'd lay money that his wife and kids would rather have a living dad who'd been exposed as a fraud and moved on, than a dead dad who'd been exposed as a fraud.
Had some of these claims been investigated properly early on, then maybe the guy could have backed out of the hole he was digging for himself before it all got so bad that, in his mind, suicide was the only way out.
This is, I feel, where Cambridge Uni have to bear some responsibility. Maybe they were just too willing to believe/ignore some of the more fantastical claims. The life and death of Arday hasn't been a topic often discussed with my friends and family but any talk has been about the background stuff (early learning difficulties, pigs head and so on) rather than the value of his PHD. An early admission regarding these might have let the story subside before the tragedy.
Are you saying that we can NOT be sure that the majority of claims he made were complete nonsense?
The problem with Truthers is that they don't actually care whether claims are true or not, they just want to throw uncertainty around. A couple of common strategies are:
i) Demand impossible levels of certainty - it's not good enough that there is a preponderance of evidence, there's always a claim that it's possible that the evidence is wrong or fabricated, etc. These challenges are impossible to satisfy so the evidence is dismissed as unproven. (This is a favourite of climate change deniers.)
ii) Insist that not everything Arday said has been proven to be false, therefore we cannot know that anything is false. It's not clear how much truth there is in his marathon running claims - he does seem to have run at least one marathon, but it's impossible to document exactly how many he ran. Therefore, his marathon running claims are not completely fraudulent, therefore we should give him the benefit of the doubt about the claim that he was non-verbal until puberty and couldn't read until 18.
This is, I feel, where Cambridge Uni have to bear some responsibility. Maybe they were just too willing to believe/ignore some of the more fantastical claims. The life and death of Arday hasn't been a topic often discussed with my friends and family but any talk has been about the background stuff (early learning difficulties, pigs head and so on) rather than the value of his PHD. An early admission regarding these might have let the story subside before the tragedy.
Yep.
he does seem to have run at least one marathon, but it's impossible to document exactly how many he ran.
If it ain't on Strava ..
The problem with Truthers is that they don't actually care whether claims are true or not, they just want to throw uncertainty around.
**** right off with this shit. I know its a tricky concept when you have the pitch forks out, odd its just this case eh, but perhaps its worth considering that understanding the facts would help.
Since then we have that baseline it can be applied without fear or prejudice to all?
Here's the plaguey rub though, that number was offered to us (invited to be shocked) by the media itself,
That number came from a website looking into whether the press response was proportionate.
Are you saying that we can NOT be sure that the majority of claims he made were complete nonsense?
That would seem to be the case. Random example:
- He claims to have done a lot of running.
- People go "that's not possible."
- People on this very thread point out that comedian Eddie Izzard did much the same thing with zero training.
- Photos emerge of him in running gear at events.
Do you know how much running he actually did? I don't.
It's looking likely that some of his stories were exaggerations or outright lies, yes. But much of it has contradictory 'evidence' and it's all still coming out, we're speculating.
The problem with Truthers is that they don't actually care whether claims are true or not, they just want to throw uncertainty around. A couple of common strategies are:
What dissonance said. Is that the best you've got left?
i) Demand impossible levels of certainty - it's not good enough that there is a preponderance of evidence, there's always a claim that it's possible that the evidence is wrong or fabricated, etc. These challenges are impossible to satisfy so the evidence is dismissed as unproven. (This is a favourite of climate change deniers.)
A court would expect "beyond reasonable doubt." I'm no lawyer but would hazard that "I read it on the Internet so it must be true" wouldn't secure a conviction.
ii) Insist that not everything Arday said has been proven to be false, therefore we cannot know that anything is false. It's not clear how much truth there is in his marathon running claims - he does seem to have run at least one marathon, but it's impossible to document exactly how many he ran. Therefore, his marathon running claims are not completely fraudulent, therefore we should give him the benefit of the doubt about the claim that he was non-verbal until puberty and couldn't read until 18.
We can't trust the government, therefore covid was a hoax and vaccines are poison.
It's looking likely utterly certain that some of his stories were exaggerations or outright lies, yes.
FTFY. His claims about being non-verbal and not being able to read until 18 were very quickly shown to be fabrications. That alone was enough to show that he was a fraud who should never have been hired by Cambridge.
You assume those media hit pieces are robust and evidence based. It takes time to do the deep-dive, and when you've got to file a cheap and nasty review regurgitating internet hearsay you don't have the time. So you just repeat the rumours and who cares cos he's a person of colour and autistic, and the Mail are getting their next piece out so ...best get this one in - just rehash what everyone else has said.
So if you want some truths there is better source material out there - might take you a while and they might be inconvenient. If the media couldn't be arsed to do their job properly on this stuff - what's the betting they've got it wrong on other stuff too.
But to repeat earlier, I do wonder why people online who probably have never given 2 sh1ts about academic standards or press freedom are now riding into battle about it. Is it because they'll suddenly vehemently stand up for academic standards as an exercise in whataboutery rather than admit an unsavory truth about why they really think Arday shouldn't have got the job?
https://skywriter.blue/@monkemma.bsky.social/3mto5wnd5i22z
https://monkdebunks.substack.com/p/the-media-frenzy-that-stripped-jason
https://www.thenerve.news/p/jason-arday-remembered-sam-clark-carole-cadwalladr-childhood-friend-real
https://web.archive.org/web/20210626232334/https://30in35.wordpress.com/
But to repeat earlier, I do wonder why people online who probably have never given 2 sh1ts about academic standards or press freedom are now riding into battle about it.
As I've already pointed out, any conversations I've been involved in have had nothing to do with his academic achievements and don't see it as a battle so much as bewilderment.
But to repeat earlier, I do wonder why people online who probably have never given 2 sh1ts about academic standards or press freedom are now riding into battle about it.
As I've already pointed out, any conversations I've been involved in have had nothing to do with his academic achievements and don't see it as a battle so much as bewilderment.
If you don't recognise yourself in that comment scotroutes it probs isn't you..... 😜
You assume those media hit pieces are robust and evidence based.
The NY Times one was. I'm confident that the other major news organizations also conducted independent investigations and confirmed what they reported. I'm sure there was a lot of junk posted online but that doesn't mean that none of the media outlets bothered to investigate properly.
The NY Times one was.
Your NYT piece is not the robust evidence you think it is – like most of the other articles - lots of inferences, speculation and hearsay, and quoting the marathon claims as if they were false. Perhaps packaged a bit better but ultimately still the same old same old
Reliable commentators - Rees-Mogg come on!!!?
“They seem to have drunk the D.E.I. Kool-Aid,” Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former Conservative lawmaker in Britain, said early this week on The Telegraph’s “Daily T” podcast.”
Hearsay and speculation - they got a rentaquote from someone, a Howard Shane from Boston, who had no insight into the hiring panel deliberations, but NYT had no response from an actual member of the hiring panel
“ the member of the hiring panel, the child psychiatrist Paul Ramchandani, had published a paper on music therapy for children with autism. Given his expertise, he would have been in position to question Dr. Arday’s assertion that he learned to speak at 11 and read at 18, said Howard Shane, the director emeritus of the Center for Communication Enhancement at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“That should raise a red flag,” he said in an interview early this week. “There’s no question about that.”
Dr. Ramchandani and others on the panel did not respond to requests for comment.”
More speculation - They didn’t know what piece was submitted to the panel and if it was reviewed – so they are speculating and they didn’t do the research to find the public domain evidence of the marathons – probs cos that would disprove their point:
“It is not clear which piece he submitted, or whether members of the hiring panel reviewed Dr. Arday’s speeches and interviews. If they had, they would have found elements of his story that stretched belief, like the marathon claim”
I'm with the "we just don't know" crew.
Fraud covers such a vast range in terms of it's impact. When I was young starting agency work, I was told I was committing fraud for being ten minutes late to work while trying to pretend I wasn't. Then at the other end, Bernie Madoff.
What is evidence to produce certainty in some, is simply not enough for me. I can't be sure, and, as in jury service, something being probable is insufficient to reach a verdict.
Two classmates disputing him being non-verbal is insufficient to disprove his claims. If we can consider Arday was lying, then two classmates can also, in exchange for payment for their stories perhaps. But without any individuals within official capacity making definitive statements to corroborate (teachers, therapists etc) it's flimsy. A lack of individuals making public statements within official capacity doesn't prove or disprove anything (guess they're bound by law not to at this stage?)
I feel the statement about him joking around has been misused to not only disprove his speech incapability, but to also suggest autistic people are unable to joke around, ergo he was lying about being autistic too.
I believe he was vulnerable, and numerous studies show autistic people are more likely to commit suicide. Being vulnerable and a fraudster, just doesn't sit easily. There are no substantial statistics to strengthen or weaken this view.
So in the end we have confident people who deal with certainties being confident of his guilt, and less-confident people who deal with doubt being unsure.
