The Most Pitiful Person …

Andrew Gelman is Professor of Statistics and Political Science at Columbia University. He’s famous for his book (co-authored with others) on Bayesian Data Analysis. His substack has tackled the emerging scandal at Cambridge University here, comparing it to the Theranos scandal and noting that both contained “a charismatic and wildly ambitious pathological liar who told people a story they wanted to hear“.

And in a second posting here, he asked: “Who’s the most pitiful person in the Cambridge University fraud scandal?”

He considers Jason Arday, Carter-Ruck, Times Higher Education, Rhys Morgan, Hilary Cremin, Dave Harris, Martyn Hammersley, Nathan Cofnas, Bhaskar Vira, the “dastardly” Cambridge University Legal Department, before rejecting them all. He concludes that it was the unnamed University spokesman who told Retraction Watch that Arday was a “victim of a vile campaign to undermine his credibility” and that he had been cleared of “allegations of plagiarism regarding his thesis and journal publications.”

Bing bing bing! This is my nomination for the most pitiful, sorry-ass person in the entire story: whoever is the “spokesperson for Cambridge” who gave them that statement.

Think about it:

1. To say such a thing requires a complete lack of self-respect, a willingness to tell an immediately refutable lie in public. This spokesperson is in the position of Winston Smith saying 2 + 2 = 5, or a press officer having to make sense of whatever stupid lie a politician said that day.
2. But, unlike Winston Smith, the spokesperson is not under physical threat, and, unlike the press officer, the spokesperson can’t pretend to justify the lying as serving some larger political purpose. Loyalty to Cambridge University is one thing, but loyalty to some colorful asshole (sorry, I forgot my English; that should be “colourful arsehole”) who fabricated his data? That’s no principle at all.
3. And, unlike the various lawyers and administrators mentioned above, this spokesperson is presumably not well-paid. [From Andrew Gelman’ substack posting]

The unnamed individual is a compelling choice, but is constrained by economic circumstances to debase himself or herself in public. We feel sorry for him or her.

Our candidate faces a different and more profound constraint: the tragedy of possessing the intellectual tools to understand a system while being trapped inside it.

Our candidate for the title of the “most pitiful person” is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Professor Deborah Prentice. She fits this description because her own academic expertise illuminates the very institutional problems that her leadership appears unable to overcome. She embodies the painful gap between what someone knows, what they can see, and what they are ultimately able to do. Bing bing bing!

Deborah Prentice’s research on social norms, conformity and pluralistic ignorance examines how individuals and organisations can become trapped by collective assumptions. She has built a career studying how people accept the status quo because they believe change is impossible or because they assume others support existing arrangements. Yet, as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, she presides over one of the most hierarchical and tradition-focused institutions in all of higher education.

The irony is uncomfortable: the person who understands institutional conformity best is now the guardian of one of academia’s most resistant institutions.

Her position reveals a deeper contradiction. A scholar who has analysed how social systems limit individual action now occupies a role where she must defend, manage and reproduce those same systems. Rather than challenging entrenched structures, she is forced into the role of protecting reputation, balancing competing interests and avoiding disruptions that might threaten institutional stability. Prentice’s intellectual insights become a source of frustration rather than power.

This is what makes her a pitiful figure.

She is not pitiful because she lacks intelligence or achievement. She has that in plenty. She is pitiful because she possesses the tools to diagnose Cambridge’s problems, but is embedded in a system that forbids fundamental change and destroys those who want it.

Her career has therefore become a tragic and grotesque paradox: the expert on social constraints has become constrained by the very forces she has spent her life studying.

And now that paradox is no longer merely theoretical. It is being played out publicly, in full view of the world’s media.