[needle]

MT, I appreciate your sense of fairness, but it is truly unreasonable to expect commenters on a (putatively sports) message board to pore over primary sources before opining about a public figure (who is an unpopular one, at that).

I do think the BOT did the right thing in paying a law firm to investigate, but the probable fatal flaw in this plan is that the firm is left to invent an investigative procedure. 

Others surely know better than I, but I would think a typical investigation into research misconduct would not rely on this sort of all-star panel approach. Truly, it is the institution where the research took place that would have access to any sort of contemporaneous records that might serve as proof, one way or another, or at least help guide questioning of those involved in producing the research. Without this access, the special panel is left to parse MTL’s version of how and why his papers are flawed. It’s something, and I think we all will read the special panel’s findings (assuming they are made public). But I am not hopeful that any inarguable conclusions will be reached.

[needle]

MT, I appreciate your sense of fairness, but it is truly unreasonable to expect commenters on a (putatively sports) message board to pore over primary sources before opining about a public figure (who is an unpopular one, at that).

I do think the BOT did the right thing in paying a law firm to investigate, but the probable fatal flaw in this plan is that the firm is left to invent an investigative procedure. 

Others surely know better than I, but I would think a typical investigation into research misconduct would not rely on this sort of all-star panel approach. Truly, it is the institution where the research took place that would have access to any sort of contemporaneous records that might serve as proof, one way or another, or at least help guide questioning of those involved in producing the research. Without this access, the special panel is left to parse MTL’s version of how and why his papers are flawed. It’s something, and I think we all will read the special panel’s findings (assuming they are made public). But I am not hopeful that any inarguable conclusions will be reached.