Arming America

[friendly_iconoclast]

3. There's lots more to it than that- jimmy elided the damning conclusion...

... of the Emory report. From pages 18 and 19 at the link he provided-emphasis added:

We have reached the conclusion with reference to clauses “a” through “c,” that Professor Bellesiles contravened these professional norms, both as expressed in the
Committee charge and in the American Historical Association’s definition of scholarly
“integrity,” which includes “an awareness of one’s own bias and a readiness to follow sound method and analysis wherever they may lead,”
“disclosure of all significant qualifications of one’s arguments,” careful documentation of findings and the responsibility to “thereafter be prepared to make available to others their sources, evidence, and data,” and the
injunction that “historians must not misrepresent evidence or the sources of evidence.”

Huh. Looks like jimmy failed the same standards...

We have interviewed Professor Bellesiles and found him both cooperative and respectful
of this process. Yet the best that can be said of his work with the probate and militia
records is that he is guilty of unprofessional and misleading work.
Every aspect of his work in the probate records is deeply flawed. Even allowing for the loss of some of his research materials,
he appears not to have been systematic in selecting repositories or collections of probate records for examination and his recording methods were at best
primitive and altogether unsystematic. Bellesiles seems to have been utterly unaware of
the importance of the possibility of the replication of his research. Subsequent to the
allegations of research misconduct, his responses have been prolix, confusing, evasive and occasionally contradictory. We are surprised and troubled that Bellesiles
has not availed himself of the opportunities he has had since the notice of this investigation to
examine, identify and share his remaining research materials. Even at this point, it is not
clear that he fully understands the magnitude of his own probate research shortcomings.

The Committee's investigation has been seriously hampered by the absence or
unavailability of Professor Bellesiles' critical and apparently lost research records and by
the failures of memory and careful record keeping which Professor Bellesiles himself
describes. Given his conflicting statements and accounts, it has been difficult to establish where and how Professor Bellesiles conducted his research into the probate records he cites: for example,
what was read in microfilm and where and in what volume, what archives, in some cases, were actually visited and what they contained. In addition to this,
we note his subsequent failure to be fully forthcoming, and the implausibility of some of his defenses --
a prime example is that of the "hacking" of his website; another is his
disavowal of the e-mails of Aug. 30 and Sept. 19, 2000 to Professor Lindgren which
present a version of the location and reading of records substantially in conflict with
Professor Bellesiles’ current account. Taking all this into account, we are led
to conclude that, under Question 5, Professor Bellesiles did engage in “serious deviations from accepted practices in carrying out [and] reporting results from research.” As to these matters, comprehending points (a) – (c) under Question 5, his scholarly integrity is seriously in question