Leonid Schneider & ‘For Better Science’ --- Crank or Cure?
I’ve been aware of Leonid Schneider’s expose blog ever since the piece on the supposed fraud of Nobel prize-winner Gregg Semenza appeared on my Twitter feed. Schneider portrays himself as an under-dog; the self-styled “failed scientist” has taken a liking to pillaring the hypocrisies of the scientific establishment. To be honest, although criticisms of the undertakings of science are always needed, especially when it concerns matters of data integrity, publishing practices, and perverse incentives in academia, I am a bit weary of uncritically listening to someone who appears to have no established career in either science or science journalism (the only pieces published under his own name appear only on the blog he runs). And his pieces do come off with a bit of crankiness – reading them alone one would think that the scientific establishment is infested with data forgery, devised by scientists whose only wish is to publish in fancy journals at any cost.
https://thiscomplexlife.wordpress.com/2021/01/10/leonid-schneider-for-better-science-crank-or-cure/
Leonid Schnieder the laughably self-styled ‘journalist’ has been accused of running an extortion and blackmail site – fueled in equal parts by envy and desperation.
There is no credence to his poorly researched claims on his website and he has lost defamation claims at court before.
It appears that he is comparable to RipOffReport and Gripeo (for those who don’t know, Gripeo are a website who publish allegations about public figures and industry leaders and then charge 10,000 USD to remove each page).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/05/09/the-dark-side-of-reputation-management-how-it-affects-your-business/
They used to call people like Shnieder and his operations, ‘protection rackets’; “pay me this much money and I wont break your legs”,
Nowadays, its comparable to “pay me this much money and I wont destroy your reputation”.
This is my reasonably held opinion, as always,
Sydney Windsor
I have stopped working with him because he calls himself independent. But his blog makes a few hundreds euros per month at best. You can’t work independently in Germany with that. You can’t even live decently. He also never established himself as a journalist, blogging is not journalism. I don’t believe he blackmails people though, but he is clearly paid or supported in what he does, we should know by who (he is also extremely rude even when you send him material).
Even Elizabeth Bik seems to avoid him nowadays, and she is rather tolerant, even with the fraudsters she exposes, she has an impeccable behaviour
This leads to last point. In judiciary system, intent is important. Schneider doesn’t know that, he can’t, so he should refrain from ad personam because this is how you cause drames. Talk to Eisen about his dad suicide after fraud accusations, and because of the suicide it will never be known what the guy actually knew. Since he can’t know people motivations, he should refrain to comment on them.
I agree we need better policies and control, and I wouldn’t be against convicted fraudsters having to reimburse the public money. But vigilante justice always leads to bad outcome. I am sure one day he will go one step too far.