Arming America Professor Resigns in Wake of Investigation

Follow-Up: A history professor ‘s controversial claims about the origins of gun culture — and his inability to back up those claims using scholarly methiods accepted by his peers — cost him his job. A passage from Emory’s official investigative report (a PDF document) — “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.”

—Arming America Professor Resigns in Wake of Investigation (Emory)

Note: He didn’t “intend” to mislead, but his published results were so misleading that his university lost confidence in him. In his rebuttal statement (PDF), Bellesiles writes, “The report casts aspersion on my integrity as a scholar based on three paragraphs and a table in a six hundred-page book. It seems to me that raising uncertainties that question the credibility of an entire book without considering the book as a whole is just plain unfair.”