The Daily Tar Heel
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The Daily Tar Heel

Willingham’s explanation was insufficient

TO THE EDITOR:

While I welcome Mary Willingham’s attempt to dispel misconceptions about her research in her letter to the editor on Monday, I would like to encourage her to further address concerns raised by this research.

Namely, I am hoping that Ms. Willingham will share with us the methods by which she collected her data and how then she analyzed and interpreted this data in order to draw the conclusions that she shared with the national media.

Such an explanation is absolutely central to any academic research, as it allows the reader to analyze for him/herself the validity of both a researcher’s data and the conclusions the researcher draws from that data.

Allegations have been made in these pages and elsewhere that have cast serious doubt on the methods employed by Ms. Willingham, and thus also on the validity of her conclusions. If these allegations are in fact untrue, Ms. Willingham should share with us what her actual methods were. So far her silence on this particular issue has been deafening.

Brock Baker ‘09
UNC School of Medicine
Former captain
Varsity Track and Field

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