I have been following the expanding Jason Arday case for a while now. For those enjoying some time off, here’s the story in brief. Jason Arday, a professor at the University of Cambridge, has come under scrutiny after allegations that parts of his academic work contained citation errors, unsupported claims and possible plagiarism.

The first time this story came onto my radar was – as always – via Retraction Watch. But also a Belgian philosopher shared a post by Nathan Cofnas. This post really seemed to have started the whole thing online. This last element is not a detail, as Cofnas is also controversial himself, making this story a left-versus-right culture war.

This was also one of the main reasons I didn’t want to write about it until now. Arday gave an interview to the Times and one aspect made me a bit furious. I’m talking about this paragraph:

He attributed some errors in his early academic work to his autism, saying that his method of making sense of information relied heavily on mimicry. He argued that if anyone’s academic work had been subjected to as much scrutiny it would show similar errors.

The second element: No, just no.

But I’m so sick of the first element in this paragraph. Some people very dear to me are on the spectrum. And I’m so fed up with people using autism as an excuse for some professional failings. The autistic people I know personally are often among the most conscientious and meticulous professionals I have met. You won’t find such mistakes in their work, trust me! That is, of course, only my own experience. And yes, I know autism is a spectrum with enormous individual differences, as much as there can be huge differences among all people. Using the diagnosis in this way can affect everyone who shares that diagnosis.

Whether autism played a role in his own experience is something only he can be sure of. My concern is the effect that such an explanation can have in a public defence of – imho – rather sloppy academic work.

Let me be clear: I’m not denying that autism can shape the way someone thinks, learns, works or lives. Of course it can, and for some people those effects can be profound, as I’ve seen from very close by. But I do think there is an important difference between recognising those challenges and using this diagnosis as a kind of broad explanation for poor academic practice.

Scientific work needs to be judged against the same standards regardless of who produces it. Suggesting otherwise does a disservice not only to science, but also to the many autistic researchers who meet those standards every day without asking for different ones.

So, for the sake of some of my dearest friends, let’s stop treating autism as a blanket explanation for poor academic practice. It neither helps science nor does justice to autistic researchers who are judged, and judge themselves, by exactly the same scholarly standards.