Talk:Paul Campos

9/30/2014--Correcting Vandalism of this page

This page appears to have been vandalized, with several relevant pieces of information removed. These have been restored. Criticism of Campos's obesity research by leading medical researchers in academic journals has been restored. The reaction among researchers to Campos's obesity research was almost universally negative, and removing the criticism from the page presents a misleading picture of the reception to his claims.

Citations to blog posts by and about Campos re: Inside the Law School Scam have been restored. All of the statements in Wikipedia are factually accurate, since they relate what Brian Leiter, Campos, Deborah Merritt and others wrote on their blogs without regard to whether those statements were factually accurate. A blog may not be an authoritative source as to factual claims, but it is an authoritative source with respect to what bloggers have written.

Campos is famous primarily because of his role as a blogger, not as professor or researcher, so the blog discussions are highly relevant. Campos blogged for years about these topics, and frequently had flame wars with Brian Leiter, so these are not isolated blog posts but rather a core part of his public persona.

The fact that Campos is not a member of the bar is relevant, since Campos has critiqued legal educators for not teaching practical skills and for hypocrisy. According to Campos, practical legal experience is an important qualification for a law professor. The fact that he lacks this qualification is clearly relevant to his biography.

Unsubstantiated Claims Removed

There are a number of self-aggrandizing and unsubstantiated claims that have been removed. The page claims that Campos drafted a letter to the ABA and collected signatures, but there is no evidence of this in the public record. All that is known is that he signed the letter, and the page has been edited to reflect that.

The page also claims that Campos is recognized for legitimizing Obesity Skepticisms and is a leader in the field of obesity research, citing to Michael Gard. Michael Gard is an obscure honorary professor of Human Movement Studies (basically Dance Studies) in Australia. His writings don't establish Campos as legitimizing or leading anything, especially not when serious researchers at serious universities (Like Johns Hopkins) have pilloried Campos in peer reviewed journals.

Journalist

Campos is not a journalist. A journalist is a person who writes news articles for journals or magazines, or broadcasts news on television. Blogging and writing the occasional op-ed does not make you a journalist. A more correct reasonable description would be "blogger" or possibly "pundit."

misrepresentation of the evidence

If one read Flegal's paper it does not say what Campos claims it says. He has misrepresented the scientific literature to make points that are not supported. Below is the abstract from Pubmed.com. 21 TI Excess deaths associated with underweight, overweight, and obesity.

AU Flegal KM; Graubard BI; Williamson DF; Gail MH

SO JAMA 2005 Apr 20;293(15):1861-7.

CONTEXT: As the prevalence of obesity increases in the United States, concern over the association of body weight with excess mortality has also increased. OBJECTIVE: To estimate deaths associated with underweight (body mass index [BMI] <18.5), overweight (BMI 25 to <30), and obesity (BMI > or =30) in the United States in 2000. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: We estimated relative risks of mortality associated with different levels of BMI (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) from the nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) I (1971-1975) and NHANES II (1976-1980), with follow-up through 1992, and from NHANES III (1988-1994), with follow-up through 2000. These relative risks were applied to the distribution of BMI and other covariates from NHANES 1999-2002 to estimate attributable fractions and number of excess deaths, adjusted for confounding factors and for effect modification by age. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Number of excess deaths in 2000 associated with given BMI levels. RESULTS: Relative to the normal weight category (BMI 18.5 to <25), obesity (BMI > or =30) was associated with 111,909 excess deaths (95% confidence interval [CI], 53,754-170,064) and underweight with 33,746 excess deaths (95% CI, 15,726-51,766). Overweight was not associated with excess mortality (-86,094 deaths; 95% CI, -161,223 to -10,966). The relative risks of mortality associated with obesity were lower in NHANES II and NHANES III than in NHANES I. CONCLUSIONS: Underweight and obesity, particularly higher levels of obesity, were associated with increased mortality relative to the normal weight category. The impact of obesity on mortality may have decreased over time, perhaps because of improvements in public health and medical care. These findings are consistent with the increases in life expectancy in the United States and the declining mortality rates from ischemic heart disease.

Yes, I just read that as well. The quote, "Underweight and obesity, particularly higher levels of obesity, were associated with increased mortality relative to the normal weight category" sum it up pretty well really. I confess I haven't read his book though. Blackmetalbaz (talk) 01:22, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

AD National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hyattsville, Md 20782, USA. kflegal@cdc.gov

PMID 15840860

Doc James (talk) 23:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and many medical researchers and public health experts have criticized Campos's research. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/obesity-health_b_2410158.html http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/may/22/20040522-102508-3674r/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/the-problem-with-all-of-this-overweight-people-live-longer-news/266756/ http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/1/60.full

The article should include a discussion of these criticisms.

Campos admits writing the Anonymous Law Professor blog

In a recent blog entry, Campos has outed himself as the author of Inside the Law School Scam, an incendiary account of the ways in which law schools serve their students badly. No less an authority than Brian Leiter has called him out on his shenanigans. Is this noteworthy and sufficiently sourced to include in the Campos article? 173.55.19.6 (talk) 15:44, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Leiter is more noteworthy than Campos. If Campos in noteworthy enough to merit a Wikipedia page, Leiter's criticism of him should definitely be included in it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.187.213 (talk) 17:58, 16 June 2013 (UTC)