In his most recent post on that wonderful site Heterodox Academy, GMU economics professor Dan Klein comments on a Chronicle interview with a professor who was looking into the Flint water problem. That professor, Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech, discusses his attempts to get information about it: “But when you reach out to them, as I did with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and they do not return your phone calls, do not share data, do not respond to FOIA requests…In each case I started asking questions and turning over rocks and I resolved to myself that the second something slimy doesn’t come out, I’m gonna go home. But every single rock you turn over, something slimy comes out.”

Klein relates this to the general problem he sees among academics who are not frank and open, but prefer to avoid intellectual challenge.