Scientists: Have you ever been darrened?

No. That’s not a misspelling of ‘damned’.
It’s a newly invented word with a somewhat similar meaning.

Darrened means
‘pretending to care while seeking to undermine’. This is similar to ‘damning with faint praise’, but without the praise. The only praise you’ll hear is praising themselves as kind and caring enough to damn your enterprise, study or body of work. As a scientist you may run across this duplicitous behavior, as I have.

If this happens to you, here’s how to recognize it and deal with it.

Why they do it
would involve mind-reading, which is always inappropriate if you’re not a professional mind reader. Since those who darren others see themselves as ‘doing the right thing’, that reason has to be considered.

In any case,
‘why’ questions are too often answered with opinions, not evidence, as you are already aware.

See how I threw in a little unprofessional mind-reading there?
Just an example of what to watch out for.

Dead giveaway phrases (linked to sources) include:

1. ‘not trustworthy‘ – science should never be trusted, only tested
2. ‘outside the normal academic community‘ – Even within this ‘community’ many well-known scientists were ignored, lampooned, dismissed and held in contempt. If you don’t know the list. Look it up. It’s long. In any case, insight and progress sometimes comes from outsiders. So focus on the message, not the messenger.
3. “strongly disagree with just about all of his claims‘ – disagree’ is an opinion. Not evidence. BTW, whichever few claims that passed ‘the agreeable test’ are never mentioned, so no credit is given.
4. ‘failed to get heretical ideas into the technical literature‘ – this statement recorded here, failed to list the ‘heretical’ ideas that DID get into the technical literature a decade earlier. Never good when a PhD omits pertinent citations and uses that in a dismissal of achievements.
5. ‘reviewers, as skeptical scientists, can see unreliable and inaccurate work,’ – this is the self-praise mentioned above. In reality, reviewers, like all of us, have human filters, that seek to maintain status and income. Threats to that stasis (one link here) are dealt with by rejecting manuscripts. It’s simple primate psychology, amplified by the seeking of academic status by diminishing rivals. Not good science.
6. ” Many of us have tried to help you.” – 1) ‘Many’ is hyperbole. 2) ‘us‘ separates the elite from the unwashed, 3) ‘tried to help you’ is self-praise. 4) ‘you’ turns the issue from data and evidence to ad hominem = a personal attack, undermining all output. This is science, so try to keep ‘you’ out of all comments and replies. Instead say, “competing data and evidence with different results will be sent via email. Together let’s figure out why the two results differ.”

There are more ‘catch phrases’ in the references below.

It doesn’t have to be this way.
Some suggestions follow:

If you become an upstart darrened target,
as in all primate societies, you will receive

1. only criticism, never credit
2. more than your fair share of negative gossip
3. an inferior status = socially demoted and ostracized as an outsider
4. silence for any success

On the plus side you will be envied (privately). That’s because you will be doing what they planned to do when they started their own program: making discoveries. So take your lumps knowing this. And remember: “The first guy through the wall always gets bloody.“