I don't see why keeping a shitty scientist on staff could be seen as a good idea when he's given them such an easy out.
i'm not prepared to say he's a shitty scientist. i'd have to evaluate a lot of his research in order to do that. but just by glancing at his cv, it's obvious he's attracted to controversial topics that have a lot of potential to crossover into the media outside of his professional field. and that he either consciously or unconsciously manages his career to get a lot of popular press publicity.
i think that may indicate a certain bias in selecting research topics, and possibly in interpreting his data, but in and of itself it doesn't mean he's a poor scientist.
everyone is wrong sometimes. if you're never wrong, your science is beyond boring, it's trivial. the idea that a researcher can't attempt to publish flawed research on a controversial topic without risk of being fired is tantamount to choosing ignorance over unpalatable truth. the idea that a researcher is risking his or her career to publish results that are not what the public would prefer to hear is among the most damaging messages that could possibly be sent to academia.
personally i think it's interesting that none of his critics (that i've seen) have proposed alternative explanations for his data. the allegations don't include that he falsified data, but that his analyses were flawed. the data are still relevant, and still interesting. people that don't like kanazawa's analyses could more profitably spend their time exploring other hypotheses, and less on sad little witch hunts.
