I suppose that depends on the elasticity of one’s concept of honesty.
I like to think of candor as a trait of honesty.
Sanford and Carter misrepresentation: The purpose of the paper was to see if we could find genetic entropy in action, and we did. Attempts to obscure genetic entropy in the H1N1 Virus
This should be headlined as “attempt to obscure our real agenda”. If that was the purpose of the paper, it is interesting that the phrase “genetic entropy” is not found anywhere in the paper! Search for yourself.
A new look at an old virus
Honesty displays openness.
The quality of the Sanford Carter paper may have reflected the lack of pertinent expertise, such as a virologist or epidemiologist in the author list. In general, Sanford’s writings seem to be siloed off from engagement with a broader, informed community. This is a subjective appraisal for sure, but Sanford’s response to criticism has been very thin skinned and evasive.
Honesty does not have to selective as to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. After all, most propaganda is factual, it is just a matter as to which facts it chooses to tell.
The Sanford and Carter H1N1 paper danced past several glaring, self-evident facts - virulence is not a measure of fitness, the 1918 epidemic grew more deadly - not attenuated - in the first year, epidemiology cannot simply ignore the susceptibility of the host population, patient treatment influences clinical outcomes, how the virus supposedly maintained potency in endemic reservoir for thousands of years; these basic considerations are lethal to the premise of the paper. So not only was the correlation not causation, there was no correlation to begin with. What a mess. There had to be an awareness of these issues.
While Sanford, et al, may be sincere in their commitment to genetic entropy as their central premise, in my mind the presentation of their argument has fallen short of a pro-active definition of academic integrity.