I think that it's fair to analyse the author's success or lack thereof, because he relies on this as part of his argument, e.g. My friends have also pointed ou

I think that it's fair to analyse the author's success or lack thereof, because he relies on this as part of his argument, e.g. My friends have also pointed out that I should not be "discouraged" by the difficulties faced as a scientist, that I should continue to "fight." Again, they are wrong; discouragements due to failures have never kept me down. I have never been afraid of failures and of retrying, and retrying again; my scientific successes are what discouraged me, because I know how they were obtained I will still publish my book, The Revolutionary Phenotype, which contains an important novel theory on the emergence of life The author's argument rests on both his success in academia in spite of its unfairness, but even more importantly, it relies on his claims to have found more fruitful pursuits outside academia. I don't think anyone really considers how personally fulfilling these pursuits to be to be an important issue, but rather whether he is actually correct that these pursuits are more valuable to society than academia.