"It's absolutely preposterous to speculate that way," said Timothy Gerber, a professor of music and former chairman of the university's faculty council.
Others have speculated that universities learned how to more intelligently pitch their research to the REF, for example by being more selective in the researchers whose work they submitted to the panels.
Others reached by phone speculated that the university was hit by accident, or argued that both sides in the conflict were to blame.
Christopher Soghoian, a tech expert at the American Civil Liberties Union, has speculated that the university might have feared the risk of a criminal prosecution or being sued by Tor users who felt their privacy had been violated.
It may also be speculated that individuals without university education are more excluded from the labour market today or that health literacy has become more central in the health care system.
Harvey speculated that if Stanford had established a seminary like other prestigious universities, its religious studies department and the "ethos" of the entire institution would be different.
It has been speculated that Duke and North Carolina, traditional basketball powers, are the only two universities leaning hard against expansion, with North Carolina State viewed as being on the fence.
At a private meeting, he speculated that differences between male and female brains explain why there are few women at top universities in science and maths.
Richard Routledge, a professor from Simon Fraser University, speculated that the fish may have caught the disease from a nearby fish farm.
In 2012 Laurence Ball, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, speculated that Mr Bernanke's retiring temperament may make him too eager for consensus.
An article published by the Berman Institute of Bioethics, at Johns Hopkins University, speculated that Pistorius may be a "pioneer on the posthuman frontier," whatever that might mean.
