[HN Gopher] Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty
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Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty
Author : hansmeierbaum
Score : 126 points
Date : 2023-06-21 20:39 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ft.com)
| hsjqllzlfkf wrote:
| The title is clickbait in the sense that it suggests that we
| should expect this person to be super honest, and instead they
| were found to be dishonest.
|
| On the contrary, I think we should expect them to be dishonest,
| and they are. They literally have a book named "Why It Pays to
| Break the Rules at Work and in Life", what did you expect? Of
| course they're dishonest.
| carlmr wrote:
| After all, how can you be an expert on something without
| experience?
| rdlw wrote:
| Yes, the title is clickbait because you're smarter than
| everyone else and so are not surprised.
| hsjqllzlfkf wrote:
| Being surprised that an expert in dishonesty is dishonest is
| like being surprised that a lot of pyromaniacs become firemen
| or that a lot of pedos become teachers and priests - it's
| something they spend a lot of time doing and thinking about,
| it makes sense that they'd want to do it for a job if they
| can. No, I don't think spotting this pattern makes me smarter
| than everyone else.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| The title accurately represents what happened, wouldn't call
| that clickbait.
|
| The story is just entertaining.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| Dishonesty is a prerequisite for working for any large, legacy
| institution.
| necovek wrote:
| It's behind a paywall so didn't read the article, but title
| sounds about right: an expert putting his expertise to use. :D
| wittjeff wrote:
| See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ariely, author of
| (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies, later accused of data fraud
| and academic misconduct.
| m463 wrote:
| I read his dishonesty book and now I wonder if any of it is
| actually wrong (although most of it made sense at the time)
| tobinfricke wrote:
| Is Dan Ariely implicated in any of this? My understanding was
| that he was cleared.
| atchoo wrote:
| Sounds like it. Take a look at his wikipedia page. The
| Gino/Ariely paper that was retracted in 2021 has this to
| say:
|
| > Dan Ariely was the only author to have had access to the
| data prior to transmitting it in its fraudulent form
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ariely
| hammock wrote:
| Also Jonah Lehrer, author of pop science books Imagine and How
| We Decide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Lehrer
| renewiltord wrote:
| This guy is featured in the _So You 've Been Publicly Shamed_
| book, and it definitely seemed like he was pilloried pretty
| hard. It is interesting, though, which journalists get tarred
| and feathered and which ones are celebrated.
|
| Certainly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Novak have massive
| journalistic ethical errors: the former fabricating news for
| the US Government and the latter blowing a CIA agent's cover
| (the Plame Affair). Yet, they are celebrated journalists.
|
| It seems that you have to:
|
| - not be hypocritical (it is a greater sin to preach and sin;
| than simply to sin)
|
| - be younger (established powerhouses can steamroll these
| accusations)
|
| And to GP: thank you! The number of times Dan Ariely is
| involved in this data fabrication stuff does make the whole
| thing seem a bit fishy. At best, he is bad at trusting
| people, which makes any claims he makes low-coefficient since
| they could be from data from fabricators.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Maybe he is to blame, but the social sciences in general are
| inherently vulnerable to this sort of problem. There have been
| many instances of similar incidents over the past few decades or
| so. not just overt academic fraud but misconstruction of data,
| excel errors, poor methodology, publication bias, etc. This calls
| into doubt if anything in the social sciences can really be
| trusted.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Everything you say is true, except the part that implies it's
| just the social sciences. I don't know of any field of science
| that has looked into replicability in a serious way, that
| hasn't found similar problems.
| zetazzed wrote:
| Individual researchers have huge incentives for fraud, but large
| universities are the ones who most need to look inward here. HBS
| could become a beacon for stronger research practices in this
| area - requiring study preregistration and data collection
| methods that carefully trace provenance and changes. If HBS has
| fewer but better quirky marketing psychology studies, their
| reputation will do well. However for an individual researcher,
| the benefits to using extremely rigorous practices are not as
| clear, while the costs are high. A random grad student is not
| going to be able to establish a norm of data traceability.
|
| I worked in this area (at Harvard as well) a bit as a grad
| student and can absolutely understand the temptation for the
| lighter version of this. If you can drop one outlier group, you
| get a cool story and a job at a top 10 b-school. Or keep it, get
| a muddled result, and try again for a better paper next year. I
| ended up just leaving the field entirely as the whole "our system
| massively rewards dodgy practices" vibe really bummed me out.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| For similar reasons, I left academia.
|
| I joined academia for the pursuit of truth, and forth the glory
| of Knowing. But it turned out that academia doesn't really do
| this anymore, it just sells itself as doing these things.
|
| Academia is entirely a "reputation" system, as it turns out,
| from paper publishing to student-evaluations to "public
| rankings." As it turns out, the capitalist marketplace must
| also contend with these issues, but imho (and somewhat
| counterintuitively), it does so somewhat more honestly.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| From the original Data Colada article
| (http://datacolada.org/109):
|
| "We understand that Harvard had access to much more information
| than we did, including, where applicable, the original data
| collected using Qualtrics survey software. If the fraud was
| carried out by collecting real data on Qualtrics and then
| altering the downloaded data files, as is likely to be the case
| for three of these papers, then the original Qualtrics files
| would provide airtight evidence of fraud. (Conversely, if our
| concerns were misguided, then those files would provide airtight
| evidence that they were misguided.)"
|
| It does not appear that Harvard found any evidence that they were
| misguided...
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| A very very long time ago I did some programming to help a friend
| of a friend analyze a data set. The data set was from public
| schools and it was being used to inform some policies at the
| state level. All I can say is, the data submitted from many
| schools had very disturbing patterns of regularity (as in
| identical records on many unexpected metrics that you would not
| expect) ... like 10 or 15 records in a row, in the same rough
| geographic area (we didn't have exact addresses) with the exact
| same scores in all subjects as well as reading and match
| assessments. Basically it looked like someone had copy pasted
| rows of data over and over while keeping the original unique ID
| numbers (end result, different ID numbers representing different
| students, all having the exact same scores). And guess what ...
| whenever I saw that pattern, the scores were all very much above
| average. You didn't see that pattern with below average scores.
|
| I told the person I was working with about the data and suggested
| it was fraudulent and she became concerned and raised it with her
| supervisor. Within about 24 hours I no longer had access to the
| data sets. And the friend of a friend just said that she didn't
| need help anymore.
|
| I suppose I could have raised a fuss and contacted a journalist
| but all I had was columns of data without context. Plus at the
| time I'm ashamed to say I was playing a lot of World of Warcraft
| and not inclined to do much else that required effort.
| anoxor wrote:
| We have decided we are a post-truth society. Turns out solving
| that problem is non-trivial when we rely on experts that are
| themselves human who view the world as post-truth.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't know that any given lie(s) means someone believes in
| "post-truth".
|
| I suspect most lies are just short term convinces.
| jrockway wrote:
| We've always been a post-truth society. I think it's just how
| humans are. We want easy answers, and if there are none, we
| invent them. I don't think that the human from 1AD is better
| than the human from 2023AD for example. What we used to blame
| on God we now blame on 5G or whatever. Same stuff, different
| details.
|
| What has changed in the past 2000 years is the availability of
| information. Nothing is 100% true other than defined Universal
| constants. Everything else is on a spectrum. Those that want to
| get closer to 100% truth have many tools to get them along.
| Those that don't care can ask ChatGPT and get something 25%
| true. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them
| drink. That's just how people are, and AI isn't really changing
| that.
| adamrezich wrote:
| yeah but we had that really comfortable era for awhile there,
| where mass information dissemination was centralized in the
| hands of a few major institutions, so everyone was more or
| less on the same page--all you had to do was pick up a
| newspaper, or listen to the radio, or watch news on
| television.
|
| this gave us the _illusion_ that we were in a world of Truth,
| because why would these centralized corporations ever lie to
| us, or massage the facts in any way? it 's The News, of
| _course_ it 's inherently trustworthy.
|
| then the Web came about, causing some to see cracks in the
| foundations. then the iPhone was released, social media took
| off, and now the news monoculture is almost (but not quite)
| dead, and we're back to fending for ourselves in this
| onslaught of information.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| We saw the cracks in the foundations but _we also saw the
| foundations_.
|
| It cracks me up every time an alt media source throws shit
| at mainstream media for having journalistic standards that
| are far from perfect _but still higher on an absolute level
| than said alt media_. Retraction policies, always asking
| the accused for comment, citing sources, the list goes on.
| Unfortunately, it seems that people are more impressed by
| performative hatred of mainstream media than they are by
| the exercise of actual journalistic integrity, so I guess
| things will just get worse until (I have to hope) we figure
| it out again. Ah well, so it goes.
| dahwolf wrote:
| "Nothing is 100% true other than defined Universal constants.
| Everything else is on a spectrum."
|
| Nicely put, because it explains the widespread disappointment
| in journalism, media, academia that don't even seem to try
| anymore.
| willcipriano wrote:
| You don't get it. They are the experts. They know better than
| you, so they are going to say whatever is going to make you do
| what they want done. You are merely observing the shadows on
| the wall of a cave. Why should they let you make any important
| decisions?
| Y_Y wrote:
| I didn't decide that. I don't think most people I know would.
| Maybe lots of people feel like "others" have decided that, but
| they'd hardly do it off their own bat.
|
| (Anyway, what do you mean by "truth"?[0])
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski's_undefinability_theore...
| drewda wrote:
| First reported in the Chronicle of Higher Ed:
| https://archive.is/0zOU8
| neilv wrote:
| In situations like this, people should demand credible
| investigations, then wait quietly while that proceeds -- avoiding
| trial-by-Twitter and summary execution upon accusation.
| seydor wrote:
| Well how else would she be an expert?
| mrstone wrote:
| Francesca Gino is a woman.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Hey, if you want a job done right, call in an expert.
| AHOHA wrote:
| And then I'm accused of having trust issues!!
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Adding to the irony:
|
| She is the best-selling author, most recently, of "Rebel Talent:
| Why it Pays to Break the Rules in Work and Life."
| cebsoto wrote:
| The book comes across as being very anecdotal....it is easy to
| mold anecdotes to whatever point of view you are trying to get
| across. In their zeal to find hard facts to back up their
| theories, did they play hard and fast with the rules?
| edgyquant wrote:
| As the adage goes, "if you talk about it, be about it."
| Dowwie wrote:
| That's weak-- accused. Also, who cares if they did lie? Knowing
| about dishonesty is not the same as positioning oneself as a
| beacon for morality. This is not front-page HN worthy material.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Well, this way, we could have a followup story next week:
|
| "Harvard dishonesty expert dishonestly accused of dishonesty"
| resolutebat wrote:
| The actual blog posts make it crystal clear that the data was
| manipulated to make it provide the desired results.
|
| https://datacolada.org/109
|
| https://datacolada.org/110
| bombcar wrote:
| This blog has a lot of detailed posts if you're interested in
| this sort of thing, deep dives into how you find fake data
| (helpful if you need to fake your data better!).
| pyrale wrote:
| Reading the material proof and Harvard's reaction, the "accused
| of" is merely journalistic caution for a red-handed case.
|
| > Also, who cares if they did lie
|
| They didn't just lie, they tampered with collected data used
| for scientific research, harming their co-authors' work and
| reputation and giving fake leads to their field of study, thus
| wasting their peers' time spent on reproducing the case. It may
| also have had an effect on promotions that their peers should
| have gotten and on the way people got managed, based on these
| behavioral studies.
|
| Also the evidence collection displayed in another reply is
| technically interesting.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Well, isn't it ironic... don't you think?
|
| (and if you didn't catch that reference, have a look at Prof.
| Gino's photo.)
| leoh wrote:
| Self-licensing strikes again
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licensing
| askiiart wrote:
| https://archive.is/uZkrj
| timcavel wrote:
| [dead]
| bluepod4 wrote:
| I mean, it takes one to know one.
| some_random wrote:
| I've lost a lot of confidence in the practice of science in the
| last decade or so from the Replication Crisis and worse, the
| response to the crisis from the scientific community (the phrase
| "methodological terrorist" comes to mind).
| Y_Y wrote:
| Whoever is the most honest person on hn, I hereby accuse that
| person of being a dishonest, impolite dog-botherer.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| There is this pattern where things are always the opposite of
| their message:
|
| - Dishonesty expert is dishonest
|
| - Politicians who constantly talk about freedom want to restrict
| anything that doesn't fit their world view
|
| - Militant anti-gay preachers hire call boys
|
| - Diversity teams are the least diverse
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've always wondered if ethics class impart any ethics at all.
| If you're not an ethical person, why would you become one after
| taking such a class? If you're already an ethical person,
| taking a class in it is pointless.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Similar to a dating coach that has hundreds of dates to draw
| expertise from, making them actually terrible at dating, if
| the point is to form long term relationships.
| telotortium wrote:
| The fact that the term "ethics" is used so much in a CYA way,
| or else as transparent rationalization of whatever worldview
| is currently dominant among the PMC, has given me an almost
| allergic reaction to that word.
| fasterik wrote:
| Ethical theory is an interesting subject in its own right.
| Even if studying it doesn't make you a better person, that
| doesn't make it useless, any more than studying abstract
| areas of math or physics is useless.
|
| That being said, some work in practical ethics has had a huge
| impact. Peter Singer's work on animal ethics started the
| modern animal rights movement, and his essay "Famine,
| Affluence, and Morality" has inspired many people to donate a
| lot more to charity than they otherwise would.
| jjk166 wrote:
| There is a distinction between understanding and practicing
| ethics. It's like taking a course on leadership vs being a
| good leader - some people might have a legitimate desire to
| be a good leader, but not know the best techniques; taking a
| course allows them to understand how to be a good leader so
| that they might become one. As another example, an atheist
| could study theology not to better practice religion but
| merely to better understand it.
|
| Someone can likewise have every intention of being ethical,
| but just be bad at it. Conversely, someone could know ethics
| well and simply choose to disregard them and do unethical
| things anyways. An ethicist isn't necessarily someone who
| practices ethics particularly well, it's someone who
| understands the concepts of ethics well.
| telotortium wrote:
| > - Diversity teams are the least diverse
|
| IME DEI is usually a function rolled into HR (although they
| often contract with diversity training firms), rather than a
| separate team, except at large companies. Where there are
| separate DEI teams, they tend to be the most diverse, at least
| among the white-collar workforce - the requirements for these
| jobs tend to be quite nonspecific, because they don't really
| need to do much besides write stuff and give presentations
| related to diversity. These tasks can, at a pinch, be mostly
| handed off to interns and ChatGPT, or else involve cribbing
| from preexisting presentation templates. The actual
| engineering, PM, etc., teams tend to be less diverse -
| graduates of specific university programs tend to be less
| diverse, in the non-euphemistic sense, than university
| graduates as a whole.
| johntb86 wrote:
| At least ethicists are about as ethical as other people:
| https://qz.com/1582149/ethicists-are-no-more-ethical-than-th...
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Oh look, her primary field is Behavioral Science. I'm shocked.
| Really.
|
| /s
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I have the feeling that the difference between the social
| sciences, which have been rocked by the replication crisis
| pretty hard, and every other part of science, is that the
| social sciences are aware of their problem. I'm not aware of
| any field of science that has looked for problems with
| replicability, that has not found them. Most have not looked.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| I am shocked to see no one has yet said "how can they be an
| expert if they aren't also a practitioner?" :D
| neilv wrote:
| Recent HN post over US holiday weekend: Data Falsificada (Part
| 1): "Clusterfake" - Data Colada (datacolada.org) | 37 points by
| malshe 4 days ago | 8 comments |
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36374255
| jamessb wrote:
| The FT article says: 'A group of academics who compile the Data
| Colada blog about the evidence behind behavioural science has
| started publishing a series of posts in which they say they will
| detail "evidence of fraud in four academic papers" co-authored by
| Gino'.
|
| The first two of these blog posts are:
|
| https://datacolada.org/109
|
| https://datacolada.org/110
| Trombone12 wrote:
| From the second link:
|
| > students approached this "Year in School" question in a
| number of different ways. For example, a junior might have
| written "junior", or "2016" or "class of 2016" or "3" (to
| signify that they are in their third year). All of these
| responses are reasonable.
|
| > A less reasonable response is "Harvard" [...] Nevertheless,
| the data file indicates that 20 students did so. Moreover, and
| adding to the peculiarity, those students' responses are all
| within 35 rows (450 through 484) of each other in the posted
| dataset
|
| In addition, of these 20 very suspicious rows, most were
| strongly confirming the hypothesis of the authors.
|
| Likewise the first link shows that, in a spreadsheet containing
| outcomes sorted by treatment group, someone had manually moved
| rows from the span of rows containing one kind of treatment to
| a span containing outcomes from a different treatment. These
| provably manually reordered rows also contained most of the
| strong evidence for the predicted effect...
| rossdavidh wrote:
| It all suggests that, in addition to falsifying data, they
| had become so blase about falsifying data that they weren't
| particularly careful about it. Which suggests that they may
| have been falsifying data for a long time...
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Seriously, when the goin' gets tough, you don't want a criminal
| lawyer, all right? You want a _criminal_ lawyer, know what I 'm
| sayin'?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvlEqAjg8aU
| evanb wrote:
| The primary explanation: http://datacolada.org/109
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