10 ms·
Harvard ethics professor allegedly fabricated multiple studies
- koollman 3y ago"ethics". Well at least they are creating more examples to analyze
- medymed 3y agoI wonder if *she fabricated the data or if desperate graduate students did. In which case the ethical considerations are perhaps(?) slightly different and may be worth writing a paper about, with survey data of course, only slightly modified to support the field’s party line.
- jpadkins 3y agoShe. Professor Francesca Gino
- dsr_ 3y agoAnd, in subsequent paragraphs, also Dan Ariely (he).
- ameister14 3y agoDan Ariely is neither the subject of the article nor a professor at Harvard
- dsr_ 3y agoI'm not supposed to imply that you didn't read the article.
- dtjb 3y agoIf you read the underlying findings [1], there were two behavioral ethics studies with fabricated results. The first was conducted in 2012 and was supervised by Ariely. [1] https://datacolada.org/109 https://datacolada.org/109
- ameister14 3y agoI'm aware - in context, however, it appears *dsr was defending the use of 'he' used as a default without reading the article where the subject is clearly a 'she.' Whether another professor at Duke mentioned in the article supervised the study doesn't really matter.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hexomancer 3y ago"she was the only author involved in collecting and analyzing data for it, the trio reported"
- biohazard2 3y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424090
- dang 3y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424090 - June 2023 (201 comments)
- hospitalJail 3y agoThe Ivy leagues cannot catch a break. I imagine this stuff happens at state schools too, but yet another nail in the coffin of their reputation. Sincerely, a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but makes a ton of money because I know 4 skills that synergize and scarce.
- lusus_naturae 3y agoThe ivy/state dichotomy is unnecessary for research quality as it depends more on the research capacity and capability of an institution, e.g. if its an R1 vs. R2. You're probably right that perverse incentives degrade or corrupt research anywhere--it's a systemic problem. Moreover, any discussion of research ethics that doesn't include industry or industry-sponsored work is incomplete. If scientists had more than a citation index to establish productivity so that they can justify getting or keeping funding, the community could probably make some headway towards addressing behavior such as Gino's. Outright fraud is less prevalent than bad science or misinterpreted or misunderstood results. Personally I am in favor of a replication index for all original work, at least.
- th230603 3y agoGino worked for a business school, as did several of her collaborators. Often for business school profs, their work will be judged less on academic acceptance (peer-reviewed publication, etc) and more on its 'real-world impact'. You are seen as a good academic of marketing if you can market yourself into Ted talks, pop science publications, and ultimately, influence on 'decision-makers' (the sort of politicians and thinktanks who believe that eg healthcare can be solved by painting hospitals orange). So there are strong incentives to falsify results but they are quite different from those which bear on actual scientists.
- Yajirobe 3y ago> Sincerely, a person who went to a school you've never heard of, but makes a ton of money Hey, good for you!
- mahathu 3y ago
- air7 3y agoWow. The first few paragraphs read like a story from The Onion.
- sva_ 3y agoI like how the article simply links to sci-hub (in "Notably, a famous article discussing dishonesty [...]")
- danjoredd 3y agoIs freedom of information dishonesty?
- pessimizer 3y agoI've definitely never seen that before. I was actually a little startled on mouseover and for a moment wondered if it was my browser (did I install some weird plugin?)
- christkv 3y agoThe worst part of these kind of studies and I include sociology and psychology studies is that they are often used to create policy in the private or public sector causing untold damage to organizations, employers and citizens.
- ethanbond 3y agoHow else should we create policies if not “conduct research, design policy around what we believe we know?” Of course if “these kind of studies” refers to fraudulent ones, then yeah no one would disagree.
- lockhouse 3y agoThe issue is that policy is being established based on studies that are either very badly designed or in many cases outright fraudulent, often with devastating consequences. Like many things, research is often spoiled by human nature. Researchers want to prove their hypothesis so desperately that they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make that hypothesis true. Perverse incentives are everywhere in the research world.
- edgyquant 3y agoThrough the democratic process?
- staticman2 3y agoI didn't realize voters were not allowed to read studies.
- edgyquant 3y agoNobody said anything if the sort. The point is a lot of these “studies” are not reproducible (or in this case literally made up.). So what it does it matter if the average voter reads then? How about we stop trying to force “policies” on a population who doesn’t care about them and using unscientific studies to convince them they need it. I’m sure you’ll have a snarky remark to this, in which case don’t bother.
- jononomo 3y agoDan Ariely is another person in this space who has been spouting BS (he is mentioned in this article). I remember when Ariely used to make the news on a regular basis and I'm glad that he's dropped off the face of the Earth.
- somsak2 3y agoWhile not as popular as he was, he's still pretty big. I think the main reason is likely because he hasn't published a new book since 2019, though that's coming in September later this year. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F027j8z5 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0... https://www.amazon.com/-/en/Dan-Ariely-ebook/dp/B0BQMZXC3T https://www.amazon.com/-/en/Dan-Ariely-ebook/dp/B0BQMZXC3T
- jononomo 3y agoCrap. I hope he gets raked over the coals in interviews and is constantly badgered about his dishonesty.
- LatteLazy 3y agoThe older I get, the more prejudiced I get: STEM exists, everything else is just bullshit. Ethics is just made up. Even the less rigorous "sciences" like psychology are mostly just nonsense (unreproducible "results", driven by fashion not results, more about getting donor/client money in than actually discovering or changing anything) as far as I can see.
- GildedIgel 3y agoThat’s why STEM professions have ethical guidelines and standards - here’s AMSTAT -> https://www.amstat.org/your-career/ethical-guidelines-for-statistical-practice https://www.amstat.org/your-career/ethical-guidelines-for-st...
- LatteLazy 3y agoThese always seem like nonsense to me. People who don't need guidelines gain nothing from them. People who need them won't sign up to them. Meanwhile I have to fill in a form and have a 2h meeting before I can shine a laser on an (already dead, commercially available) butterfly's wing?!
- JHonaker 3y agoI’ve had the opposite trajectory, and I think there’s a lot of danger in a wider adoption of your stance. The deeper I go on STEM things, the more I realize everything is, in your words, “bullshit.” I want to be clear that I would phrase that as “based on consensus,” and not as bullshit. I have seen so many doomed/failed projects/models that have come up because people say “well, it’s math, so it has to be right.”
- LatteLazy 3y agoI mean, if the maths was right it was right. If it was wrong and people decided to proceed anyway then that's "consensus based" (or bullshit as I ineloquently put it :) ) like non stem seems to be most of the time. Sorry if I'm missing your point?
- DeathArrow 3y agoMaybe he just needed more examples to discuss in his courses?
- bluecalm 3y agoNot very surprising. There are incentives to publish, especially surprising stuff (so you can call it ground breaking) and no incentives to be right in a sense that your results align with reality. Imagine spending time to prepare a paper then collecting data just to see it doesn't show what you hoped it shows. Your choices are to bin several weeks/months of you work to the detriment of your career or help a bit so the data behaves. The risk is close to 0, the reward (or lack of punishment) is clear. It's crazy to not expect significant % of individuals facing the choice going with the massaging the data option. It all flies in social science because most of the stuff they "research" range from interesting but not very useful curiosities to completely pointless. No devices are being built based on it. No serious investment being made. No policies are going to be affected or if they are then studies are picked for ideological compliance not for describing reality well. You're also not going to face a lawsuit as you might in say medicine. "Your honour, I've read the study , started breaking the rules and got expelled from school" is not going to get you far.
- currymj 3y agoI don't think your last point is quite right. there is a large amount of fraud (real fraud, photoshopping images to show fake scientific results) in biology, some of which has directly led to serious pharmaceutical investments in drugs that don't work. Recently Cassava Sciences got in trouble for this. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/health/alzheimers-cassava-simufilam.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/health/alzheimers-cassava... as far as the alleged data fraud in this story, at least two of the authors have made a lot of money giving talks, consulting, and acting as scientific advisors on the basis of their research, so there's also fairly serious financial stakes.
- trabant00 3y agoWhere there's demand there will be supply. People are asking too much of science and technology in the last decades. We want instant results, shortcuts, secrets to success. Nobody wants to pay for slow steady progress and long term results. Change your life in 30 days with this diet, stoic philosophy program, psychology tidbits book, social media app, 100 push-ups, etc. What you want to buy is what they will be selling.
- h2odragon 3y agoPeople used to blame God for their faults and "I know this isn't so but i Wish it was". Now they blame "Science." Perhaps soon they'll blame their AI assistants for the actions and attitudes they do no wish to be responsible for. The one thing I wont bet on, is people suddenly deciding to accept that they are the genesis of their misery and their joy, and stop seeking an outside "other" source of authority.
- PaulKeeble 3y agoAlmost no findings in psychology survive 20 years, almost all of them are determined to be fraudulent manipulation of data and findings or at the least fail to be replicated. Psychology is not producing scientific findings as a field, it's completely ignorable and responsible for a large chunk of the science replication crisis.
- klysm 3y agoAn epistemological crisis rooted in a shitty incentive system and powered by bad statistics
- booleandilemma 3y agoIt sure does give you some cool factoids to bring up at parties though. Did you hear the one about the prison experiment?
- blululu 3y agoThe interpretation is never so simple. I'm not sure what that guy at Stanford was trying to prove but his research conclusively proved that tenured psych professors at leading universities can be wildly unethical. This discovery helped support the creation of institutional review boards across the country - one of the first major restrictions on academic freedom in the history of science.
- sandworm101 3y agoOr they proved that if you setup some people to work/live in a fake prison, they end up acting basically like all the other people who already work/live in realworld prisons. It's like having people sit in a MacDonald's for ten hours each day, then writing a paper about how subjects ate more fast food during the trial period. Breaking news: Starting a new job in Hawaii increases the likelihood that you will take up surfing.
- vgalin 3y agoIf this is an established fact, where could one learn more about this?
- keepamovin 3y agoI suppose that's one solution: if you don't want to become ethical you can just change the world (as in reframe it) until you do. I see nothing wrong here: he gets to profess his ethics, but doesn't actually have to live it. Mission accomplished. /s
- juujian 3y agoIn this case it's a 'she'. Yes, this feels like a strange context to ensure representation in science :)
- keepamovin 3y agoI'm showing my silly biases about gender in unethical behavior, ha ha! :) Thank you for the correction. I'll update my priors.
- screye 3y agoStop treating non-sciences like sciences. The social sciences have a certain hypocrisy to them. "We do not need to be as grounded in math as the other sciences" runs up against "Our results are mathematically significant and deserve the same respect as the other sciences." Doing statistics in the hard sciences is easy, yet we study them at a graduate level. Setting up variable controls in hard sciences is easier, yet we spend years training people on eliminating even the smallest chance of error through rigid lab protocols. The hard sciences allow you to collect enough data-points, that a large effect size is almost always statistically significant... yet we report p-values religiously every step of the way. Social sciences have none of those affordances, yet they somehow get away with even less mathematical and statistical rigor. I mean this both in training and in practice. The social sciences are harder to control. It is a 'science' that can say very little about anything (purely due to difficulty of setting up controlled experiments). Yet, social science produces a disproportionate number of 'spicy' results. Not all fields will produce 'ground breaking' work and that should be fine. I'm not sure where the incentive/impetus for it comes from, but social scientists build storied careers on results that would get rejected from any respected science journal for lack of rigor. It is as if there is this pressure on every academic to prove something fundamental about human nature few years, all while it's plainly clear that we as humans know almost nothing about human nature. If centuries of work in this field has not been able to find a few foundational facts (fancy alliteration), then maybe the field needs to reconsider its ambitiousness and self-assured confidence.
- _yb2s 3y agoI’ve found the opposite… because of the complexity and noise the social sciences are using more sophisticated statistical methods than the “hard” sciences. In grad school I took Bayesian probability theory classes from social scientists because my “hard” science peers were still using frequentist statistical tests, often applied inappropriately by just copying methods from past papers that also applied the methods inappropriately. The social sciences in general seem to be a decade or two ahead in adopting improved methods, and researchers spend a lot more time understanding these methods, writing custom software and models, etc. IMO, mathematical and computational “literacy” is particularly low in the medical and life sciences compared to the social sciences, physics and chemistry are not quite as bad.
- neilv 3y agoThe HN title doesn't include the "allegedly" currently in the article's title. The lede of the article also calls it "accused of".
- pyrale 3y agoYou can check the article explaining the evidence by yourself, it's pretty damning. [1]: https://datacolada.org/109 https://datacolada.org/109 [2]: https://datacolada.org/110 https://datacolada.org/110 [3]: https://datacolada.org/111 https://datacolada.org/111
- neilv 3y agoHN has a convention of using the headline from the article, and it puts the article's publisher name/domain right after the headline, like attribution. So the impression is that particular publisher is saying that thing definitively. The difference of "allegedly" is big to a publisher (missing it can break their own company), and to a journalist. Because of this, I think it's also a big difference to the savvy reader. When an outlet dispenses with the "allegedly" or phrasing as someone else's claim/assertion, that feels to me like a rare occasion on which they really want to impress that it's definitive. And that they know what they're doing, and that experienced readers can tell. Never crying wolf. (A little like how you'd say "literally" once in a decade or lifetime, with emphasis, for impact, when it was really true.)
- steveads 3y agoThe irony is strong. Her 2018 book title: "Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life"
- 1MachineElf 3y agoFacts support that throughout human history, those who are lauded in the field of ethics are often the ones who help us rationalize, justify, and moralize what would previously have been considered unethical behavior.
- somsak2 3y agoThis is mentioned in the second sentence of the linked article.
- codesnik 3y agoResearching remorse, N=1
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoI honestly love how archaic the science research community is. It's like we're still in the 19th century, where the claims made by people of high reputation are taken as gospel, rather than trusting a rigorous process without personal or professional reputation bias. All the bullshit about publishing for the sake of getting a grant, getting your name on a paper to up your rep, etc is amazing. Like the purpose of science isn't science but to play an elaborate professional reputation game that happens to include science.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago> Like the purpose of science isn't science but to play an elaborate professional reputation game that happens to include science. The scary part comes about 50 years ago when everyone woke up one morning and figured out that the "happens to include science" part wasn't strictly necessary.
- adamrezich 3y agoto my mind, this is the actually interesting psychological finding—that we, collectively, as a society, fall for this bullshit, time and time again, and we continue to reinforce societal structures that continue to let this sort of thing happen, largely without consequence.
- vacuity 3y agoActual interviews of people being told about this fraud: "Oh no! Anyways." When most people are stuck in a rat race to get rich and "become successful", there's not much energy or reason to care about some drama, unless it's entertaining or political, perhaps. If my employer follows the newest workplace fads based on some studies, I might care. Otherwise, why should I spend mental energy (at the very least) trying to get the messes of scientific research cleaned up?
- dennis_jeeves1 3y ago>we continue to reinforce societal structures that continue to let this sort of thing happen, largely without consequence. People are morons, generation after generation, what else do you expect?
- alkibiades 3y agowhat bothers me most is when politicians and corporations make policies based on these junk studies but no, we have to “trust the science” for example, if you create a study whose results show that diversity is good in some way, you’ll get endless citations and orgs will make policies after it. even if it’s fraudulent, no one’s likely to look too deep into it. you wouldn’t be able to publish one that said the opposite. or if you did, you’d likely end your career
- joshe 3y agoShe was right about her book title "Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life." Committing fraud paid well. HBS professor salary is about $220K per year. Ten years of salary is a $2 million payoff. Big incentives to do this. Worth a policy change by university for clawbacks of salary and especially pensions and tenure. Like insider trading she should be forced to disgorge all the profits from her fraud. Dan Ariely too. And worth charging for criminal fraud, she defrauded her university and students. 5 years in jail seems fine. It's time to stop pretending academics are a medieval nobles who grow faint at the idea of their sacred honor being besmirched. With huge salary opportunities for bold populist claims academics will take big risks to achieve choice jobs even if they think they will eventually be discovered.
- hx8 3y agoShe also defrauded all publications she submitted fabricated science to. She defrauded all readers of her studies, and everyone that wrote about her studies. Imagine if actual public policy was made on behalf of her science.
- mlyle 3y ago> Worth a policy change by university for clawbacks of salary As a matter of employment law, it's generally pretty difficult to claw back pay from an employee. And this is almost always a good thing.
- stronglikedan 3y agoDefinitely a good thing. There's already channels for this. If they can prove fraud, they can go through the legal system to get that money back. It doesn't need to be a university policy, and shouldn't be - or any enforceable employer policy for that matter.
- godelski 3y agoAgreed. I don't see how the current system doesn't already have channels to take action against her. If fraud can be proven, which looks like it can be, then: the school will fire her, sue her, the publisher/s can sue her, etc. Even that guy with the signed book in the comments. There is no need to update contracts to necessitate clawbacks since these essentially already exist. I'd assume that such a policy change could actually have severe unintended consequences as it would necessitate some metric to evaluate this, which it is notoriously difficult to do with respect to research. Not to mention that most research that is wrong is not wrong to intentional acts of deception, but just that people make mistakes. I'd assume the consequences would result in this territory, making mistakes far more costly. Not something we want for research, where essentially we're trying to learn how to play the rules to a game by playing the game. Often mistakes help us learn those rules.
- koonsolo 3y agoThe biggest problem with scientific studies is that you get noticed for remarkable results. So what do scientists do? Either try to exaggerate their conclusion or even fraud. Most scientific studies are plain up boring and don't find anything new. Maybe papers should be graded on "how well was this study executed" instead of "what kind of unexpected result did we end up with". Because the second is really asking for exaggeration, lies and fraud.
- frognumber 3y agoI wouldn't say "even fraud." My experience is about half of the high-profile results from my alma mater (MIT) these days are fraud. Note the selection bias: "High-profile." Plenty of grad students still do honest research. They just don't generate thousands of citations, media coverage, or find academic jobs. I firmly believe tenure should be obsoleted, and academics should be fired for any sort of documented dishonesty, anywhere. Lying is not okay if you're engaged in the search for knowledge. If a person intentionally lies in a popular science book, a court case, or a newspaper article, they should be out.
- 11101010001100 3y agoCan you point out examples of results coming out of MIT that are fraud?
- neilv 3y agoOn the referenced DataColada pieces: > by Uri, Joe, & Leif When publicly laying out a case like this, which could destroy the reputation of someone they identify by full name, I think it'd be good form to put one's own full names on the argument. (Of course they'd have to stand behind it if they are sued for defamation, and the full names can be found elsewhere on the Web site. But that's not my point.) Putting full names on the piece that people will read says to the reader that they take it seriously enough to put their own names on it. And the whole alleged scandal is about integrity and what you'll put your name on.
- SamBam 3y agoClick Menu -> About -> "The authors: Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson and Joe Simmons." They're not hiding it to any extent. It's a big blog that has hundreds of posts. Many blogs refer to authors by their first name if they expect their readers to know them, or easily find them. > ([...] and the full names can be found elsewhere on the Web site. But that's not my point.) These are meaningless weasel words. It sounds like you wrote the post first, then belatedly realized the authors aren't hiding their names at all, but wanted to keep your post.
- neilv 3y ago> These are meaningless weasel words. It sounds like you wrote the post first, then belatedly realized the authors aren't hiding their names at all, but wanted to keep your post. Those are not weasel words. I said that in my original message. I anticipated your argument and addressed it, before you made it.
- rlucas 3y agoA caution on the source; "The College Fix" is a rage-bait blog for one side of the tiresome U.S. culture war. As a result, expect sensational framing.
- blamazon 3y agoFolks seeking a more neutral description of the situation may desire to click into the 4-part data-driven report that is the original source of the claims, which is linked in the article but also below: https://datacolada.org/109 https://datacolada.org/109
- throwawayccx 3y agoLet me guess the media went alongwith it without asking not giving voice to critics
- manvillej 3y agothe fourth part of the data colada research has been posted: http://datacolada.org/112 http://datacolada.org/112
- biomcgary 3y ago[flagged]
- wruza 3y agoNotably, a famous article discussing dishonesty was found to contain fabrications, they wrote Isn’t that self-fulfilling and as deconstructional as can be.