51–60 of 221 posts
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They weren't looking for errors in papers and trying to push for corrections or improve the science. They were using these errors as fodder for promoting their software. It might not be bullying, but it's not coming from a place of objectivity or honest debate.
Yeah, this is an abusive marketing technique. If you don't want future embarrassment you'd better buy our service.
> and whether online critiques of past work constitute “bullying” or shaming. The PubPeer comments are just a tiny part of that debate. But it can hit a nerve. > Susan Fiske, a former president of the Association for Psychological Science, alluded to Statcheck in an interview with Business Insider, calling it a “gotcha algorithm.” > The draft of the article said these online critics were engaging in “methodological t…
I was like, "Um, the whole point of science is that it's knowledge in the public record. If you need to 'chill' with the original researcher to get critical details, that's not science anymore."
Remember, the studies might form the basis of an FDA approval. If only the original lab can produce the result, then is the FDA approval of the treatment going to be limited to only that lab as well? Kinda limits scalability...
I did a search and found the blog post that quoted the researcher [1] with this scary attitude:
>When researchers at Amgen, a pharmaceutical company in Thousand Oaks, California, failed to replicate many important studies in preclinical cancer research, they tried to contact the authors and exchange materials. They could confirm only 11% of the papers. I think that if more biotech companies had the patience to send someone to the original labs, perhaps the percentage of reproducibility would be much higher.
[1] http://andrewgelman.com/2013/12/17/replication-backlash/ (thanks Google)
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While I trust your story, and I believe it's somewhat taboo on HN to ask for this, I feel that it would be much more valuable if evidence was provided. That is an absolutely egregious act for a professor to commit and I feel like it should be reported to someone if substantiated..
Oh, I made a huge stink about it (and this was just one example of many comments of that type). This was at Penn in 2007.
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Objectivity is listed as a problem with science curriculum. Welcome to the future. http://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2467&co...
Relevant part of the report: "As these examples show, the STEM syllabi explored in this study demonstrated a view of knowledge that was to be acquired by the student, which promotes a view of knowledge as unchanging. This is further reinforced by the use of adverbs to imply certainty such as “actually” and “in fact” which are used in syllabi to identify information as factual and beyond dispute (Biber, 2006a; 2006b).…
I mean, seriously, they are saying that in the feminist view is that there is no objective reality?
I suppose they are saying that feminists... don't live in... reality.
You can't make this stuff up. At least they're up front about it, I suppose.
> and whether online critiques of past work constitute “bullying” or shaming. The PubPeer comments are just a tiny part of that debate. But it can hit a nerve. > Susan Fiske, a former president of the Association for Psychological Science, alluded to Statcheck in an interview with Business Insider, calling it a “gotcha algorithm.” > The draft of the article said these online critics were engaging in “methodological t…
> That anyone in the field of psychology would even be comfortable publically espousing a non-scientific worldview like that means that psychologists are not being properly educated in the scientific method. This is a generalization about psychologists from a sample size of one psychologist, to suggest that they don't understand science?
> and whether online critiques of past work constitute “bullying” or shaming. The PubPeer comments are just a tiny part of that debate. But it can hit a nerve. > Susan Fiske, a former president of the Association for Psychological Science, alluded to Statcheck in an interview with Business Insider, calling it a “gotcha algorithm.” > The draft of the article said these online critics were engaging in “methodological t…
Yes! Similarly, I remember a few years back being shocked at the attitude toward the replication crisis, where authors of irreproducible work were miffed that no one talked to them first. I was like, "Um, the whole point of science is that it's knowledge in the public record . If you need to 'chill' with the original researcher to get critical details, that's not science anymore." Remember, the studies might form the…
Certainly there is always the possibility that there was some details misunderstood, something that needs to be clarified, a print error, etc. Your "that's not science anymore" statement seems highly exaggerated. People are not supposed to communicate only via papers.
> and whether online critiques of past work constitute “bullying” or shaming. The PubPeer comments are just a tiny part of that debate. But it can hit a nerve. > Susan Fiske, a former president of the Association for Psychological Science, alluded to Statcheck in an interview with Business Insider, calling it a “gotcha algorithm.” > The draft of the article said these online critics were engaging in “methodological t…
> That anyone in the field of psychology would even be comfortable publically espousing a non-scientific worldview like that means that psychologists are not being properly educated in the scientific method. This is a generalization about psychologists from a sample size of one psychologist, to suggest that they don't understand science?
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When I read that sentence, I immediately thought it sounded like some people were being childish and defensive. OTOH, a bunch of people got unsolicited error reports for already published papers, and I can understand being initially irritated. This was, by the admission of the statcheck authors, a way to get attention quickly. My guess is it'll all settle down and people won't complain about bullying once everyone ju…
> unsolicited error reports for already published papers, and I can understand being initially irritated Please don't see this as me attacking you, i am genuinely baffled by what you said and would like to understand your thinking. How exactly could you possibly have any sort of understanding for that? How would you feel about a software author being irritated by unsolicited error reports? If that irritation is less…
I'm also confused by your question, so I can relate to you. :) Despite your warning, the way you phrased that question does sound like an attack, it implies that you know my experience does not allow me to speak on this subject, which you do not know. Why is it hard to think that I can empathize? What do you think you know about me that makes it implausible for me to understand this situation?
I can and do relate to it because I'm a published paper author. I imagine that it would be irritating to me as easily as I imagine it would be irritating to others. For me personally, I don't think it would make me angry, but it would give me anxiety to cast doubt on a paper I'd already published, even if the report about inaccuracies are true. It would mean that I didn't do as good a job as I thought, which of course I want to know, but a published paper is part of a record that cannot change. I'm sure many paper authors, for better or worse, have the same reaction, that something that casts doubt on their publications after the fact would cause some degree of mental anguish. That doesn't mean we shouldn't search for the truth, it means only what I said, that I can understand the reaction.
Your analogy to software errors fails. (And I also have first-hand experience with this as the owner of a software business.) Software is an on-going work that can and should be improved to remove errors at all times, and errors that get fixed do not affect my personal reputation or career. Reports of software errors can also be irritating in their own way - I don't want to know my software is buggy - but they are always welcome. Published papers cannot be improved, they are fixed in the permanent record. There are some ways to recover from severe errors, but there are no ways to recover from minor errors, and public (academic) perception of the quality and level of the errors in a paper can change the way an author is viewed.
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While I am not a big fan of contemporary feminism, I am pretty sure taking issue with masculinity or "gendered" text is not the same thing as taking issue with objectivity. Edit: Found this quote in your source "Poststructuralism “rejects objectivity and the notions of an absolute truth and single reality,”" Hmm, this seems an awful lot like a religion.
> I am pretty sure taking issue with masculinity or "gendered" text is not the same thing as taking issue with objectivity. Well, since English is a gendered language, taking issue with 'gendered' text is taking issue with the objective reality that … English is a gendered language.