What has happened down here is the winds have changed • Hacker News Board

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#141

Post by wodenokoto » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 9:25 PM UTC

conistonwater wrote: post #36

wodenokoto wrote: post #30

Is Fiskes article related to the replication crisis? Remember that whole cultural appropriation thing last year? Or the safe space movements on campus? There are plenty of movements that abuse political correctness to bully anyone around. On the opposite side there are plenty of 4chan types who love to shamelessly bully anyone who dare come out with a feministic message. I imagine academics in related fields are ripe…

This is literally nothing to do with any of the things that you mention. Why do you think it is? Indeed, it has been discussed many times in different contexts on Gelman's blog and here on HN too, so you can just read this and the previous discussions to see that it's specifically about research and statistics methodology in psychology. The blog post itself contains plenty of links itself that you can read to find ou…

If you read Fiskes article that the link is a reply to, it also has absolutely nothing to do with p-hacking or the replication crisis.

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#142

Post by s_q_b » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #118

Someone wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"sunlight all of their data and code in a repository" Good idea where possible, but "all their data" will be problematic in many social science studies, and also in medicine, because of privacy laws.

Also, in many cases in the physical sciences, the data sets (both from experiments and simulations) may simply be too big for long term storage, let alone sharing. CERN is pushing the envelope at around 1 TB new shared data per day, but projects run by groups as small as five people can easily generate tens of terabytes in a day. E.g. with turbulence simulations or tomographic PIV or even just multiple high-speed cam…

Conservatively, it's about $7.00 per terabyte to store and retrieve data on Amazon Glacier per month. Working with petabyte size streams and storage is a pain, but it can be done.

https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#143

Post by ubernostrum » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 9:34 PM UTC

wgyn wrote: post #97

Someone wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's practically impossible to anonymize data without throwing away the information contained in it, doubly so if you don't know at the time what questions critics will want to see answered on that data.

That's not quite true. E.g. Google's email spam models are trained without access to the raw text. In general the field of differential privacy is developing rather quickly.

You need to think of medical privacy the way you think of browser fingerprinting; it's not necessarily any single piece of information that lets you be tracked, but rather the combination of a bunch of them -- even when "anonymized" -- adds up to enough bits to pin a consistent identity on the people involved.

And given what the adtech space has been able to figure out pretty easily in terms of tracking even people who take serious steps to avoid it, you should not think that there is any reasonable amount of "anonymization" that can make otherwise-useful medical details safe to release.

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#144

Post by Mendenhall » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 9:38 PM UTC

rwallace wrote: post #82

jgalt212 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sunlight all of their data and code This is not always possible. For example, if you are working with proprietary subscription-only datasets where the researcher has no redistribution rights.

Then it should be required whenever and to the extent it is possible. And where it is not possible, we should be considerably more skeptical of claims made, because trusting a claim based on a proprietary dataset requires a hefty dollop of faith.

I agree, its like saying "I have proof I just cant show you".

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#145

Post by mcguire » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 9:47 PM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #113

mcguire wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she's complaining about trolling and abuse, she should probably say so, and not use terms like "methodological terrorism". That is a) a rather unprofessional accusation and b) a term that brings to mind scientific criticism , not abuse.

> If she's complaining about trolling and abuse, she should probably say so She does, clearly and explicitly, and I even quoted some of it.

She also says, "We agree to abide by scientific standards, ethical norms, and mutual respect" while throwing around terms like "terrorism", "destructo-critics", "vigilantes", "data police".

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#146

Post by edem » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 10:09 PM UTC

After reading the first paragraph I still only have a vague concept what this wall of text is about. Can somebody summarize it with a TL;DR?

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#147

Post by vacri » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 10:11 PM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #108

wyager wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are falling for a classic argumentative attack. Everyone agrees "abuse" (e.g. beating your wife) is bad, so Fisk just redefines "abuse" to mean "earnest, blunt, non-sugar-coated feedback" but you keep on using the connotations of the real definition.

What about "earnest, blunt, non-sugar-coated feedback" that is useless, uninformed, and counterproductive to researchers? I was under the impression that that was the concern here. Just because someone says something non-sugar-coated doesn't mean it has any truth or value to it. In my experience, a lot of the people who publicly congratulate themselves on never pulling any punches and telling it like it is and keepin…

> Linus Torvalds-style "I'm just telling it like it is, you idiot" feedback

Torvalds never starts out that way, and if you look at any given episode where he's shown to have done this, the historical commentary will show Torvalds trying to politely educate the other party, and the other party just not getting it (often wilfully).

As for fetishising it, I've never seen anyone here on HN laud Torvalds for doing that; quite the opposite, it's only ever brought up to denigrate him. Ironically, de Raadt's behaviour around OpenBSD does get fetishised by some around here. I've never really understood why de Raadt gets a reasonable amount of respect for that behaviour whilst Torvalds is a pariah for it here on HN.

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#148

Post by vacri » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 10:27 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #116

Psychology as a science has far fewer reliable results than it claimed it did. It's not that the winds have changed. It's that the field was broken. Realizing this is a good thing. It's going to set back careers and reduce funding, though. Next, economics? "Science is prediction, not explanation." - Fred Hoyle

It's not so much that the field is broken, as that the field is ridiculously hard. Remember that every time you see someone on HN talk about A/B testing; employee relations; the effect of open-plan offices; UI and UX; how to extract payment from a recalcitrant client; anything to do with politics; why real-estate costs are high and their effect on a neighbourhood; or even right down their IDE's colour schemes, they're talking psychology. The highest-rated post on the front page at the moment, with over 2200 upvotes, is "Be Kind".

As a topic, psychology just does not lend itself to being able to be boxed up with a little bow. It is easier to get by as a charlatan in psychology, sure, but that's due to it being innately fuzzy and hard to pin down. You hear physicists speak of electrons being a 'probability cloud' rather than a 'thing' that can be cleanly predicted, and how that is absolutely mindblowing... but that's the kind of stuff that psychologists have to deal with as a matter of course.

> Science is prediction, not explanation.

... yet considerable effort is spent trying to figure out the Big Bang - and it's not like you'll find anyone claiming those efforts are "not science". I disagree with this aphorism.

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#149

Post by danso » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 10:45 PM UTC

edem wrote: post #146

After reading the first paragraph I still only have a vague concept what this wall of text is about. Can somebody summarize it with a TL;DR?

Psychology must get used to the idea of transparency and to the reform made possible by how the Internet (as a broad term to generally describe the current change in communication) has made it easier to scrutinize and challenge scientific results.

Re: What has happened down here is the winds have changed

#150

Post by hackuser » Sat, Oct 15, 2016, 10:47 PM UTC

mafribe wrote: post #117

hackuser wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it comes with the territory I disagree; that's an excuse for abusive, unproductive behavior. In many environments, people manage to criticize ideas respectfully and productively, even on social forums like HN. Abuse is counter-productive and completely unnecessary.

I disagree; What do you disagree with? The factual claim? It's not relevant that some manage to discuss sexuality respectfully and productively. Most can't, as of October 2016. Claims of scientific misconduct (in a general sense) ought to be taken seriously by scientists. There is nothing else to say. What alternative do you suggest? Somebody said mean things on Twitter, hence psychologists like Fiske should continue…

> Claims of scientific misconduct (in a general sense) ought to be taken seriously by scientists.

I disagree. Not all claims should be taken seriously; most should be ignored. Claims accompanied by abuse seriously and rightly damage their own credibility; if I see abuse anywhere, I just stop reading and move on.

There are not nearly enough resources to address every random person's claim about every issue in the world. People don't read every book and website, address every conspiracy theory, or give time to every crackpot or amateur who wants to have a say. Google doesn't listen to every users' ideas about their software; the military doesn't listen to everyone's strategic recommendations; physicists don't listen to every person's theory of thermodynamics; the pilots of your airplane don't want your input on how to do their jobs. I have no interest in random people's ideas about IT; they have no idea what they are talking about.

You need to demonstrate that you are worth their time by establishing credibility. It seems silly that because people have access to a platform that amplifies their voices, they think professionals will want to hear from them.