When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy • Hacker News Board

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#31

Post by throwawayjava » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:07 PM UTC

mattmcknight wrote: post #30

throwawayjava wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gelman has forged his own path to "fame, fortune, and acclaim". It's not clear to me that this path has actually improved (this particular branch of) science. In fact, by the sound of it, that path may've been at least as destructive as he claims Fiske et al's was. Which isn't an indict of Gelman, as I hardly intuit anything but positive intentions on his part. I'm less concerned with Fiske vs. Gelman and much more c…

"Confining scientific critique to scientific venues" Fiske controls the venue and is (mis-)using the "scientific venue" to denounce her critics. She is the one refusing to publish the very critiques you describe. The "scientific venue" has been corrupted. The well has not been "poisoned" for further inquiry, rather the necessity of replication and sensitivity to statistical errors has increased. Science was being don…

> The "scientific venue" has been corrupted

That's a pretty strong accusation. Do you have any evidence?

Cuddy herself, in the linked article, even asks: "Why not come to a conference or hold a seminar?"

I don't think you're wrong about the lack of quality reviewing, but I also think that blogs and Facebook and articles in pop sci news venues are pretty shitty places to address the quality of editorial review.

And your post demonstrates why: honest mistakes -- or even complete non-mistakes stemming from gaps in established best practices! -- turn into out-right accusations of full on corruption. The comments on NYT demonstrate the same problem from the other side: lots of gender politics when Gelman wasn't motivated by gender, implicitly or otherwise, but rather by the mass appeal of Cuddy's work.

Needless to say, I also think you're massively over-stating the maliciousness of people like Cuddy and Fiske.

> Science was being done sloppily, and Fiske was both a beneficiary of that and in a role where she could have prevented it.

Simmons seems to agree with me that you're really over-reaching here: "The original study wasn’t particularly egregious," he said. "It was published in 2010 before anyone was thinking about this."

There's a huge difference between doing science the way you were trained (but sub-optimally), and outright "corruption".

There's also a HUGE difference between noticing a problem and constructively pushing for more rigor within a sub-community, and going after particular people within that community so harshly you destroy their careers.

The former is great for science. The latter might possibly by great for improving rigor (I'm pessimistic and think it all comes down to incentives, which Gelman et al don't really do much to change). But equivocating bad methodological/statistical training/practice with unethical and even criminal ("corrupt") behavior? That sort of dishonest fire-and-brimstone talk is just as damaging as a lack of rigor.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#32

Post by throwawayjava » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:23 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #17

Cheers for scientific revolutions being gentler than political ones. Cuddy lost her reputation rather than her head. But losing a reputation hurts more, or at least longer. More civility could have helped, but there's no painless way to lose status. The scandal is that Cuddy's work met the standard of the bulk of published social science until lately. She studied the same phlogiston with the same tools as her colleag…

The tragedy of the ordeal is that she tried and was lined up against the wall regardless, mostly due to lack of civility and poor communication:

> But the email that Simmons and Simonsohn had sent was, in fact, ambiguous: They had explicitly told her to drop the P-curve and yet left the impression that the paper was otherwise sound. At my request, Simmons looked back at his original email. I watched as he read it over. “Oh, yeah,” he said quietly. He had a pained look on his face. “We did say to drop the graph, didn’t we?” He read it over again, then sat back. “I didn’t remember that. This may be a big misunderstanding about — that email is too polite.” Cuddy and Carney had taken their advice literally.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#33

Post by conistonwater » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:25 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #31

mattmcknight wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Confining scientific critique to scientific venues" Fiske controls the venue and is (mis-)using the "scientific venue" to denounce her critics. She is the one refusing to publish the very critiques you describe. The "scientific venue" has been corrupted. The well has not been "poisoned" for further inquiry, rather the necessity of replication and sensitivity to statistical errors has increased. Science was being don…

> The "scientific venue" has been corrupted That's a pretty strong accusation. Do you have any evidence? Cuddy herself, in the linked article, even asks: "Why not come to a conference or hold a seminar?" I don't think you're wrong about the lack of quality reviewing, but I also think that blogs and Facebook and articles in pop sci news venues are pretty shitty places to address the quality of editorial review. And yo…

Just so you know, the basic statistical problem with this type of research was pointed out back in the 60's (http://andrewgelman.com/2016/05/06/needed-an-intellectual-hi...), it's just that nobody listened.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#34

Post by skybrian » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:27 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #9

Andrew Gelman (of NYU), who is featured in the story and is criticized by Cuddy as being unfair and trollish, wrote a response: http://andrewgelman.com/2017/10/18/beyond-power-pose-using-r... I thought that Gelman wasn't presented in the best of light, especially his awkward quotes about not wanting to engage in "interpersonal conflict". But he called the piece "excellent and fair to all sides" and was pretty graciou…

Stakes matter. A million dollar poker game might be structurally identical to a game played for fun, but its effects on the people involved are very different. We wouldn't expect the players in these two games to think the same way.

Talking about the stakes is in direct conflict with the scientific ideal of focusing on the science without talking about its effects on the scientists involved.

For example, from Gelman's response: "I just wanted to emphasize that there’s no reason her career, or even her famous Ted talk, has to rely on a particular intriguing idea (on there being a large and predictable effect of a certain pose) that happened not to work out." Well, except that maybe she wouldn't have gotten a Ted talk without it?

He's saying, hey, this paper shouldn't have been as important as it was. And according to the scientific ideal, we shouldn't get too attached to any particular results. But in practice, putting bad results aside sometimes requires a significant change of identity. Forgetting about that, even for a moment, is always going to come across as tin-eared.

The scientific ideal is more compatible with low stakes than high stakes. But talking about the game as if it's low-stakes (or ignoring the stakes altogether) when actually it's high-stakes is always going to make discussions focused on the science alone come across as unsympathetic.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#35

Post by conistonwater » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:28 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #32

hirundo wrote: post #17

Cheers for scientific revolutions being gentler than political ones. Cuddy lost her reputation rather than her head. But losing a reputation hurts more, or at least longer. More civility could have helped, but there's no painless way to lose status. The scandal is that Cuddy's work met the standard of the bulk of published social science until lately. She studied the same phlogiston with the same tools as her colleag…

The tragedy of the ordeal is that she tried and was lined up against the wall regardless, mostly due to lack of civility and poor communication: > But the email that Simmons and Simonsohn had sent was, in fact, ambiguous: They had explicitly told her to drop the P-curve and yet left the impression that the paper was otherwise sound. At my request, Simmons looked back at his original email. I watched as he read it ove…

"lined up against the wall", really? I think you would be more convincing if you toned it down a bit on the metaphors.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#36

Post by lliamander » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:29 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #25

lliamander wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly have a fair degree of sympathy for Cuddy's losses, but should she have been given the accolades (TED talk, tenure track at Harvard, etc.) in the first place? Her work was interesting no doubt, and in our scientific age we have always celebrated the novelty and originality of the scientific geniuses that have advanced our understanding. But the real value of science has always been novelty plus certainty .…

As I indicated up-thread, I'm mostly on your side of these politics. geofft's comment hits the nail on the head when it comes to what effect this did vs. should've had on her tenure case, I think. A study that fails to replicate is no indication of malice or even incompetence. Some say she should've run self-replications, but how many years self-replication studies are you willing to run on $20k/yr (in fact, how many…

> As I indicated up-thread, I'm mostly on your side of these politics.

I know, and I think we are mostly in agreement. I generally don't like seeing individuals dragged through the mud. It's also somewhat unfair to judge her actions pre-replication crisis by our standards post-replication crisis.

I also agree that a single study failing to replicate is not an instance of malice or incompetence, in fact I think all scientists should expect it to happen. But that also means that no career should be built on the back of a single study. It seems that she is still sticking to her guns even after 11 failed replications. That does cause me some concern.

> but how many years self-replication studies are you willing to run on $20k/yr? At some point you get the quality of science you can pay for...

Then maybe one should more hesitant about promoting those results?

> If Harvard hired Cuddy because she gave a popular TED talk, then that was an extremely poor hiring decision by Harvard. But that's a separate issue from the one we're discussing.

I think it makes me more sympathetic to her case. If Harvard had not hired her, or TED not promoted her, she would not have been subject to nearly the same scrutiny or ire as she was. Ironically, she might have had a better shot at a good long-term career. But who, at that point, would have turned down either of these prizes? I know I wouldn't have.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#37

Post by throwawayjava » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:30 PM UTC

conistonwater wrote: post #35

throwawayjava wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tragedy of the ordeal is that she tried and was lined up against the wall regardless, mostly due to lack of civility and poor communication: > But the email that Simmons and Simonsohn had sent was, in fact, ambiguous: They had explicitly told her to drop the P-curve and yet left the impression that the paper was otherwise sound. At my request, Simmons looked back at his original email. I watched as he read it ove…

" lined up against the wall ", really? I think you would be more convincing if you toned it down a bit on the metaphors.

It was parent's metaphor, not mine. The substance holds.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#38

Post by skybrian » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

q123321 wrote: post #2

The most important sentence of the article, which appears at the end: "Although 11 new papers have recently been published that do not show the downstream effects of power posing on behaviors, Cuddy is still fighting for power posing." This is an astonishing number of replications to be published on one topic in psychology. 2-3x the next highest number I heave heard of. The placement of that sentence, plus the flatte…

Are studies of "downstream effects" considered to be replications? It sounds like they are something different.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#39

Post by conistonwater » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:33 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #37

conistonwater wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" lined up against the wall ", really? I think you would be more convincing if you toned it down a bit on the metaphors.

It was parent's metaphor, not mine. The substance holds.

I don't see it in that comment. Where? I only see "Cuddy lost her reputation rather than her head.", which is not at all similar. (I don't see it in NYT either.)

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#40

Post by kansface » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 7:35 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #14

Sounds like straight up sexism to me.

Cuddy deserved neither the spoils of her research - fame and fortune, nor the indignity of having her work toppled in a public forum. She certainly did her self no favors by digging in, but at the same time, the despoilers would use her as the poster child for bad science itself.

This is a story in which a few people look to be "right", but no one looks particularly flattering, which is also why its a good read. Your comment adds very little.