When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy • Hacker News Board

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#121

Post by leereeves » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 1:17 AM UTC

rukuu001 wrote: post #120

leereeves wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't heard of it because the reporting and coverage is biased, not because it doesn't happen. That's similar to the situation with sexual harassment, sexual assault, and domestic violence. It's not that men aren't often the victims of these things (studies report that they are, at nearly the same rate as women[1, 2]). It's that men rarely report these things, and when they do, receive little sympathy, coverage…

Thanks. Amazing stats in the Slate article. And the Adam Orth example in particular has strong parallels with high-profile examples of attacks on women. Given the level of heat these discussions arouse, I understand the comments re modding in the item earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15507821

Online discussion certainly does inspire bad behavior. Hacker News is the only place I know of where people who disagree can still have civil discussions.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#122

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 1:34 AM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #89

geofft wrote: post #5

It occurs to me that the replication crisis largely came into being because scientists are rewarded for publishing papers that demonstrate some effect and not for publishing papers that fail to demonstrate anything, and so the right fix would have been to fix the broken incentives. But apparently (if this article is to be believed) no such change in incentives has happened - the only thing is that there are now also…

Oh, so, 'Capital S' Science[0] has moved on from publish-or-perish to funding-or-famine. Most researchers are in 'famine' and their spouse is financing their lifestyle of crazy hours and stress (love is strange, for sure). Some are in 'funding' and they generally get all the cash from grant agencies. Where I am, each square foot of your research is ~$420/month for rent, including your office. Then you start buying la…

I think this is just as misinformed as someone who thinks there's no problem.

In my experience, about a third or half of the 'real' scientists I've met are firmly in "Big S" science. It's really not that different. People that complain about this a lot are often jealous, in my experience. The failures are certainly high-profile, though.

As for reproducibility, it's all case by case. We've (real? scientists) been having the same discussions about data quality forever. It just seems to have found a fresh audience. There's a reason a curmudgeonly PI might insist in Western Blots and - gasp! - Northerns from time to time. Most fields were built off of some real science. Molecular biology certainly was, and to think that just stopped happening in the early 2000s is the height of ignorance.

There is cause for alarm. I give pretty much all 'genomic' work a very wide berth unless the lab has a real genetics background, and aside for a few labs, anything with 'microbiome' in it is certifiable garbage. And clearly some entire fields are on shaky ground, namely psychology. But lets not circlejerk our pure 'little s' science ego's too vigorously.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#123

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 1:38 AM UTC

srtjstjsj wrote: post #43

geofft wrote: post #5

It occurs to me that the replication crisis largely came into being because scientists are rewarded for publishing papers that demonstrate some effect and not for publishing papers that fail to demonstrate anything, and so the right fix would have been to fix the broken incentives. But apparently (if this article is to be believed) no such change in incentives has happened - the only thing is that there are now also…

> having the misfortune of the one-in-twenty chance of getting a really interesting false positive at p = 0.05 means you either have to double down on the study Or you could get a large sample size to bring the p down to 0.01 or whatever. You know, do science.

It's a guideline, not a rule. The more you treat it like a rule, the worse the situation is.

There will never be an objective measure for conclusion 'correctness'.

It will always be the case that you actually have to think about the data and statistics critically and decide whether the conclusions are appropriate. In certain well-defined situations, you can start to use harder metrics, but that's rarely where the controversy is in the first place.

So if you want to, you know, do science, I urge you to use that big beautiful brain of yours. As a bonus, you don't even need to commit mass rat genocide to do it.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#124

Post by maxxxxx » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 1:52 AM UTC

I used to love TED talks but over the last few years I have developed an aversion. It seems a lot of popular TED people have traded scientific integrity for showmanship (and money). Makes me wonder how Feynman would be doing today. He was a charismatic talker. He could be a superstar.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#125

Post by killjoywashere » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 2:12 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #93

srtjstjsj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having the misfortune of the one-in-twenty chance of getting a really interesting false positive at p = 0.05 means you either have to double down on the study Or you could get a large sample size to bring the p down to 0.01 or whatever. You know, do science.

Well, the smaller your p , the higher your chance of false negatives, too; maybe there was an actual effect there that was worth more study, and you dismissed it. The problem is that a study that's significant at p = 0.05 but not p = 0.01 is worth something to science. It indicates something worth doing several more studies on, preferably by different teams from different institutes with non-overlapping confounding f…

Here's the structural problem I see: there are acres, literally, acres of computer science types in SF and certain other enclaves, slaving away on ads when they would rather be curing cancer. But they don't know the first thing about cancer.

Meanwhile, there are enclaves where biologists are slaving away capturing data and not even realizing it's data. "Bookkeeping data" they might call it.

There should be mixers between the biologists and the computer scientists. Especially non-academic physicians and computer scientists. Look at Kaiser-Permanente, Sutter Health, or Defense Health Agency. Huge orgs, very little research. Data falling off the shelves and they don't know what to do with it.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#126

Post by sliverstorm » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 2:17 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #96

sliverstorm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steadily doing good science, where good science is expected not to produce results much of the time, continues to have no support. We say this, but I haven't heard any particularly good ideas on how to build such a system that isn't also easy to game. How do you ensure the failed studies were actually worth doing? Is peer review of study design feasible?

Here's a system that's gameable, but no more gameable than other things our society seems to be fine with: have peers evaluate you for the quality of your work as opposed to your outputs. Retain people whose peers say "They do good work," even if they don't have a flashy success or novel discovery to show. This is roughly how private industry works. I'm of course asked in job interviews about my successes, but the pr…

How do you allocate funding?

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#127

Post by nonbel » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 2:54 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #125

geofft wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the smaller your p , the higher your chance of false negatives, too; maybe there was an actual effect there that was worth more study, and you dismissed it. The problem is that a study that's significant at p = 0.05 but not p = 0.01 is worth something to science. It indicates something worth doing several more studies on, preferably by different teams from different institutes with non-overlapping confounding f…

Here's the structural problem I see: there are acres, literally, acres of computer science types in SF and certain other enclaves, slaving away on ads when they would rather be curing cancer. But they don't know the first thing about cancer. Meanwhile, there are enclaves where biologists are slaving away capturing data and not even realizing it's data. "Bookkeeping data" they might call it. There should be mixers bet…

Please no mixers. The AI/ML/CS people should start their own different, better approach.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#128

Post by slavik81 » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 4:15 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #125

geofft wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the smaller your p , the higher your chance of false negatives, too; maybe there was an actual effect there that was worth more study, and you dismissed it. The problem is that a study that's significant at p = 0.05 but not p = 0.01 is worth something to science. It indicates something worth doing several more studies on, preferably by different teams from different institutes with non-overlapping confounding f…

Here's the structural problem I see: there are acres, literally, acres of computer science types in SF and certain other enclaves, slaving away on ads when they would rather be curing cancer. But they don't know the first thing about cancer. Meanwhile, there are enclaves where biologists are slaving away capturing data and not even realizing it's data. "Bookkeeping data" they might call it. There should be mixers bet…

Mozilla Science runs the global science sprint each year to bring scientists of all kinds together with developers. I bet there's lots of projects that could still use help. https://github.com/mozilla/global-sprint/issues

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#129

Post by nkurz » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 5:18 AM 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…

But he called the piece "excellent and fair to all sides" and was pretty gracious in response to Cuddy's criticisms and how the NYT portrayed him. I honestly wasn't a huge fan of the article but re-reading it after a bit of sleep, and knowing that Gelman thought it was strong, I appreciated the issues it brought up.

I love (genuinely, non-ironically) that you reconsidered the merits of the article after reading Gelman's positive assessment of it. A possibly underappreciated benefit of Gelman's unabashed approach to criticism is that when he writes "I thought Dominus’s article was excellent and fair to all sides", it's reasonable to assume that he actually believes this rather than just pretending to "make nice" with scripted double-talk. His willingness to criticize things that he sees as wrong makes it possible (for me, and apparently you) to trust his stated opinion of things he sees as right.

And I don't think sexism can be dismissed outright, if people find it safer to talk shit to a woman compared to a man.

You prefaced it with an "if", but do you think it is common that "people find it safer to talk shit to a woman compared to a man"? I'd guess that at this point most male academics would be significantly more reluctant to criticise in print the work of a female colleague than that of a fellow male. I see Gelman as trying to adhere (possibly recklessly) to a gender-blind approach to criticism, and find this refreshing.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#130

Post by AlexCoventry » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 5:35 AM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #129

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…

But he called the piece "excellent and fair to all sides" and was pretty gracious in response to Cuddy's criticisms and how the NYT portrayed him. I honestly wasn't a huge fan of the article but re-reading it after a bit of sleep, and knowing that Gelman thought it was strong, I appreciated the issues it brought up. I love (genuinely, non-ironically) that you reconsidered the merits of the article after reading Gelma…

> do you think it is common that "people find it safer to talk shit to a woman compared to a man"?

I don't know whether they find it safer, but they certainly do it more, and are conditioned to do so from childhood.