An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax • Hacker News Board

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#151

Post by darawk » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 8:09 PM UTC

fenomas wrote: post #149

darawk wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The relevant measure of banality here is in comparison to what the journals normally publish. I completely disagree. The point of this story is exactly that this stuff is line with what the journals normally publish. Their entire point is that the stuff they wrote is indistinguishable from these journal's normal fare.

> Their entire point is that the stuff they wrote is indistinguishable from these journal's normal fare. Journals publishing papers indistinguishable from their normal fare is the null hypothesis! If accomplishing that was the authors' goal they could have taken ten months off, surely ;)

Do you not understand what i'm saying? They're criticizing the content of these journals.

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#152

Post by Udik » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

fenomas wrote: post #146

darawk wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, most got rejected. But 7 got accepted. And while banality is obviously a subjective value judgment, I don't think it applies to all of them. Just to enumerate the hypotheses that were accepted: > That dog parks are rape-condoning spaces and a place of rampant canine rape culture and systemic oppression against “the oppressed dog” through which human attitudes to both problems can be measured. This provides insi…

The relevant measure of banality here is in comparison to what the journals normally publish. What makes e.g. Sokal's hoax important is that he exposed a journal for publishing something the editors didn't even understand. Here, the journals weren't duped into anything - they read and understood the papers, and apparently considered them worth publishing. That's what's so banal about the whole thing.

> he exposed a journal for publishing something the editors didn't even understand

This is your assumption. In fact they understood perfectly what the paper meant and that's why they published it. But because the paper was effectively constructed as something without meaning, Sokal managed to prove that their perception of meaning is a delusion.

Same thing has been done here: the editors of the journals found perfectly reasonable something that was ridiculous and absurd by construction, thus proving that the sense of reasonabless and soundness is lost to them.

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#153

Post by tomlock » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #148

tomlock wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that you're advocating for rigorous empirical standards, and considering that in the case of economics, a full THIRD of articles submitted to two top tier economics journals could not be replicated, which is quite similar to the 7/20 article admissions rate these hoaxers managed, what empirical evidence do you have that suggests this is outside the norm for a multitude of disciplines not necessarily relat…

> Considering that you're advocating for rigorous empirical standards Where did I do that? > I'm really glad you're now saying that you just have the opinion that these papers and disciplines are absurd, because I'd consider that claim, stated as a fact, to be the realm of experts in the field. Presupposing the discipline is absurd would require you to have a deep knowledge of the field, which I'm not seeing much evi…

So you're not advocating for rigorous empirical standards?

You've come into this article, which only has evidence that papers written in bad faith can be accepted by peer-reviewed journals (trivial), already presupposing that the field is intellectually bankrupt. In order for me to believe you have the ability to make that judgement, I must also believe that you understand the field. People can be experts in fields without being a member of that field. You have fallen prey to the same false ideological purity you seem to have deemed yourself fit to criticize in others.

Since you're not advocating for rigorous empirical standards, I can only assume you feel the article we're commenting on was pretty pointless. And let's be real here, this article didn't effect your view either way. We're done here.

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#154

Post by fenomas » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 3:38 AM UTC

Udik wrote: post #152

fenomas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant measure of banality here is in comparison to what the journals normally publish. What makes e.g. Sokal's hoax important is that he exposed a journal for publishing something the editors didn't even understand. Here, the journals weren't duped into anything - they read and understood the papers, and apparently considered them worth publishing. That's what's so banal about the whole thing.

> he exposed a journal for publishing something the editors didn't even understand This is your assumption. In fact they understood perfectly what the paper meant and that's why they published it. But because the paper was effectively constructed as something without meaning, Sokal managed to prove that their perception of meaning is a delusion. Same thing has been done here: the editors of the journals found perfect…

> editors of the journals found perfectly reasonable something that was ridiculous and absurd by construction

I understand your point, but my argument here is that the hoax papers cannot reasonably be called "absurd by construction". The authors started out with that goal, but their initial papers apparently all got rejected so they iteratively toned down the absurdity until the papers got published. That's effectively "publishable by construction", isn't it?

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#155

Post by fenomas » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 4:03 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #151

fenomas wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their entire point is that the stuff they wrote is indistinguishable from these journal's normal fare. Journals publishing papers indistinguishable from their normal fare is the null hypothesis! If accomplishing that was the authors' goal they could have taken ten months off, surely ;)

Do you not understand what i'm saying? They're criticizing the content of these journals.

In their capacity as authors of a blog post, sure - but in their capacity as conductors of a social science experiment they're also claiming to have verified a hypothesis (that certain journals would publish absurd papers), and that's the claim I think is weak.

Please understand I'm not defending the content of these journals - I'm saying that this ten month hoax doesn't appear to have established anything.

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#156

Post by Beldin » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #63

Discussed earlier on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18127811 The hoaxers writeup is, I think, pretty misleading. Their work tended to get rejected from high-impact journals. They submitted multiple stories to some journals (notably, to Hypatia , which they brag about getting accepted in) and leave a clear impression that their most ridiculous work was what made it in, rather than a much more banal paper. Th…

Moreover, what I'm interested in: what goal did they have that goes beyond Sokal and SciGen-generated papers?

It wasn't clear from the article, and those two categories have already done a number of hoax papers. So we already know that hoax papers get accepted occasionally. A new hoax study would only be interesting if you specifically at our to attack a field of study - at this point, there have been enough hoaxes that show feasibility overall.

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#157

Post by Beldin » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 6:47 AM UTC

Udik wrote: post #152

fenomas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant measure of banality here is in comparison to what the journals normally publish. What makes e.g. Sokal's hoax important is that he exposed a journal for publishing something the editors didn't even understand. Here, the journals weren't duped into anything - they read and understood the papers, and apparently considered them worth publishing. That's what's so banal about the whole thing.

> he exposed a journal for publishing something the editors didn't even understand This is your assumption. In fact they understood perfectly what the paper meant and that's why they published it. But because the paper was effectively constructed as something without meaning, Sokal managed to prove that their perception of meaning is a delusion. Same thing has been done here: the editors of the journals found perfect…

If the same thing has been done here, what's the point? Sokal already made that point long ago. There is no academic goal in repeating that experiment.

Moreover, repeating it 20-fold? That's not even ethical - either one success proves your point, or were going to need a control group and rigorous methodology.

Since the trio reject the notion of control groups, they should have understood that getting more than one paper accepted was not furthering their experiment, only their ego.

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#158

Post by darawk » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 7:03 AM UTC

fenomas wrote: post #155

darawk wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not understand what i'm saying? They're criticizing the content of these journals.

In their capacity as authors of a blog post, sure - but in their capacity as conductors of a social science experiment they're also claiming to have verified a hypothesis (that certain journals would publish absurd papers), and that's the claim I think is weak. Please understand I'm not defending the content of these journals - I'm saying that this ten month hoax doesn't appear to have established anything.

I think I would state their hypothesis as: that the content of these journals is absurd, and by using slightly more absurd hypotheses than their normal fare, we can clearly demonstrate to other people that their content is absurd when those more obviously ridiculous ideas get accepted.

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#159

Post by darawk » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 7:11 AM UTC

tomlock wrote: post #153

darawk wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Considering that you're advocating for rigorous empirical standards Where did I do that? > I'm really glad you're now saying that you just have the opinion that these papers and disciplines are absurd, because I'd consider that claim, stated as a fact, to be the realm of experts in the field. Presupposing the discipline is absurd would require you to have a deep knowledge of the field, which I'm not seeing much evi…

So you're not advocating for rigorous empirical standards? You've come into this article, which only has evidence that papers written in bad faith can be accepted by peer-reviewed journals (trivial), already presupposing that the field is intellectually bankrupt. In order for me to believe you have the ability to make that judgement, I must also believe that you understand the field. People can be experts in fields w…

> In order for me to believe you have the ability to make that judgement, I must also believe that you understand the field.

I'm not asking you to believe my judgment. Judge for yourself. Evaluate the content.

> Since you're not advocating for rigorous empirical standards, I can only assume you feel the article we're commenting on was pretty pointless. And let's be real here, this article didn't effect your view either way. We're done here.

I could say the same of you, without loss of generality. You could easily have tried to make the case that the papers here weren't absurd at all, but you didn't. You never tried to do that, you simply tried to obfuscate and hide. It's easier than making a real point, I guess.

In fact, you haven't even stated your position clearly in this entire discussion. You've carefully avoided actually saying "I don't believe these papers are absurd, and I do not believe the acceptance of them by these journals should make us at all skeptical of gender studies as a field". So, go ahead. State your position. I've stated mine.

Re: An Elaborate Academic-Journal Hoax

#160

Post by Udik » Sat, Oct 06, 2018, 9:42 AM UTC

Beldin wrote: post #157

Udik wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he exposed a journal for publishing something the editors didn't even understand This is your assumption. In fact they understood perfectly what the paper meant and that's why they published it. But because the paper was effectively constructed as something without meaning, Sokal managed to prove that their perception of meaning is a delusion. Same thing has been done here: the editors of the journals found perfect…

If the same thing has been done here, what's the point? Sokal already made that point long ago. There is no academic goal in repeating that experiment. Moreover, repeating it 20-fold? That's not even ethical - either one success proves your point, or were going to need a control group and rigorous methodology. Since the trio reject the notion of control groups, they should have understood that getting more than one p…

Strange argument. As far as I know, they submitted the papers to different journals. Sokal's hoax targeted again a different journal in a different field twenty years ago. Of course the results are specific to the journal and the discipline- but even in the case of multiple papers accepted by the same journal, it would just reinforce the result.