Please commit more blatant academic fraud • Hacker News Board

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#271

Post by wiz21c » Sun, May 30, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

josalhor wrote: post #82

tlb wrote: post #59

The idea that a field can be reformed by making it worse until it suddenly faces a reckoning and emerges much better is ... I don't know where people keep getting the idea that this might work. It has never worked in any field ever in history. The thing that can happen: fields gradually split into rigorous and non-rigorous camps. Like with evidence-based medicine, or chemistry/alchemy. Depending on the field, either…

Well, I wonder if this could force people to start publishing their code so others can replicate the results. This would help greatly with the kinds of issues that are being discussed: - It would be much harder to hide makeup results and cherry-picked seeds - Useless research would not be as easy to hide - The real-world impact of the research would be more valued. - Researchers would be forced to recheck their code…

AI seems to me as quite experimental. Designing better benchmarks (that is less cheatable) will help. Publishing code will go against IP policies, that should be handled at the political level : do you research for profit or for knowledge ?

But yeah, code adds transparency and a whole lot of cheats... The funny thing is that any well organized coder will automate report production, so it's not like it is hard to do...

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#272

Post by forgingahead » Sun, May 30, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

berndi wrote: post #44

rscho wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... non-PC jokes are a liability risk for the institution at large. Dead students are not. We have an identical phenomenon in hospitals: there are huge campaigns against sexism and the like, while there are multiple young professionals committing suicide from burn-out every year and noone does as much as bat an eyelash. Contrary to victims of discrimination, dead people can't easily organize into coordinated lega…

You would think that allegedly driving a PoC student to suicide would count for something in the PC twitter sphere…

The "PC twitter sphere" as you describe them are only interested in one thing: doing what is easy and public for burnishing their own stature, and nothing else. No real problems will be solved by them, because they prefer having the public think they are solving them, rather than putting in the actual work and disciplined thinking to do it.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#273

Post by wrs » Sun, May 30, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #247

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what part of falling in love with people in the lab, people in the lab falling in love with you, and that affecting concentration and productivity, is so evil as to get someone fired? Sorry, honest question. Being from a different culture, I honestly fail to get this kind of outrage. For me it's just a description of humans being human...

The controversial part is where he suggests that this is a "problem" and might be a good reason to exclude women from working in the lab alongside with males. That looks like he's starting out with a very sexist attitude and trying to justify it with flimsy excuses.

By framing that as “exclusion” are you assuming the women-only labs would be worse places to work than the men-only labs?

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#274

Post by jerzyt » Sun, May 30, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #187

berndi wrote: post #11

Wow, the amount of depravity in some academic circles is astonishing. The article links [1] the case of a PhD student at the University of Florida who was forced to participate in such a publication collusion ring and was pressured to commit scientific fraud by fabricating results and submitting them to a conference [2], being threatened with physical harm should he decide to go public. This student saw no way out an…

I definitely wonder if industry is any better here. At least in academia, the papers are public, so there's an opportunity for scrutiny. But I've heard tell of "AI" boondoggles in both large companies and small. E.g., the large corporate "AI" efforts burning millions without making any real improvements. And I wonder how many startups out there have standards that are in effect lower than academia, but instead of wri…

It is rampant in consulting business. At least in an internal project it's possible to pull the plug when the results are not promising. In a consulting engagement, when the results are garbage, there's no revenue and no potential for an upsell. In effect the pressure to "find" significant results is enormous.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#275

Post by b3morales » Sun, May 30, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #126

newswasboring wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep bringing out that this can be a joke, but he said this two days later "I did mean the part about having trouble with girls. It is true that I have fallen in love with people in the lab, and that people in the lab have fallen in love with me, and it's very disruptive to the science. It's terribly important that, in the lab, people are on a level playing field. And I found these emotional entanglements made…

So what part of falling in love with people in the lab, people in the lab falling in love with you, and that affecting concentration and productivity, is so evil as to get someone fired? Sorry, honest question. Being from a different culture, I honestly fail to get this kind of outrage. For me it's just a description of humans being human...

It's painfully reductive and one-dimensional. What about envy and hate, hero worship, and other emotional attachments? Those have no effect on working environment?

What about men and women who aren't romantically attracted to (respectively) women and men? Are gay men relegated to the women's lab? But only one per batch, lest they fall in love with each other? (And bisexual people can only be trusted to do science on their own.)

In general don't we expect "professionalism" to include a level of managing your emotions? And this person is basically saying "I can't deal, therefore certain other people must be kept away so I don't get distracted". As well as tarring women in general as not being able to deal, which is unfair. I sure wouldn't want to work with this guy after hearing him say that.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#276

Post by aabaker99 » Sun, May 30, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

oldnews193 wrote: post #118

aabaker99 wrote: post #100

I'm really happy to see this article here. I quit my PhD where I was working on AI partly because of the "mundane day-to-day fraud" that the author and I observed in the field. Once you've read enough papers, you can easily see a kind of recipe to an academic paper. Present a new method, compare against a baseline, discuss the differences in the results found. To me, some researchers just follow this recipe and do no…

> I felt a lot of anxiety about sharing my research in this environment and felt pressure to make my work seem like it was the best solution for every problem when in reality there are more nuances. I am curious what kind of pressure you are referring to. It's your work and your decision how to present it to the world. As far as other people's research is concerned, academics can express their opinions by participati…

It is true that as the author of a research paper it is my decision how to present it. However, if you're too far off the mark, you are just going to be rejected by peer review or they will ask for revisions. The fact is as a PhD student, you are trying to join the research community. You aren't in a position to change that community. You have to tailor your work and statements to fit the mold. Students who are outspoken voicing these concerns, especially if they rise to the level of abuse or research misconduct, must tread carefully. A case I was made aware of in the study of research ethics is of Anil Potti [1], [2]. From [2], the statement from the whistleblower, "In raising these concerns, I have nothing to gain and much to lose" is apt.

For more mild cases, like those mentioned in the article, the stakes are lower but there is also more plausible deniability. If Duke University tried to bury even the blatant abuse, you can imagine how it is also hard to confront the article's so-called "mundane, day-to-day fraud".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Potti [2] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/duke-university-offi...

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#277

Post by sdenton4 » Sun, May 30, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

rscho wrote: post #160

underseacables wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tenure system. It protects more bad professors than it retains good ones.

No tenure, no exploratory science and no moonshot. Newton was a dangerous asshole. Would you exchange differential calculus for squeaky-clean academia? I don't think so ...

Well, it's not a real choice... We also had Leibniz.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#278

Post by b3morales » Sun, May 30, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

wrs wrote: post #273

zozbot234 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The controversial part is where he suggests that this is a "problem" and might be a good reason to exclude women from working in the lab alongside with males. That looks like he's starting out with a very sexist attitude and trying to justify it with flimsy excuses.

By framing that as “exclusion” are you assuming the women-only labs would be worse places to work than the men-only labs?

As a policy it denies both women and men the opportunity of working together. If you are a man and a woman happens to be working on the same problem that you are investigating, would you like to be excluded from learning from her? And vice versa.

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#279

Post by skystarman » Sun, May 30, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #194

skystarman wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that everyone defending this old coot is just memory-holing the clearly misogynistic comment "if you a criticize a woman in the lab, they cry" and are choosing to only mention the comments that are more easily defensible as a "joke"

Please give some credit to other posters. The way I read this; when he says "you", it's the generic you: he's talking about the "chauvinist monsters" like himself, and it's in the context of three particular ways in which his own failings prevent him working with women. He forms and encourages inappropriate emotional relationships with his female colleagues and it affects his ability to give criticism of their work e…

"Now you have the right to read that a different way; but please respect that others are not just "memory-holing" misogynistic comments for some reason or another."

Almost every single one of the posters defending this misogynistic behavior are just deliberately leaving out his most incendiary and misogynistic remark and instead focusing on comments he made that are less objectionable.

Why do these people deserve "credit"? Am I suppose to believe only focusing on the least objectionable comments to paint him as some unfairly maligned martyr is just an accident?

Re: Please commit more blatant academic fraud

#280

Post by skystarman » Sun, May 30, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #193

skystarman wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FUnny you leave out the part where he also said if you criticize a woman in the lab they cry... He made a terribly misogynistic "joke" and paid the consequences for it. You'd think someone with a Nobel prize wouldn't be so clueless

> FUnny you leave out the part where he also said if you criticize a woman in the lab they cry... Do you think women in the lab, when criticized, are more likely, less likely, or equally likely to cry? Is the scientist’s comment mean spirited, or sexist, or just an observation? I think it’s important to consider what the intent behind these jokes are. The Wikipedia article calls out statements from 29 other scientist…

"WHen making terribly misogynistic comments his INTENT wasn't to be misogynistic, it's just based on his experience that women are driven primarily by their emotions and unable to handle pressure!"

Really solid defense!