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A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

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Re: A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

#51

Post by IceDane »

In my view, there are two possibilities:

1) The data is fabricated and some of the researchers were in on it.

2) The data is fabricated, and the researchers are extremely sloppy, irresponsible and should be ashamed of their poor work ethic.

How can you not have done any kind of analysis on this data, even if only for curiosity's sake? No plots of the distributions? Nothing? Come on, it's stuff that take 3 mins to whip up in python.

In this age of misinformation, we don't tolerate people spouting lies even if they claim to think it is the truth. I don't see how this is any different. They didn't even attempt to do basic verification.

Re: A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

#52

Post by fastaguy88 »

efitz wrote: post #7

Science is a process, a way to find truth. It is not in itself truth. It is subject to all the same human flaws and venality as any other human endeavor. Just because something is published in a paper doesn’t make it true. Just because the paper was peer reviewed doesn’t make it true. Just because there is a “consensus” doesn’t make it true. I’m sick and tired of people saying “the science is settled” or “trust the s…

This seems like a generalization that needs to limited in scope. I think the science is settled about Newton’s laws, Maxwell’s equations, Avogadro’s number, and DNA as the genetic material in bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes. For pretty much anything taught in a 100 level science course, the science is largely settled.

There are controversies in science, and those controversies make for good popular science press, but there is a lot of science that is settled.

Re: A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

#53

Post by DominikPeters »

unreal37 wrote: post #26

What's weird is that this blog post is really just expanding on the 2020 study by the original authors which says that the original data is unreplicatable. And provides the original data. The original authors probably should have retracted the 2012 paper in 2020. That was a mistake not to do that. Which leads to this. This blog article is just science at work. You have a study that says X. Then people try to replicat…

Not replicable is very different from “the data were made up using a random number generator”.

Re: A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

#55

Post by bequanna »

kibwen wrote: post #14
efitz wrote: post #7

Science is a process, a way to find truth. It is not in itself truth. It is subject to all the same human flaws and venality as any other human endeavor. Just because something is published in a paper doesn’t make it true. Just because the paper was peer reviewed doesn’t make it true. Just because there is a “consensus” doesn’t make it true. I’m sick and tired of people saying “the science is settled” or “trust the s…

> people saying “the science is settled” or “trust the science” These two are not of the same level of severity. The first statement should usually raise eyebrows, as science is almost never "settled". The first and second laws of thermodynamics are pretty solid. For most other things we can entertain some skepticism. But the second statement raises the question: trust relative to what? If your options are to trust s…

What this all fails to consider are the undisclosed incentives and motivations of those “doing the science”.

It is shockingly easy to lie with statistics, massage experimental results, or just straight up fabricate the whole damn thing to further your career, get a grant, ego or whatever.

What percentage of published research papers are able to be reproduced? Very few.

Many “non-intellectuals” inherently know all of the above about human nature, but suffer ridicule when they don’t “trust the science”. It doesn’t take a blue check mark next to your name to realize that people are fallible and will lie to get ahead.

Re: A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

#56

Post by portpecos »

enkid wrote: post #32
throwawayboise wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I’ve heard people say “trust the science” it is always directed to people who have demonstrated that they do not understand the scientific method I think "always" is too strong. With regards to COVID vaccines I have heard that line thrown at people who say "this conclusion is too new, it has not stood the test of time" and now lo and behold we are seeing that the early "95% effective" rates are not holding up.…

The 95% effectiveness was based on the version of COVID that was circulating at the time. No one said it would be 95% effective against every possible mutation. Claiming the results of those studies are wrong instead of a result of a changing environment is itself a misunderstanding of science.

The media didn’t say “Vaccines are 95% effective, except for mutations”. The media said “Vaccines are 95% effective.”

Re: A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

#57

Post by cdstyh »

portpecos wrote: post #56
enkid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 95% effectiveness was based on the version of COVID that was circulating at the time. No one said it would be 95% effective against every possible mutation. Claiming the results of those studies are wrong instead of a result of a changing environment is itself a misunderstanding of science.

The media didn’t say “Vaccines are 95% effective, except for mutations”. The media said “Vaccines are 95% effective.”

The media is all lies and propaganda. Stop paying attention.

Re: A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

#58

Post by iratewizard »

BurningFrog wrote: post #43
WalterBright wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I hear people say "trust the science" the speaker is often a non-scientist who is selectively picking what science fits their agenda and ignoring the rest. It's the same thing when somebody says "trust me, I'm a XXXXX", it's time to be very skeptical.

Especially when it's only a single study with a surprising result. Those go viral easily, but are usually wrong.

The replication crisis has been a long standing problem in social sciences and medicine. The former's darkest stain is its collective need to prove their preconceived world view. The latter's seems to be motivated by profit.

I'm sure nobody is surprised that zealotry and greed have made some of science as reliable as psychic readings.

Re: A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

#59

Post by jpeloquin »

efitz wrote: post #7

Science is a process, a way to find truth. It is not in itself truth. It is subject to all the same human flaws and venality as any other human endeavor. Just because something is published in a paper doesn’t make it true. Just because the paper was peer reviewed doesn’t make it true. Just because there is a “consensus” doesn’t make it true. I’m sick and tired of people saying “the science is settled” or “trust the s…

Trust comes in degrees, so I think the question is how much to trust. Of the scientists I've worked with for long enough to estimate their character, I outright distrust only ~ 10%. That's consistent with [0], which reports that 8% of surveyed researchers admitted to falsifying data, but [1] reports 2% falsification and [2] reports only 0.5%. So if a finding is only reported by one group, whom you don't know personally, I would be only 50–70% confident in it. Once a finding is reported by at least two genuinely independent groups (no strong social or professional connections between the groups) it's appropriate to accept the facts reported but not necessarily the interpretation. As independent confirmations accumulate, idle skepticism becomes less credible. Active skepticism—doing experiments or collecting data to test the status quo—is always helpful though and should be welcomed.

[0] https://www.proquest.com/openview/e1af57060d9d8f628417ce3b7d... [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/435737a

Re: A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data

#60

Post by ad8e »

Another instance of suspicious behavior from Ariely: he has an experiment which shows that most people cheat a little, and very few cheat a lot. The experimental method involves prying off the teeth of shredders with a screwdriver. However, others could not replicate this method.

http://fraudbytes.blogspot.com/2021/08/top-honesty-researche...

Someone has claimed that getting a shredder from Home Depot is suspicious [1], but I found it perfectly innocuous. Googling for "home depot shredder" brings up several options.

[1] Aaron Charlton's response at https://twitter.com/sTeamTraen/status/1428275153155264520

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