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Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

ft.com

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Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#131

Post by pyuser583 »

ct0 wrote: post #90
lumost wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is also why large industrial ML labs have mixed productivity. My observation has been that people decide that a problem is important because someone high up thought it was important. The researchers using the methodology that shows the largest offline impact are rewarded - not those with the most rigorous finding. This creates a strong incentive to fudge the results and never ship anything. I knew of o…

Same goes for politics. Grant money available on partisan issues is quite the motivator too. I was doing research on a researcher and publisher at rutgers: https://gunviolenceresearchcenter.rutgers.edu/mike-anestis-p... and was surprised to learn how much funding him and his team has received. Literally millions, much more than small market research firms.

I remember a thing a while back where Texas cut family planning funding. Around the same time maternal deaths skyrockets.

Tons of research, sponsored by pro-choice medical groups

Turns out the rise in maternal deaths preceded cuts in funding.

Speaking to my relatives in Texas, a bunch of ERs shut down around the same time - which could explain the deaths.

Abortion is a hit button issue - family planning is to a lesser degree.

But plain old ERs closing - that’s not political. Just a statistic.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#132

Post by pyuser583 »

zetazzed wrote: post #34

Individual researchers have huge incentives for fraud, but large universities are the ones who most need to look inward here. HBS could become a beacon for stronger research practices in this area - requiring study preregistration and data collection methods that carefully trace provenance and changes. If HBS has fewer but better quirky marketing psychology studies, their reputation will do well. However for an indiv…

I’ve been involved in discussions over what numbers to give to the Board of Trustees. CFOs go to prison over this.

It’s funny how greedy, for-profit companies are strict about honest accounting, while non-profit universities are fine with dodgy research.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#133

Post by zetazzed »

pyuser583 wrote: post #132
zetazzed wrote: post #34

Individual researchers have huge incentives for fraud, but large universities are the ones who most need to look inward here. HBS could become a beacon for stronger research practices in this area - requiring study preregistration and data collection methods that carefully trace provenance and changes. If HBS has fewer but better quirky marketing psychology studies, their reputation will do well. However for an indiv…

I’ve been involved in discussions over what numbers to give to the Board of Trustees. CFOs go to prison over this. It’s funny how greedy, for-profit companies are strict about honest accounting, while non-profit universities are fine with dodgy research.

While I strongly think HBS should do much more to prevent fraud, I would also note that they have suspended Gino and seem likely to fire her. So it’s not like they are completely ok with this…

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#135

Post by a_subsystem »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #100
JenrHywy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be more diverse in terms of race and sexuality, but have very little diversity of opinion and worldview.

Little diversity of opinion and worldview how? (Should DEI teams be hiring people who are against diversity, equity, and inclusion?)

They would benefit from being open to discussion, which they are generally not. There are an absolute plethora of examples. See Peter Boghossian's street interviews/surveys for example.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#136

Post by necovek »

dredmorbius wrote: post #124
necovek wrote: post #2

[flagged]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424373 > In Comments ... Don't be snarky. ... Please don't sneer ... Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.... Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work.... Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator…

My apologies for assuming it's a he: not sure exactly what of the rules do you think I broke, as I don't think I was snarky (sounds closest).

I was mostly making fun of the language we humans tend to use sometimes: a car expert would be applying their expertise on cars, a botany expert would do it in botany, but it's not an "honesty expert" but a "dishonesty expert"?

I do believe that's an interesting point to make, even if — obviously — at least someone has misread the joke as something else.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#137

Post by maxweylandt »

xdavidliu wrote: post #110
jamessb wrote: post #4

The FT article says: 'A group of academics who compile the Data Colada blog about the evidence behind behavioural science has started publishing a series of posts in which they say they will detail “evidence of fraud in four academic papers” co-authored by Gino'. The first two of these blog posts are: https://datacolada.org/109 https://datacolada.org/110

from 110: > It is worth reiterating that to the best of our knowledge, none of Gino’s co-authors carried out or assisted with the data collection for the studies in this series. I'm confused; I thought 109 described a paper in which Ariely was the sole person to handle the data. How is this not contradictory?

The ariely paper contained several studies by a variety of authors. The first post of this series details issues with one of the studies in that paper, which Gino did (but Ariely wasn't involved in). So 'studies' refers to experiment/bit of research, not paper in this context

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#138

Post by IggleSniggle »

greazy wrote: post #81
IggleSniggle wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For similar reasons, I left academia. I joined academia for the pursuit of truth, and forth the glory of Knowing. But it turned out that academia doesn’t really do this anymore, it just sells itself as doing these things. Academia is entirely a “reputation” system, as it turns out, from paper publishing to student-evaluations to “public rankings.” As it turns out, the capitalist marketplace must also contend with the…

Wait a second, the blog which is bringing to light these issues is by academics who ARE seeking the truth. As someone in academia (very different field than Behavioral psych), I'm very cautious of people who say overgeneralised hyperbole such as: > I joined academia for the pursuit of truth, and forth the glory of Knowing. Because doing science is not clear concise straight forward exercise people envision. (Science…

To be fair, my field was not in the sciences. Regardless, I left the tenure track due to disillusionment. I don’t presume that others had the same experience, and it is my earnest hope that most people do not.

I was heavily encouraged to give high grades for high reviews and to publish high-volume, quality be damned. I hope that my leaving had some effect on the decision makers at my particular institution. But my impression was that the issue was systemic, and I became very bitter. I thought it better to leave than to remain and further institutionalize that bitterness.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#139

Post by dredmorbius »

necovek wrote: post #136
dredmorbius wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424373 > In Comments ... Don't be snarky. ... Please don't sneer ... Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.... Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work.... Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator…

My apologies for assuming it's a he: not sure exactly what of the rules do you think I broke, as I don't think I was snarky (sounds closest). I was mostly making fun of the language we humans tend to use sometimes: a car expert would be applying their expertise on cars, a botany expert would do it in botany, but it's not an "honesty expert" but a "dishonesty expert"? I do believe that's an interesting point to make,…

HN members are generally presumed to be familiar with standard tools for subverting paywalls (see also HN Guidelines). Or simply reading the comments thread to find such a workaround. In this case the paywall link is now at the top of the comments thread, though it was posted a few minutes after your own comment.

Commenting that you didn't read the article, then making a series of shallow and incorrect assumptions about the circumstances ... seems on the nose for shallow, dismissive snark.

Further, it violates HN's prime directive: "What Hacker News is: a place for stories that gratify intellectual curiosity and civil, substantive comments." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404>.

I'm not a mod, but thought I'd address why your comment might be engendering the response it has.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#140

Post by IggleSniggle »

otikik wrote: post #83
93po wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what I'm talking about but I would speculate that looking at how.much.freaking.money these schools have provides us a window into what these schools actually focus on. The focus seems to be making and having a ton of money. This compounded by the trends we see in fewer tenure positions, worse pay for associate profs, a glut of admin positions and admin pay, etc. So yeah, I'd say the observation that ma…

Ah, you meant it the same way that a thief is more honest that a corrupt politician. At least the first one is honest about what it does.

The person you are responding to is not me, but they captured the essence of my intent, more or less.
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