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The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

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Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#101

Post by qwytw »

deanCommie wrote: post #33
renewiltord wrote: post #13

In the foreword for Animal Farm (in the del Rey edition, I think), Orwell writes that he was asked by tankie friends to keep quiet about the USSR's crimes because they were the best chance for Communism. Bullshit from scientists is normal. They're just people after all. But people who join the Culture War on one side must necessarily choose Science as a side despite it being just a technique for knowledge, not a team…

> he was asked by tankie friends to keep quiet about the USSR's crimes because they were the best chance for Communism. I have a lot of empathy for the tankies of that era. It was clear that people like Stalin were truly evil, but it was also clear from centuries of evidence that capitalism was exploitative and needed upheaval. On PAPER, Communism sounds great. I do think people genuinely believed there were simply g…

> A society like China

Why? China was even more poor and rural that pre-revolutionary Russia.

I'm pretty sure Marx himself was thinking about France, Britain, Germany etc. you couldn't just jump from a pre-capitalist system to a communist one.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#102

Post by harimau777 »

alexpotato wrote: post #89
godelski wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish there was a certificate authority run by the government. In the past we didn't have the capacity to do a lot of these things but now we can make many improvements, even if incomplete. Can we not have something like a CA but for, at minimum, officials? Or something like keybase for identity proofs? This seems quite invaluable. Couldn't this even be done within the phone, mail, and email systems? I don't…

You can call 911 or your local police station and they can verify if there is a law enforcement officer at your front door. I guess someone could run a Stingray and re-route your 911 call to a hostile party but at that point, I don't think a CA would help you given that they are right outside your front door.

My fear would be that that would piss off the police officer and motivate them to make up some reason to injure me, plant evidence, or destroy my property.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#103

Post by Aurornis »

DavidWoof wrote: post #64

Did anyone notice that the author talks about scams and cons, but when it actually comes to a list of examples the majority are actually about plagiarism? Which... I largely don't care about. I understand why it's super important for academics, but in my book it's not a con or scam. It's accurate information. If somebody is giving me accurate information, the fact that they don't have correct citations isn't really a…

> Did anyone notice that the author talks about scams and cons, but when it actually comes to a list of examples the majority are actually about plagiarism?

It’s an article on a .edu written in the wake of one of the highest profile academic plagiarism scandals in a long time (Claudine Gay). It’s not an article targeted at general audiences, you have to read it in context.

The Claudine Gay plagiarism scandal has been difficult for academia because there were many reactionary responses trying to defend her, but after further investigation people are realizing that her plagiarism was something that would have gotten any average student in severe disciplinary trouble. This has refueled the conversation about everything from plagiarism to falsified data that has become a worrying trend in academia: People are getting duped at worryingly high rates and the initial response to uncovering the academic fraud is to deny and defend.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#104

Post by xoa »

lupire wrote: post #82
xoa wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which... I largely don't care about. I understand why it's super important for academics, but in my book it's not a con or scam. It's accurate information. This is not correct on a few levels, at least in the context of science. At the most basic, you're engaging in circular reasoning. You're accepting it's "accurate information" as a truism when the point of science is to discover what is actually "accurate inform…

You're making a lot of assumptions about the nature of the plagiarized content. If plagiarizing is bad because the copied info might be wrong, then original research is bad because it might be wrong.

>If plagiarizing is bad because the copied info might be wrong, then original research is bad because it might be wrong.

No, that's not what I wrote at all. Original honest research might be wrong and that's completely fine and understood, that's the entire point of replication! But if someone lies and says they've independently replicated it when they just plagiarized that's fraud and wrong. Telling the world original research has been replicated when it hasn't been is different then a tentative first result. Depending on the area nobody else may then attempt replication for awhile, assuming it's already been done and instead waste resources trying to build upon it only to later discover it was wrong. The original team has also been robbed of independent review they may have otherwise gotten, and themselves move on only to much later have the rug pulled out from under them. Depending on the nature of what caused the original research to be incorrect it may have further ripple effects. Say some piece of equipment or new instrument has some subtle flaw that a true replication attempt would have discovered, but instead it then keeps getting used and causing other experiments to go off.

And this is all in the generous case where the plagiarist does at least pretend to have the same result as what they're copying, vs hacking it into something else and generating total garbage completely.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#105

Post by DonsDiscountGas »

xoa wrote: post #78
DavidWoof wrote: post #64

Did anyone notice that the author talks about scams and cons, but when it actually comes to a list of examples the majority are actually about plagiarism? Which... I largely don't care about. I understand why it's super important for academics, but in my book it's not a con or scam. It's accurate information. If somebody is giving me accurate information, the fact that they don't have correct citations isn't really a…

> Which... I largely don't care about. I understand why it's super important for academics, but in my book it's not a con or scam. It's accurate information. This is not correct on a few levels, at least in the context of science. At the most basic, you're engaging in circular reasoning. You're accepting it's "accurate information" as a truism when the point of science is to discover what is actually "accurate inform…

Every single case of plagiarism can be fixed with some combination of quotation marks, proper citations, and rephrasing of relevant text. It is never a claim to have independently reproduced a result.

If a scientist claims to have independently reproduced an experimental result - and they haven't - that is outright fraud. It doesn't matter if they describe that experiment in original words, with proper citations and quotation marks/blocks.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#106

Post by Aurornis »

These situations reveal the true preference toward status over accuracy: People would rather make an effort to preserve their status than to admit having made a mistake.

There are domains where playing games like this will cause you to lose even more status.

However, there are other domains where being loud and denying reality can actually preserve your status: If people are too tired, afraid, or avoidant to challenge the denial then eventually it becomes more or less accepted fact. This is a common feature of toxic work environments, where denying facts or trying to dictate reality can actually work in someone’s favor because the cost of disagreeing with that person is too high.

You see this in bad CEOs who get caught in scandals and then think they can talk their way out of it by writing flowery statements and going on social media to respin the story. These tactics work when you’re preaching to people whose jobs depend on accepting the things you tell them, but they fall apart in the court of public opinion where people have nothing to lose by doubting you.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#107

Post by DonsDiscountGas »

neilv wrote: post #4

> What really annoys me in these situations is how the institutions show loyalty to the people who did research misconduct. "Loyalty" means different things to different people, and not necessarily "doing what that party wants". So, if you don't call this "loyalty", it might be easier to imagine more of the possible/likely reasons for doing something that coincides with what that party wants, in an instance.

"Who should I believe, some random blogger or this person I've known for years?"

Oftentimes the answer is "random blogger" but it's really not that surprising that people trust their friends more than strangers.

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#108

Post by anonym29 »

monktastic1 wrote: post #100
akoboldfrying wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust anyone to be a police officer unless there's another police officer present certifying that they are in fact a police officer, and another police officer present certifying that that person is a police officer, and so on, up to a piece of paper listing hundreds of "root" police officers around the world that was prepared in an unspecified way by an unknown programmer involved in making whichever browser…

That's insane. I hand-check my root certs at least twice a day.

When you're looking at the disk, do you use a handheld magnifying glass and go by sight, or are you running your fingers over the disk to feel the position of each electron?

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#109

Post by [deleted] »

xoa wrote: post #78
DavidWoof wrote: post #64

Did anyone notice that the author talks about scams and cons, but when it actually comes to a list of examples the majority are actually about plagiarism? Which... I largely don't care about. I understand why it's super important for academics, but in my book it's not a con or scam. It's accurate information. If somebody is giving me accurate information, the fact that they don't have correct citations isn't really a…

> Which... I largely don't care about. I understand why it's super important for academics, but in my book it's not a con or scam. It's accurate information. This is not correct on a few levels, at least in the context of science. At the most basic, you're engaging in circular reasoning. You're accepting it's "accurate information" as a truism when the point of science is to discover what is actually "accurate inform…

[deleted]

Re: The immediate victims of a con would rather act as if the con never happened

#110

Post by pinkmuffinere »

MobileVet wrote: post #53
MobileVet wrote: post #29

Shame and pride are such strong motivators. My wife was taken by a very elaborate and well-crafted scam in November. In retrospect, it all sounds ridiculous... but in the moment, with kids in tow, it was very convincing. It was so traumatizing that when it was over and she finally realized it was a scam, she was relieved! They had convinced her she was going to jail and that was terrifying. Losing the money was less…

This scam is pretty active right now. My brother in law was called 2 days prior and they called my wife again 2 days later… Rough scam script: - - hello, is this XYZ? - this is Officer Z, do you agree to abide by Judge ABC’s orders? - we have been trying to reach you by mail about this case. It has to do with a minor. - the judge has issued a gag order, do not talk with anyone about this - look up the number from the…

I had this exact same scam a couple months ago! I never figured out how they spoof the courthouse’s number though — any idea how they do that?
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