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Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

datacolada.org

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Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#121

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

MarceliusK wrote: post #115
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fraud that Data Colada presents here is unambiguous. It was also no accident in my opinion that they are specifically mentioning that the 3 Excel files were “Last saved by” “Dan Ariely” I'm sure the statute of limitations has expired for this, but I really wish the Feds would prosecute cases like this as wire fraud instead of leaving insular academic institutions to self-police. This type of fraud is done for per…

I'd be pretty wary of stretching wire fraud law to cover this. Prosecutors deciding whether scientific results are fraudulent sounds like it could create its own set of ugly incentives

Prosecutors (and juries) already are expected to adjudicate fraud across cases that IMO are much more ambiguous than this.

I think it's fair to debate whether it's a good thing that, as I heard it put once, "everything is wire fraud" (i.e. lots of crimes require lying on documents that are sent electronically and thus become federal crimes), but I see zero reason to think that committing academic fraud (which, again, is done for personal gain and causes real, measurable harm to others) is any less of a crime than lots of other things that are prosecuted as wire fraud.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#122

Post by lelanthran »

freediddy wrote: post #27

No paper should ever be referenced until it has been replicated by an independent group. The replication crisis in science is real, and it won't take long for no one to believe anything anymore.

> The replication crisis in science is real, and it won't take long for no one to believe anything anymore.

If you think replication in the sciences is in crises, wait till you see the field of psychology.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#123

Post by eproxus »

dbrans wrote: post #37
bawolff wrote: post #9

It does seem like its way too easy to do this kind of fraud. The study seems extremely easy to replicate (no fancy equipment needed, just ask some people to proofread), and yet nobody did until now. Is there some way to change incentives to get people to try and replicate? Assign undergrads to replicate random research papers?

Replication is unpaid QA on someone else's product. Nobody gets tenure for finding the bug, hence the field has been meaning to get around to it for 20 years.

Universities, institutions and publications who care about their reputation should pay people to replicate studies performed by people they employ in their name. Otherwise they will loose their trustworthiness.

But perhaps it is not as big a shame for them as some think it should be...

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#124

Post by ShinyLeftPad »

lelanthran wrote: post #109
vjulian wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because “science” doesn’t know everything, and people don’t want to wait until their options are scientifically-validated. Yoga, breathing exercises, meditation and the like were once considered fads and derided by your ‘science’.

> Yoga, breathing exercises, meditation and the like were once considered fads and derided by your ‘science’. What do you mean "once"?

In case you don't follow the field: https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-and-mindfulness-...

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#125

Post by Calazon »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #121
MarceliusK wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be pretty wary of stretching wire fraud law to cover this. Prosecutors deciding whether scientific results are fraudulent sounds like it could create its own set of ugly incentives

Prosecutors (and juries) already are expected to adjudicate fraud across cases that IMO are much more ambiguous than this. I think it's fair to debate whether it's a good thing that, as I heard it put once, "everything is wire fraud" (i.e. lots of crimes require lying on documents that are sent electronically and thus become federal crimes), but I see zero reason to think that committing academic fraud (which, again,…

Perhaps we need a new/updated law to cover this kind of thing. This sort of academic fraud should absolutely be criminalized, but I'm not sure I'm the biggest fan of the "everything is wire fraud" approach to achieving that.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#126

Post by logifail »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #92
Aurornis wrote: post #6

Dan Ariely has a long history of controversies and studies with falsified data. He wrote 3 popular books and gained a lot of fame before others started uncovering the problems in his studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ariely It’s amazing that problems with his studies are still being uncovered. Equally amazing that Duke still maintains a relationship with him after so many problems have been identified with hi…

The fraud that Data Colada presents here is unambiguous. It was also no accident in my opinion that they are specifically mentioning that the 3 Excel files were “Last saved by” “Dan Ariely” I'm sure the statute of limitations has expired for this, but I really wish the Feds would prosecute cases like this as wire fraud instead of leaving insular academic institutions to self-police. This type of fraud is done for per…

> leaving insular academic institutions to self-police

I'm not convinced that academic institutions are actually self-policing, it may not even be correct to assume they each act as one coherent entity. There are a lot of incentives in play which may not be obvious from the outside.

Many decades ago during my PhD I was in working in a chemistry lab when a colleague had an accident which caused a minor explosion, big enough to blow both of the glass side panes completely out of his fume hood.

With hindsight he was extremely lucky to have only minor injuries, he was peppered with tiny cuts from the flying glass and temporarily deaf from the bang.

I called for an ambulance, which seemed like a reasonable response.

The first prof on the scene (not our prof though!) came in and immediately asked "who phoned for the emergency services?", so I said it was me. He then gave me a bit of a telling-off, ending with him saying "and now the press will find out!" before he stormed off.

I remember thinking "wtf?! my colleague has just blown up our lab, and your top concern is that it will be in the newspapers"...

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#127

Post by lelanthran »

ShinyLeftPad wrote: post #124
lelanthran wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yoga, breathing exercises, meditation and the like were once considered fads and derided by your ‘science’. What do you mean "once"?

In case you don't follow the field: https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-and-mindfulness-...

> Meditation and mindfulness practices may have a variety of health benefits and may help people improve the quality of their lives. Recent studies have investigated if meditation or mindfulness helps people manage anxiety, stress, depression, pain, or symptoms related to withdrawal from nicotine, alcohol, or opioids.

> Other studies have looked at the effects of meditation or mindfulness on weight control or sleep quality.

> However, much of the research on these topics has been preliminary or not scientifically rigorous. Because the studies examined many different types of meditation and mindfulness practices, and the effects of those practices are hard to measure, results from the studies have been difficult to analyze and may have been interpreted too optimistically.

This is just a polite way of saying "there's no evidence of them actually doing anything*".

I mean, that's exactly what you'd tell someone who believed in the healing powers of homeopathy or chiropracty(sp?).

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#128

Post by iammjm »

bluGill wrote: post #79
dghlsakjg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go read the article instead of nitpicking people doing the citations for you. If you ask a known pedophile for funding and introductions while accepting favors, you can rightly be accused of bad judgment - at best.

Go read it yourself. There isn't enough information to draw concussions. Everything is consistent with contact with a major funder who you can't cut off just because of evil in a part of life you knew nothing about. You can read the article with a bias and ignore his counter claims. However that is drawing a conclusion not warranted. Now perhaps someone has read the letters and seen other evidence and can draw conclu…

Asking THE sex trafficker pimp extraordinaire about the contact data of a “redhead”… I guess you CAN read this whole interaction as benevolent if you squint hard enough to the point that the nature of this guy’s transactions with people becomes invisible

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#129

Post by coldtea »

Calazon wrote: post #125
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prosecutors (and juries) already are expected to adjudicate fraud across cases that IMO are much more ambiguous than this. I think it's fair to debate whether it's a good thing that, as I heard it put once, "everything is wire fraud" (i.e. lots of crimes require lying on documents that are sent electronically and thus become federal crimes), but I see zero reason to think that committing academic fraud (which, again,…

Perhaps we need a new/updated law to cover this kind of thing. This sort of academic fraud should absolutely be criminalized, but I'm not sure I'm the biggest fan of the "everything is wire fraud" approach to achieving that.

If it gets so bad that a society/academic system needs to criminalize such fraud, they have already lost that race.

The only thing that really works is a culture where this rarely if ever happens, because of the peer respect and self-respect of academics.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#130

Post by Tomte »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #105
dbrans wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replication is unpaid QA on someone else's product. Nobody gets tenure for finding the bug, hence the field has been meaning to get around to it for 20 years.

On the other hand, this seems like a super interesting path for an (unglamorous) PhD -- replicate the N most important findings in a field, subject to some restrictions (maybe focus on the ones that are "easy", or haven't been replicated yet, or the ones that could be patched together to make an acceptable PhD thesis). This sort of stuff really appeals to me, I think I might end up doing something like that in 5-10 y…

Good luck finding an advisor/a department that awards PhDs for that.

“It’s not novel”.

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