Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination • Hacker News Board

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#231

Post by chermi » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #147

jarenmf wrote: post #133

Science is self-correcting, but sometimes, the correction mechanism it is very slow and inconsequential enough that people are incentivized to just publish anything. Peer review is merely a quality check—and not a very good one. Just the other day, I ran into a paper in my field that claims to have solved a central problem that scientists have been working on for 50 years, single-authored, using some fancy mathematic…

Science isn't self correcting. This is a harmful meme that we need to collectively put in the trash can, as it's constantly used by academics to evade accountability. The core problem is people conflating science with Science™. The scientific method is a set of techniques that help people discover and report true things. But there are two huge problems with it: 1. What exactly is the scientific method? It's not like…

Science that is science is self-correcting via prediction and experiment. The key piece is the feedback. The "scientific method" as taught in grade school hardly matters and is basically cargo cult. The "is this science" lint is "are you working toward more accurate and especially predictive models of observed phenomena? Are you actively trying to destroy your theory?" If the feedback is missing or ignored, it's just opinion pieces.

Edit- I don't know what's controversial about this? Feedback is the self-correcting piece.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#232

Post by chermi » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

aktenlage wrote: post #159

mike_hearn wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science isn't self correcting. This is a harmful meme that we need to collectively put in the trash can, as it's constantly used by academics to evade accountability. The core problem is people conflating science with Science™. The scientific method is a set of techniques that help people discover and report true things. But there are two huge problems with it: 1. What exactly is the scientific method? It's not like…

My take on the self correction is, that later research usually cannot be build on wrong results. So over the decades or centuries the correct results prevail.

[flagged]

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#233

Post by anthonyrstevens » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 3:00 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #147

jarenmf wrote: post #133

Science is self-correcting, but sometimes, the correction mechanism it is very slow and inconsequential enough that people are incentivized to just publish anything. Peer review is merely a quality check—and not a very good one. Just the other day, I ran into a paper in my field that claims to have solved a central problem that scientists have been working on for 50 years, single-authored, using some fancy mathematic…

Science isn't self correcting. This is a harmful meme that we need to collectively put in the trash can, as it's constantly used by academics to evade accountability. The core problem is people conflating science with Science™. The scientific method is a set of techniques that help people discover and report true things. But there are two huge problems with it: 1. What exactly is the scientific method? It's not like…

How do you square your position with all the ... self corrections ... that have happened in science in the last, oh, 500 years or so?

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#234

Post by chermi » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 3:00 PM UTC

tremon wrote: post #199

raverbashing wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup Motte-and-bailey fallacy abound Nature (not the magazine) doesn't care if you published a peer-reviewed paper in a high-impact journal. It doesn't care if reviewer 2 thinks you need to quote his friend It also doesn't care that you think a dewormer works against a virus because it doesn't > What exactly is the scientific method? Trying and seeing what sticks. That's literally it. Of course publishing (and publici…

> Trying and seeing what sticks. That's literally it. I'd like to add a readiness to abandon that which doesn't stick. Otherwise you end up with people going 'round in circles around a campfire.

That's covered by trying and seeing what sticks. That's really all there is to it. I already got downvoted for saying this in other words - feedback against observed phenomena is what matters. Everywhere you see shitty "science" you see either missing or ignored feedback.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#235

Post by dennis_jeeves2 » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 3:09 PM UTC

aktenlage wrote: post #159

mike_hearn wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science isn't self correcting. This is a harmful meme that we need to collectively put in the trash can, as it's constantly used by academics to evade accountability. The core problem is people conflating science with Science™. The scientific method is a set of techniques that help people discover and report true things. But there are two huge problems with it: 1. What exactly is the scientific method? It's not like…

My take on the self correction is, that later research usually cannot be build on wrong results. So over the decades or centuries the correct results prevail.

>My take on the self correction is, that later research usually cannot be build on wrong results.

AFIK, it does not seem to happen much with mainstream medicinal research. Many layers of fraud/incompetence/assumptions for centuries with no correction in sight. Of course there are certain sub-areas that may have advanced. In fact it's the modern day religion, having replaced the god centric religion of yesteryears.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#236

Post by mike_hearn » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 3:13 PM UTC

anthonyrstevens wrote: post #233

mike_hearn wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science isn't self correcting. This is a harmful meme that we need to collectively put in the trash can, as it's constantly used by academics to evade accountability. The core problem is people conflating science with Science™. The scientific method is a set of techniques that help people discover and report true things. But there are two huge problems with it: 1. What exactly is the scientific method? It's not like…

How do you square your position with all the ... self corrections ... that have happened in science in the last, oh, 500 years or so?

Most of the problems are with academic fields that were barely funded before WW2.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#237

Post by dennis_jeeves2 » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 3:28 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #193

anon-3988 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Science isn't self correcting.... I am not sure what your proposal is? It seems to be the solution is only more science? This meme that science can't solve anything or is ineffective is also a meme that needs to die. Science is about the only thing that we have to make sense of the world. What else is there? > 1. What exactly is the scientific method? It's not like there's a constitutional amendment that lays it ou…

Replicability isn't enough to be scientific. Many studies have invalid methodologies, so replicating them by following the same method just propagates wrongness and makes the problems worse. And if you don't follow the same method the original authors will claim it's not a replication study. https://blog.plan99.net/replication-studies-cant-fix-science... My proposal is: let science be done by those who need its resul…

>My proposal is: let science be done by those who need its results to be correct.

A tangential proposal - individuals (not orgs) should offer to upfront fund ( in lump sum) promising researchers for life. That way a researcher is not worried about losing his livelihood. I suspect this may already be happening in a few circles without much fanfare.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#238

Post by jldugger » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 3:36 PM UTC

largbae wrote: post #205

So this paper appears to be fabricated, but was the conclusion actually wrong? I do appear to perform better on tasks with an external deadline than on self-set ones.

The conclusion is faulty given that it was derived from faulty data. The 2002 paper had two pilot studies and 2 bigger studies. The replication of study 2 failed[1], and the original data has substantial concerning features the rest of the datacolada article lays out. This has two unfortunate implications.

First, if study 2 was not necessary to support the conclusions, it seems likely it would not have been performed or included in this paper. So given it seems necessary, the conclusion is invalid. In past examples (the Reinhart-Rogoff paper comes to mind) when this happens, the authors claim it wasn't necessary and the conclusion is still valid and the professional embarrassment of a retraction is not called for. But in this case the replication failure might stand as a strike _against_ the theory.

But second, this is not the first questionable data coming from Ariely's lab, and it seems unlikely this was a data entry mistake. If study 2 is not trustworthy, we should update our priors about the trustworthiness of study 1. Note it's not guaranteed to be doctored in some way, just worthy of additional scrutiny. And if that one also fails to replicate, the paper and its conclusion seems unsalvageable.

Presumably his coauthor is now panicking about not keeping data from 25 years ago to exhonerate and distance himself.

[1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09567976261460...

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#239

Post by dennis_jeeves2 » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

CrazyStat wrote: post #185

esalman wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it does not matter if Jesus did in fact born from a virgin mother, it is not repeatable, and therefore not scientific https://www.newscientist.com/article/1837276-the-boy-whose-b...

Even better, from the BMJ christmas edition https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f7102 > Around 0.5% of women consistently affirmed their status as virgins and did not use assisted reproductive technology, yet reported virgin births.

In the true spirit of science this needs to be pursued however outlandish it may seem.

Re: Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Study About Procrastination

#240

Post by amanaplanacanal » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

chermi wrote: post #232

aktenlage wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take on the self correction is, that later research usually cannot be build on wrong results. So over the decades or centuries the correct results prevail.

[flagged]

Economics is a particularly slippery subject, since double blind experiments are practically impossible. No doubt some of the things Marx wrote correctly describe reality, even if some of the social experiments built on his work were massive failures.