When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy • Hacker News Board

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#11

Post by lovich » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:22 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #7

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #3

>This moment of fizziness for the discipline was already underway when Cuddy arrived at Princeton’s graduate program in 2000, transferring there to follow her adviser, Susan Fiske, with whom she first worked at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. This is the same Susan Fiske who called people who pointed out statistical errors in psychology papers "methodological terrorists". http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/2…

You mischaracterize. Fiske is not criticizing "people who pointed out statistical errors" and begins the entire essay by explicitly stating as such: "Our field has always encourages -- required, really -- peer critiques"! She is criticizing "unfiltered trash-talk [on social media]... [and] online vigilantes [who] are attacking individuals, their research programs, and their careers". It's the same tension the article…

Is that not the case anyway? I admit I have no experience contributing but that's from hearing things like how the linux development team runs and people like Sarah Sharp quitting over the abuse. It's given me the impression that if I don't create something that is up to a teams standard from commit 0 then I will be ridiculed in a public forum

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#12

Post by throwawayjava » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:26 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #11

throwawayjava wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mischaracterize. Fiske is not criticizing "people who pointed out statistical errors" and begins the entire essay by explicitly stating as such: "Our field has always encourages -- required, really -- peer critiques"! She is criticizing "unfiltered trash-talk [on social media]... [and] online vigilantes [who] are attacking individuals, their research programs, and their careers". It's the same tension the article…

Is that not the case anyway? I admit I have no experience contributing but that's from hearing things like how the linux development team runs and people like Sarah Sharp quitting over the abuse. It's given me the impression that if I don't create something that is up to a teams standard from commit 0 then I will be ridiculed in a public forum

Abuse from your own insular community re: a particular project is one thing; public abuse published in some of the most popular print media on the planet resulting in lost jobs/lost job opporunities is quite another.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#13

Post by lliamander » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:26 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #7

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #3

>This moment of fizziness for the discipline was already underway when Cuddy arrived at Princeton’s graduate program in 2000, transferring there to follow her adviser, Susan Fiske, with whom she first worked at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. This is the same Susan Fiske who called people who pointed out statistical errors in psychology papers "methodological terrorists". http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/2…

You mischaracterize. Fiske is not criticizing "people who pointed out statistical errors" and begins the entire essay by explicitly stating as such: "Our field has always encourages -- required, really -- peer critiques"! She is criticizing "unfiltered trash-talk [on social media]... [and] online vigilantes [who] are attacking individuals, their research programs, and their careers". It's the same tension the article…

> You mischaracterize. Fiske is not criticizing "people who pointed out statistical errors" and begins the entire essay by explicitly stating as such: "Our field has always encourages -- required, really -- peer critiques"! > She is criticizing "unfiltered trash-talk [on social media]... [and] online vigilantes [who] are attacking individuals, their research programs, and their careers".

Let me quote Gelman regarding the subject of her criticism:

> The other thing that’s sad here is how Fiske seems to have felt the need to compromise her own principles here. She deplores “unfiltered trash talk,” “unmoderated attacks” and “adversarial viciousness” and insists on the importance of “editorial oversight and peer review.” According to Fiske, criticisms should be “most often in private with a chance to improve (peer review), or at least in moderated exchanges (curated comments and rebuttals).” And she writes of “scientific standards, ethical norms, and mutual respect.”

> But Fiske expresses these views in an unvetted attack in an unmoderated forum with no peer review or opportunity for comments or rebuttals, meanwhile referring to her unnamed adversaries as “methological terrorists.” Sounds like unfiltered trash talk to me. But, then again, I haven’t seen Fiske on the basketball court so I really have no idea what she sounds like when she’s really trash talkin’.

> I bring this up not in the spirit of gotcha, but rather to emphasize what a difficult position Fiske is in. She’s seeing her professional world collapsing—not at a personal level, I assume she’ll keep her title as the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Professor of Public Affairs at Princeton University for as long as she wants—but her work and the work of her friends and colleagues is being questioned in a way that no one could’ve imagined ten years ago. It’s scary, and it’s gotta be a lot easier for her to blame some unnamed “terrorists” than to confront the gaps in her own understanding of research methods.

> To put it another way, Fiske and her friends and students followed a certain path which has given them fame, fortune, and acclaim. Question the path, and you question the legitimacy of all that came from it. And that can’t be pleasant.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#14

Post by cratermoon » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:28 PM UTC

Sounds like straight up sexism to me.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#15

Post by 09bjb » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:29 PM UTC

yawaramin wrote: post #6

I'm sure there's already been a discussion on how much of the effect of power poses is due to confirmation bias or placebo effect, as opposed to some other physiological or psychosomatic reason. Especially since in the original study the subjects weren't actually told what they were doing, but in Dr Cuddy's talks and books they explicitly are. It's just curious to me that she and Dr Fiske wouldn't catch this crucial…

One note; in general, I think we tend to diminish finding when we find out that the placebo effect is partly behind them. Wrongly, in my opinion. Better reactions might be, "Wow, we take this action and our bodies/brains take care of the rest of the effect through some placebo magic? That's amazing!!"

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#16

Post by zipfle » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:30 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #11

throwawayjava wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mischaracterize. Fiske is not criticizing "people who pointed out statistical errors" and begins the entire essay by explicitly stating as such: "Our field has always encourages -- required, really -- peer critiques"! She is criticizing "unfiltered trash-talk [on social media]... [and] online vigilantes [who] are attacking individuals, their research programs, and their careers". It's the same tension the article…

Is that not the case anyway? I admit I have no experience contributing but that's from hearing things like how the linux development team runs and people like Sarah Sharp quitting over the abuse. It's given me the impression that if I don't create something that is up to a teams standard from commit 0 then I will be ridiculed in a public forum

I find it amazing and heartening to see this kind of humanistic, self-reflective discourse on hn, where I generally expect to find macho posturing.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#17

Post by hirundo » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:30 PM UTC

Cheers for scientific revolutions being gentler than political ones. Cuddy lost her reputation rather than her head. But losing a reputation hurts more, or at least longer. More civility could have helped, but there's no painless way to lose status.

The scandal is that Cuddy's work met the standard of the bulk of published social science until lately. She studied the same phlogiston with the same tools as her colleagues. But when the revolution that comes for them, gently, is an epistemic advance, their pain is our gain. Join the revolution, comrad Cuddy!

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#18

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:35 PM UTC

breitling wrote: post #10

Wasn't this study thoroughly debunked already? The co-author of this study, Dana Carney, distanced herself from this study [1]. She doesn't believe all the claims the study made were true. [1] http://www.npr.org/2016/10/01/496093672/power-poses-co-autho...

The article includes much discussion of Carney.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#19

Post by lovich » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #12

lovich wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that not the case anyway? I admit I have no experience contributing but that's from hearing things like how the linux development team runs and people like Sarah Sharp quitting over the abuse. It's given me the impression that if I don't create something that is up to a teams standard from commit 0 then I will be ridiculed in a public forum

Abuse from your own insular community re: a particular project is one thing; public abuse published in some of the most popular print media on the planet resulting in lost jobs/lost job opporunities is quite another.

People use their open source contributions as part of their resume when seeking jobs, correct? That sort of abuse would reach outside the group if you were showing off your contributions as a necessary part of your career.

I don't see as wide of a gap in effect on career between open source contributions for engineers and published papers for scientists as you seem to be implying

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#20

Post by throwawayjava » Thu, Oct 19, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

lliamander wrote: post #13

throwawayjava wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mischaracterize. Fiske is not criticizing "people who pointed out statistical errors" and begins the entire essay by explicitly stating as such: "Our field has always encourages -- required, really -- peer critiques"! She is criticizing "unfiltered trash-talk [on social media]... [and] online vigilantes [who] are attacking individuals, their research programs, and their careers". It's the same tension the article…

> You mischaracterize. Fiske is not criticizing "people who pointed out statistical errors" and begins the entire essay by explicitly stating as such: "Our field has always encourages -- required, really -- peer critiques"! > She is criticizing "unfiltered trash-talk [on social media]... [and] online vigilantes [who] are attacking individuals, their research programs, and their careers". Let me quote Gelman regarding…

Gelman has forged his own path to "fame, fortune, and acclaim". It's not clear to me that this path has actually improved (this particular branch of) science. In fact, by the sound of it, that path may've been at least as destructive as he claims Fiske et al's was. Which isn't an indict of Gelman, as I hardly intuit anything but positive intentions on his part.

I'm less concerned with Fiske vs. Gelman and much more concerned with Jay Van Bavel's observation that either way, science loses.

Confining scientific critique to scientific venues seems like a reasonable bulwark against this sort of thing. If it had been Reviewer #3 in a program committee or editorial board, or a well-received letter to the editor, instead of a blog post picked up by thousands of internet warriors with no stats training, perhaps the result could've been refined or thrown out without expelling someone from research. If the feud hadn't been picked up by pop science press, then maybe a bad piece of science could've been questioned without poisoning the well for further inquiry.