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Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

jacobbuckman.com

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Re: Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

#31

Post by cgcrob »

archi42 wrote: post #29
cgcrob wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s any consolation I split up with an ex partner after she wanted to put me as a co-author on a pseudoscience bullshit paper that she was working on to try and hit her quota. Her entire field, in the social sciences, is inventing a wild idea and using meta analysis to give it credibility. Then flying to conferences and submitting expenses. I contributed nothing other than a statistical framework which was discar…

I treat all social science degrees as "likely bullshit" these days. Could as well be astrology. A few computer science friends of mine worked at a social science department during university. Their tasks included maintaining the computers, but also support the researchers with experiment design (if computers were involved) and statistical analysis. They got into trouble because they didn't want to use unsound or inco…

Glad to know they quit. That's exactly what I observed, except it was probably worse if I think back at it. I'm a mathematician "by trade" so was sort of pulled into this by proxy because they were out of their depth in a tangle of SPSS. Not that I wasn't but at least I have conceptual framework in which to do the analysis. I had no interest or knowledge of the field but when you're with someone in it you have to toe the line a little bit.

Observations: Firstly inventing a conclusion is a big problem. I'm not even talking about a hypothesis that needs to be tested but a conclusion. A vague ambiguous hypothesis which was likely true was invented to support the conclusion and the relationship inverted. Then data was selected and fitted until there was a level of confidence where it was worth publishing it. Secondly they were using very subjective data collection methods by extremely biased people then mangling and interpolating it to make it look like there was more observation data than there was. Thirdly when you do some honest research and not publish because it looks bad saying that the entire field is compromised for the conference coming up which everyone is really looking forward to and has booked flights and hotels already.

If you want to read some of the hellish bullshit, look up critique of the Q methodology.

Re: Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

#32

Post by psychoslave »

saagarjha wrote: post #16
GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #7

I am a co-author on a paper I never asked for, but my supervisor insisted, because the petty idea upgrading his desperate try to the point of "considerable at all" came from me. It was a chair which normally prouded itself of only publishing in the most highly regarded journals of its field (internally graded A, B, C). They had a few years without viable paper. Desperate to publish. From my POV this was a D. The pape…

As a co-author are you not able to do so?

In theory $SYSTEM is the most excellent thing that humanity could ever hope and everyone knows they that by acting in accordance with the stated expected behaviors, they will act in the best way they can think of to achieve the best result for everybody.

In practice people see that $SYSTEM is rotten and most likely to doom everyone on the long span, with increasingly absurd actions accepted silently on the road. But they also have the firm conviction that not bending the knee, be brave and say out loud what’s in everyone mind, will only put them on the fast track to play the scapegoat and change nothing else on the overall.

Think about it: over-reporting of grain production was a major factor of the great Chinese Famine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

Re: Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

#33

Post by vladms »

Sometimes it is good to make parallels with other things to check if proposals make sense. How would sound "go and try to steal every car out there, so that car manufacturers improve their car security" ?

For me it sounds counter-productive. I have a feeling that lately (tens of years) many people try to focus on the negatives, rather than the positives. Should we focus on the 3 amazing papers this year, cited by hundreds, that resulted in clear progress or should we complain that 100 papers are useless? Let's focus on 100 because "someone is wrong on the internet".

I did a PhD (so might have more experience) but papers are meant for dissemination. For me everybody that wants to have them "perfect"/"useful" papers imagines a system that does lots of work for them. The system could be improved, but if anything (just throwing an idea) maybe researchers should try to do research in the industry to prove themselves. Then come back after 10 year in academia (maybe with savings) so that they are more independent of "career progression". A lot of research was done (historically, >100 years ago) by rich people, not constrained by a career.

Re: Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

#35

Post by light_hue_1 »

bjackman wrote: post #14

> Submitting a paper to a conference because it’s got a decent shot at acceptance and you don’t want the time you spent on it go to waste, even though you’ve since realized that the core ideas aren’t quite correct. I don't see a problem with this? If papers are the vehicle for conference entries why shouldn't authors submit it just because it's wrong? Conferences are for discussion. So go there and discuss it... "My…

That's not what papers are for. But I can see how not being an academic would make you think that.

What you're describing are workshops with what we would call non-archival proceedings. Places where you write whatever you want and then talk about it.

Publications, conference or journal, are supposed to be what are called archival. They are a record of what we've discovered and want to share with the world. They are supposed to be sent into the world after we carefully complete a line of work.

Publications are not supposed to spam the system with half-baked junk. Sadly, that's what a lot of people are doing these days.

Re: Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

#37

Post by osrec »

GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #7

I am a co-author on a paper I never asked for, but my supervisor insisted, because the petty idea upgrading his desperate try to the point of "considerable at all" came from me. It was a chair which normally prouded itself of only publishing in the most highly regarded journals of its field (internally graded A, B, C). They had a few years without viable paper. Desperate to publish. From my POV this was a D. The pape…

I can't make sense of your first sentence. Can you rephrase it please?

Re: Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

#38

Post by SirHumphrey »

tonyg wrote: post #24

> Undermining the credibility of computer science research is the best possible outcome for the field, since the institution in its current form does not deserve the credibility that it has. Horseshit. This might be true for AI research (and even there that's an awfully broad brush you're using, mate), but it's certainly not true for other areas of computer science.

Maybe your lab is different (if you work in a research setting), but most of the researchers will readily admit that most of their research output is at least somewhat bull**. It's something that is trained in to people from high school research projects onwards - people judging your results usually do not have time or ability to research you work and even if they have they usually have much more importing things to do than check your mediocre results.

As a society, we have far too much trust in science, however any time this argument is brought up, we focus on conspiracy theorists who struggle with 100+ years old theories as if the visage of the public trust in science will change their mind, ignoring that any member of the public, who accidentally discovers the Jenga tower the science is built on (but hidden) will become much more likely to believe those charlatans in the future.

Re: Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

#39

Post by lqet »

osrec wrote: post #37
GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #7

I am a co-author on a paper I never asked for, but my supervisor insisted, because the petty idea upgrading his desperate try to the point of "considerable at all" came from me. It was a chair which normally prouded itself of only publishing in the most highly regarded journals of its field (internally graded A, B, C). They had a few years without viable paper. Desperate to publish. From my POV this was a D. The pape…

I can't make sense of your first sentence. Can you rephrase it please?

OP's supervisor wrote a paper without any merit. OP then provided a "petty idea" that made the paper "considerable at all". That's how he ended up as co-author.

Re: Please Commit More Blatant Academic Fraud (2021)

#40

Post by CJefferson »

tonyg wrote: post #24

> Undermining the credibility of computer science research is the best possible outcome for the field, since the institution in its current form does not deserve the credibility that it has. Horseshit. This might be true for AI research (and even there that's an awfully broad brush you're using, mate), but it's certainly not true for other areas of computer science.

Is there a lot of good research in computer science, of course.

Is there even more stuff which really shouldn't be published, and has experiments which are abused to show off how great new technique A is, while hiding that was attempt 72 at making an experiment that showed A was great? Also of course.

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