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Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

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41–50 of 209 posts

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#41

Individual researchers have huge incentives for fraud, but large universities are the ones who most need to look inward here. HBS could become a beacon for stronger research practices in this area - requiring study preregistration and data collection methods that carefully trace provenance and changes. If HBS has fewer but better quirky marketing psychology studies, their reputation will do well. However for an indiv…

For similar reasons, I left academia.

I joined academia for the pursuit of truth, and forth the glory of Knowing. But it turned out that academia doesn’t really do this anymore, it just sells itself as doing these things.

Academia is entirely a “reputation” system, as it turns out, from paper publishing to student-evaluations to “public rankings.” As it turns out, the capitalist marketplace must also contend with these issues, but imho (and somewhat counterintuitively), it does so somewhat more honestly.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#43
There is this pattern where things are always the opposite of their message:

- Dishonesty expert is dishonest

- Politicians who constantly talk about freedom want to restrict anything that doesn't fit their world view

- Militant anti-gay preachers hire call boys

- Diversity teams are the least diverse

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#44

There is this pattern where things are always the opposite of their message: - Dishonesty expert is dishonest - Politicians who constantly talk about freedom want to restrict anything that doesn't fit their world view - Militant anti-gay preachers hire call boys - Diversity teams are the least diverse

At least ethicists are about as ethical as other people: https://qz.com/1582149/ethicists-are-no-more-ethical-than-th...

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#46
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read his dishonesty book and now I wonder if any of it is actually wrong (although most of it made sense at the time)

Is Dan Ariely implicated in any of this? My understanding was that he was cleared.

Sounds like it. Take a look at his wikipedia page. The Gino/Ariely paper that was retracted in 2021 has this to say:

> Dan Ariely was the only author to have had access to the data prior to transmitting it in its fraudulent form

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

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#47

There is this pattern where things are always the opposite of their message: - Dishonesty expert is dishonest - Politicians who constantly talk about freedom want to restrict anything that doesn't fit their world view - Militant anti-gay preachers hire call boys - Diversity teams are the least diverse

I've always wondered if ethics class impart any ethics at all. If you're not an ethical person, why would you become one after taking such a class? If you're already an ethical person, taking a class in it is pointless.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#48

There is this pattern where things are always the opposite of their message: - Dishonesty expert is dishonest - Politicians who constantly talk about freedom want to restrict anything that doesn't fit their world view - Militant anti-gay preachers hire call boys - Diversity teams are the least diverse

> - Diversity teams are the least diverse

IME DEI is usually a function rolled into HR (although they often contract with diversity training firms), rather than a separate team, except at large companies. Where there are separate DEI teams, they tend to be the most diverse, at least among the white-collar workforce - the requirements for these jobs tend to be quite nonspecific, because they don't really need to do much besides write stuff and give presentations related to diversity. These tasks can, at a pinch, be mostly handed off to interns and ChatGPT, or else involve cribbing from preexisting presentation templates. The actual engineering, PM, etc., teams tend to be less diverse - graduates of specific university programs tend to be less diverse, in the non-euphemistic sense, than university graduates as a whole.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#49
post #38

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ariely , author of (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies, later accused of data fraud and academic misconduct.

Also Jonah Lehrer, author of pop science books Imagine and How We Decide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Lehrer

This guy is featured in the So You've Been Publicly Shamed book, and it definitely seemed like he was pilloried pretty hard. It is interesting, though, which journalists get tarred and feathered and which ones are celebrated.

Certainly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Novak have massive journalistic ethical errors: the former fabricating news for the US Government and the latter blowing a CIA agent's cover (the Plame Affair). Yet, they are celebrated journalists.

It seems that you have to:

- not be hypocritical (it is a greater sin to preach and sin; than simply to sin)

- be younger (established powerhouses can steamroll these accusations)

And to GP: thank you! The number of times Dan Ariely is involved in this data fabrication stuff does make the whole thing seem a bit fishy. At best, he is bad at trusting people, which makes any claims he makes low-coefficient since they could be from data from fabricators.

Re: Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty

#50

There is this pattern where things are always the opposite of their message: - Dishonesty expert is dishonest - Politicians who constantly talk about freedom want to restrict anything that doesn't fit their world view - Militant anti-gay preachers hire call boys - Diversity teams are the least diverse

I've always wondered if ethics class impart any ethics at all. If you're not an ethical person, why would you become one after taking such a class? If you're already an ethical person, taking a class in it is pointless.

The fact that the term "ethics" is used so much in a CYA way, or else as transparent rationalization of whatever worldview is currently dominant among the PMC, has given me an almost allergic reaction to that word.
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