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Fraud, so much fraud

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Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#851

Post by mym1990 »

talideon wrote: post #408
mym1990 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weird take, assuming the average researcher cannot be an average Joe, and also that average people aren't also worried about their livelihood...you might want to revisit your view of the world.

No, it's not. A researcher might an average Joe, but that doesn't mean that the average researcher is the same as the average Joe.

The initial comment makes the 2 mutually exclusive. You reframing it doesn't change what the original comment said. You also blew past the more important of the 2 points: that regular people care about their livelihoods as well.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#853

Post by creer »

jorvi wrote: post #677
nativeit wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the first things I learned in film school is _nothing_ in a production at that level is coincidence or serendipity. To get to the final script and storyboard, the writers would have gone through multiple drafts, and a great deal of material gets either cut, or retooled to reinforce thematic elements. To the extent that The Simpsons was a goofy cartoon, its writers’ room carried a great deal of intellectual and…

> One of the first things I learned in film school is _nothing_ in a production at that level is coincidence or serendipity. Perhaps they should have taught you to be less sure of that. So many takes in movies that ended up being the best one are where a punch accidentally did land, something is ad-libbed, a dialogue is mixed up, etc. To take an example of a very critically acclaimed show: in Breaking Bad the only re…

It seems like there is a lot of serendipitous in writing and production. That's not what it was about. The point is how much agonizing and second guessing it takes and how many alternatives explored and how many takes, etc before something, anything makes it in the final product.

The lucky break is first a result of a lot of planning and work - and it gets analyzed to death before included - and then probably re-inforced here or there elsewhere. (So that for me, I do notice when I hear movie or TV dialog as completely natural and said exactly right. It's exceptional.)

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#854

Post by creer »

jimbokun wrote: post #54
eig wrote: post #44

This sort of behavior is only going to worsen in the coming decades as academics become more desperate. It's a prisoner's dilemma: if everyone is exaggerating their results you have to as well or you will be fired. It's even more dire for the thousands of visa students. The situation is similar to the "Market for lemons" in cars: if the market is polluted with lemons (fake papers), you are disincentivized to publish…

My recommendation is for journals to place at least equal importance to publishing replications as for the original studies. Studies that have not been replicated should be published clearly marked as preliminary results. And then other scientists can pick those up and try to replicate them. And institutions need to give near equal weight to replications as to original research when deciding on promotions. Should be…

It seems surprisingly hard to counter scientific fraud via a system change. The incentives are messed up all the way around.

If the older author is your advisor and you feel one of their juniors is cutting corners or the elder is cutting corners, you better think twice about what move will help your career. If confirming a recent result counts toward tenure, then presto you have an incentive for fraudulent replication (what's the chance it's incorrect anyway? The original author is a big shot.) Going against the previous acclaimed result takes guts especially in a small field where it might kill your career if YOU got it wrong somehow - So you need to have much stronger results than the original research, and good luck with that. We might say "this is perfect work for aspiring student researchers, and done all the time" - to reimplement some legendary science experiment - but no, not when it's a leading edge poorly understood experiment, and not when that same grad student is already running to try and produce original research themselves.

The big funders might dedicate money to replicated research that everybody is enthusiastic about (before everyone relies on it). But some research takes years to run. Other research is at the edge of what's possible. Other research is led by a big shot nobody dares to take on. Etc etc. So where is the incentive then? The incentive might be to take the money, fully intending to return an inconclusive result.

Some research is taken on now. But only AFTER it's relied on by lots of people. Or much later when better ideas had the time to emerge on how to test the idea more cleverly i.e. cheaper and faster. And that's not great because costly in all the wasted effort by others, based on a fraudulent result. And all the mindshare the bad result now has.

This is messed up.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#855

Post by creer »

calebh wrote: post #164
jimbokun wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My recommendation is for journals to place at least equal importance to publishing replications as for the original studies. Studies that have not been replicated should be published clearly marked as preliminary results. And then other scientists can pick those up and try to replicate them. And institutions need to give near equal weight to replications as to original research when deciding on promotions. Should be…

This stuff happens in Computer Science too. Back around 2018 or so I was working on a problem that required graph matching (a relaxed/fuzzy version of the graph isomorphism problem) and was trying algorithms from many different papers. Many of the algorithms I tried to implement didn't work at all, despite considerable effort to get them to behave. In one particularly egregious (and highly cited) example, the algorit…

Beautiful. And thanks for the testimony. Ironically, this may have helped your product or research: Yes you spent more time on the BS, but in the end you found and used an algorithm both better and more obscure. While your competitors struggled with worse ones. Messed up incentives again.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#856

Post by creer »

scarmig wrote: post #69
jimbokun wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My recommendation is for journals to place at least equal importance to publishing replications as for the original studies. Studies that have not been replicated should be published clearly marked as preliminary results. And then other scientists can pick those up and try to replicate them. And institutions need to give near equal weight to replications as to original research when deciding on promotions. Should be…

You should be able to build an entire career out of replications: hired at the best universities, published in the top journals, social prestige and respect. To the point where every novel study is replicated and published at least once. Until we get to that point, there will be far fewer replications than needed for a healthy scientific system.

Haven't you now created an incentive for replication fraud?

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#857

Post by creer »

m_fayer wrote: post #174
scarmig wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be able to build an entire career out of replications: hired at the best universities, published in the top journals, social prestige and respect. To the point where every novel study is replicated and published at least once. Until we get to that point, there will be far fewer replications than needed for a healthy scientific system.

Similarly, ambitious and difficult experiments that don’t pan out should also be richly rewarded. You just did all of science the service of clearly marking that tempting path with a big “don’t bother” sign, thus saving resources and pointing the ship a little closer to the direction of truth.

Yeah, this is something I don't fully understand. It's work to format and package everything for publication - and it's work which by then may have lost funding since it's failed. And by which time you might be discouraged. BUT like you say all the science has been done, and getting one more serious publication out of it should be rewarding. It's also a chance for the scientist to show that they were serious, competent, diligent in doing the work. It should count as well as a standard publication. It's a chance to collect consulting contracts later. Etc. Management and support should encourage these publications.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#858

Post by notheyarent »

consteval wrote: post #836
notheyarent wrote: post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody fucking cares about politics mate. People can’t breath with them on hot crowded city buses or for 9 hours straight when working. Your just a cuck who wore his face happy trying to justify his cowardice now to himself. Nobody else is interested in your shit ideas and theories

See, this is what I mean. People who take a skeptical approach to masks aren't doing it for scientific reasoning, they're doing it to avoid being a "cuck". This type of mentality actively discredits skeptics, because nobody wants to be lumped in with that. There're genuinely very smart people who were/are skeptical of many Covid policies, but unfortunately, they have to stand next to you. Which, of course, makes them…

The virus is just going to go into people’s eyes dumbass. There are millions of cucks and weak men in western societies that didn’t exist 50 years ago. These men would have had deeper voices, excellent eye sight, thick heads of hair, followed logic, been brave ... now we have porn addicted gamer simps with nasally voices pretending to be scared of catching a head cold because they’re only too happy to bow down and be submissive with the added bonus that they can hide their disgusting eyes and faces in public , essentially enforcing mass cardboard box over head wearing with these “face nappies”.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#859

Post by consteval »

mistermann wrote: post #849
consteval wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is only us conspiracy theorists who suffer from delusional cognition Of course not, but if you, say, think the Earth is flat you are delusional. That's just what it is, and I'm not gonna hand hold crazy people when I tell them they're crazy. The issue is when crazy people assimilate, or rather try to infiltrate, groups of educated skeptics. Now they all look crazy, and that's a problem.

And what of the much larger harm your kind causes to the world? Nothing a nice story can't wash clean I suspect, but then that doesn't stop the harm.

My kind? What... round-earthers?

Or do you mean people who didn't deny Covid? Hmm I would demonstratablely less harm than you. Because even if masks are almost useless, that's better than nothing, right?

Simply being contrarian for the sake of it isn't impressive, it's kind of sad. Sometimes the big dogs are just right. If you can't articulate their motivation, objective value gain, methods, etc, then you're probably just crazy.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#860

Post by consteval »

notheyarent wrote: post #858
consteval wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this is what I mean. People who take a skeptical approach to masks aren't doing it for scientific reasoning, they're doing it to avoid being a "cuck". This type of mentality actively discredits skeptics, because nobody wants to be lumped in with that. There're genuinely very smart people who were/are skeptical of many Covid policies, but unfortunately, they have to stand next to you. Which, of course, makes them…

The virus is just going to go into people’s eyes dumbass. There are millions of cucks and weak men in western societies that didn’t exist 50 years ago. These men would have had deeper voices, excellent eye sight, thick heads of hair, followed logic, been brave ... now we have porn addicted gamer simps with nasally voices pretending to be scared of catching a head cold because they’re only too happy to bow down and be…

> There are millions of cucks and weak men in western societies that didn’t exist 50 years ago

Yes, go back 50 years ago then. When we had so much more racism, when homosexuals were treated like dogs, when women were beaten for sport and nobody cared.

Those types of people died off not by some conspiracy. They died off because they were a cancer on society, a tumor on mankind. They died off because nobody liked them, except others of their ilk.

What you call "weak" I consider strong. We have the strength today to solve problems. We don't lynch black people anymore, we don't beat women anymore. Men are no longer scared to be themselves. I mean, people like you shiver in your timbers when you see a slightly feminine man - do you not understand the irony in that? How pathetic that makes you? Are you really so stupid that it's right in front of your eyes and you can't see it?

If it's the past you crave, I have doubts about your character. Go talk to an older gentleman and see what they've seen. We've moved on, either figure it out or die in the past. We're not gonna wait around and hold the hands of the weakest of our kind to catch up - you will be left behind.

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