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An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

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Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#91

Post by justinclift »

makomk wrote: post #23

Alas, these kinds of problems are not restricted to the social sciences. Case in point, this retraction from a couple of days ago: https://retractionwatch.com/2019/09/25/nature-paper-on-ocean... Very similar to this one really; the paper claimed to overturn our existing knowledge in a way that fitted a narrative people were inclined to believe (in that case: we're all doomed) and was immediately seized on by all the…

Interesting. Hadn't seen the Retraction Watch website before.

Wonder if it'd be possible to automatically scan new papers added to (say) arxiv.org, for retracted papers in their references?

eg to warn the authors, and maybe eventually automatically as part of the upload process for arxiv.org (and similar)

Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#92

Post by tareqak »

olooney wrote: post #64
mbell wrote: post #42

I think it's situations like this that result in society having such a hard time with 'science'. The term has been so heavily co-opted by fields that just don't have sufficient rigger for the term to hold weight. Yet, on various topics, we have this publicized attack of "your a science denier!". At the end of the day, there are two 'types' of science, one where I can take the results and make accurate predictions, an…

Scientists usually try to distance themselves by saying those are soft science or even pseudo-science. This leads to the embarrassment of the demarcation problem[1] which is that no one can give a bright-line rule[2] to distinguish between the "real" science and pseudo-science. All of the demarcation criteria that have been proposed (such as Popper's falsifiability[3]) are inadequate in one way or another. In particu…

Why not have a general checklist with a minimum set of requirements for scientific papers that are relevant across all branches of science? The people putting their names on the paper would have to show that they followed everything or give reasons for skipping a step. The receiving journals would have their editors re-check the checklist. As part of reporting the results of the paper, the level of completeness of the checklist would also be in the report.

Yes, the checklist would not be all-encompassing or foolproof, and there would likely be revisions to the checklist, and maybe even domain-specific variants, but it would be an extra level caution that the media could report or choose to ignore at their will. Over time, the apparent level of scientific rigour would improve. No, it’s not bulletproof and there will be people who will try to meet the checklist and still present erroneous conclusions as reliable science, but it would be an improvement in the status quo for a layperson who is aware and values said checklist.

Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#93

Post by blackbrokkoli »

mbell wrote: post #74
learnstats2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the problem here. A statistical error was made, published, and then corrected. That's possible in physics, chemistry, or biology just as well.

> That's possible in physics, chemistry, or biology just as well. Yet it seems to happen far less often, or at the very least, in less publicly impacting ways. Part of this is the media, but part of it is the participants themselves. If you discover something new in physics for example, either the public doesn't care, or they don't really know, they just get a faster iPhone processor a couple years down the line when…

Your argument seems to be purely emotional disdain.

> Yet it seems to happen far less often

Citation needed. And if so, that is a reason to draw a line where on one side is "not-science"? That is just absurd. Does a car A stops being a means of transport when it subjectively breaks down more often than car B?

> very least, in less publicly impacting ways

Excuse me?

* A literal century ago someone failed to translate a German study so know about every child in the western civilization gets a good dose of distrust in science when they get indoctrinated that the tongue has separated regions for taste which is ridiculously easy to refute for yourself in about 15 seconds.

* The coup of the cereal industry to fund some studies telling everyone that breakfast is the most important meal of the day still misguiding health guides today.

* Schrödinger telling the world how stupid it would be to assume quantum principles in the visible world, still happily recited with the complete opposite meaning by about 500 media entities per day.

* Scientific entities failing to have any impact on people about the dangers of X-rays until people got impotent from having their shoes measured via X-rays in the local shopping mall

To be clear, this is not intended as some sort of smear campaign to science itself. I want to illustrate that all science is vulnerable to even dumb mistakes and that this dumb social sciences ain't real meme is only slowing down much overdue conversation!

Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#94

Post by rsj_hn »

baddox wrote: post #75
mbell wrote: post #42

I think it's situations like this that result in society having such a hard time with 'science'. The term has been so heavily co-opted by fields that just don't have sufficient rigger for the term to hold weight. Yet, on various topics, we have this publicized attack of "your a science denier!". At the end of the day, there are two 'types' of science, one where I can take the results and make accurate predictions, an…

How does your criticism apply to this scenario? The conclusion of the study (if correct) would in fact provide some predictive power: one would be able to make some predictions about a random child's generosity given their religious upbringing. It should also be repeatable, assuming the methodology for gathering and analyzing the data was published.

The experiment may be repeatable, but that does not mean it's reproducible or even useful. Many of these "soft science" fields are plagued by

1) replication failures

2) scientific errors both accidental (coding errors) and intentional (p-hacking)

I think part of it has to be physics envy, where many disciplines are attempting to adopt either the statistical techniques used by physicists or at least similar language and ideology in order to conduct "experiments" in fields as varied as sociology and psychology.

This seems like cargo cult science. Who says that, say, measuring the tendency of churchgoers to donate to a cause will reveal a truth similar to the mass of an electron -- something that can be accurately measured once and then you know a good measurement will return the same result? It's not at all clear that any real insight is gained of either philanthropy or church attendance from such an "experiment", nor is it clear to me that these fields contain statements with truth values at all, at least truth values as would be expected by mathematicians, physicists, chemists, etc.

But by adopting the methodology of science to fields which may not have yield scientific results to yield, a lot of people are creating a body of fake knowledge, or the appearance of knowledge.

Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#95

Post by mbell »

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #93
mbell wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's possible in physics, chemistry, or biology just as well. Yet it seems to happen far less often, or at the very least, in less publicly impacting ways. Part of this is the media, but part of it is the participants themselves. If you discover something new in physics for example, either the public doesn't care, or they don't really know, they just get a faster iPhone processor a couple years down the line when…

Your argument seems to be purely emotional disdain. > Yet it seems to happen far less often Citation needed. And if so, that is a reason to draw a line where on one side is "not-science"? That is just absurd. Does a car A stops being a means of transport when it subjectively breaks down more often than car B? > very least, in less publicly impacting ways Excuse me? * A literal century ago someone failed to translate…

You're supporting my point here, all your examples did not make an accurate prediction. Thus, they are not known 'facts'.

Your definition of 'science' is 'the best we know', mine, and I think what is meaningful for public discourse is 'this is true'.

Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#96

Post by UncleMeat »

mbell wrote: post #42

I think it's situations like this that result in society having such a hard time with 'science'. The term has been so heavily co-opted by fields that just don't have sufficient rigger for the term to hold weight. Yet, on various topics, we have this publicized attack of "your a science denier!". At the end of the day, there are two 'types' of science, one where I can take the results and make accurate predictions, an…

Have you never tried to use a tool from a cs paper and found that their code didn't even build or barely worked? This isn't a question of rigorous and non-rigorous fields. This is a challenge with artifact evaluation in all fields.

Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#97

Post by Scapeghost »

catawbasam wrote: post #70
Scapeghost wrote: post #49

I am from a third-world religious country and I'd just like to take this chance to say that religion should be classified as a mental disorder. I see the effects of it first hand, severely crippling the potential of individuals and entire cultures. There's nothing it offers that can't be taught by basic morals which don't require you to appease an imaginary entity or repress the human spirit. Even the leaders of reli…

I'd rather not be classified as insane, thanks. If you read the OP article, the research suggests religion has positive effects on children. Your response to the corrected findings?

> I'd rather not be classified as insane, thanks.

What would I be classified as if I started worshipping, say, Thanos, and began preaching to everyone about him?

> the research suggests religion has positive effects on children. Your response to the corrected findings?

If it was safe for me to do so, my response would be to go out in my own religious country and film for you all the children throwing stones at animals (which they're encouraged to do so by their elders), all the beggars sleeping next to literal mounds of garbage, shunned by everyone, and the many other problems that religion is supposed to fix.

Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#98

Post by UncleMeat »

joelhoffman wrote: post #22
UncleMeat wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've never had a bug in your code that seemed insane after the fact?

This is why we have code review processes. It's long past time for that to be part of formal scientific peer review.

A few cs conferences have artifact evals. Most all research in cs doesn't actually have any sort of code review at all. No field is implementing the thing you are expecting.

Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#99

Post by Scapeghost »

Karunamon wrote: post #77
Scapeghost wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't many discussions about religion on HN but a topic related to it should prompt some, and I have no other outlet. Reddit isn't a very good place for it either.

You pretty much torpedoed any chance of a productive discussion on the subject when you opened with "religion should be classified as a mental disorder." That comment is weapons-grade flamebait on a discussion board and probably not something you'd say in mixed company in real life either.

It's the conclusion I've come to after spending literally an entire life in a religious culture.

What would be your argument and which experience is it based upon?

> not something you'd say in mixed company in real life either.

Some people here criticize religion in private company, but would not dare to do so publicly, because of the very real threats to their very life they would face precisely because of religion.

Re: An erroneous paper on religion and generosity is retracted

#100

Post by Scapeghost »

all-highlighter wrote: post #67
Scapeghost wrote: post #49

I am from a third-world religious country and I'd just like to take this chance to say that religion should be classified as a mental disorder. I see the effects of it first hand, severely crippling the potential of individuals and entire cultures. There's nothing it offers that can't be taught by basic morals which don't require you to appease an imaginary entity or repress the human spirit. Even the leaders of reli…

Not everybody wants to appease an imaginary entity called "the classification of typical human behavior as a mental disorder", either. Who would classify it, and how would they enforce it? Would use of force toward a country full of mentally-ill people with their potential being crippled by their manipulative leaders be appropriate medical intervention, or would it be starting a war? One might need a monument and a f…

It is not "typical" human behavior. See all the societies that are doing just fine without pervasive religion.

Curious: why create a new account to post this comment? (unless it's your very first account on HN)

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