6 ms·

First, I don't understand why rapid feedback is bad. Communication adapts to new mediums all the time, and academia goes with it. The arXiv pre-print system is

by s_q_b 10y ago

First, I don't understand why rapid feedback is bad. Communication adapts to new mediums all the time, and academia goes with it. The arXiv pre-print system is a great example of a field adapting well to a new technology. Secondly, addressing the article's main point, I'm being told that social media comments about their studies are so traumatic and detrimental that they leave their careers. That's a problem with the researcher's ability to handle digital hate mail. Doctors, lawyers, dentists, and veterinarians all get massive amounts of digital hate mail. Finally, after the failure to replicate studies, "self-appointed data police" and "methodological terrorism"[0] sound like exactly what the field needs. [0] I have to say, only an incredibly insular community could come up with such an insensitive name. Checking your methods is not terrorism. Someone doing preliminary reviews on research data is not terrorism. To compare data critics to terrorists both insults the victims of actual terrorism, and dilutes the definition of the term so far as to be almost meaningless. They may as well call them "Methodological Nazis."

mafribe 10y ago
only an incredibly insular community Or a community that has had previous success with adversarial labelling.
- s_q_b 10y ago
  Ahh.. I forgot which field with which we're dealing. However, I do like the ring of it. Instead of Data Scientist, I think my new title will be Senior Methodological Terrorist.
  - nonbel 10y ago
    What about this resume/cv: Junior Open Data Vexationer(2008-2010) Associate Shameless Little Replication Bully (2010-2012) Lead Methodological Harasser (2012-2015) Senior Methodological Terrorist (2015-2016) Chief Research Parasite (2016-Current) All those terms have really been used to label people trying to get psych and medical research up to pretty minimal scientific standards. It is really telling about the kind of immature high school mentality that pervades those fields.
hackuser 10y ago
> I don't understand why rapid feedback is bad She doesn't say rapid feedback is bad. She says online personal attacks and abuse are bad.
- wyager 10y ago
  You are falling for a classic argumentative attack. Everyone agrees "abuse" (e.g. beating your wife) is bad, so Fisk just redefines "abuse" to mean "earnest, blunt, non-sugar-coated feedback" but you keep on using the connotations of the real definition.
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    Where can I find the redefinition?
    - wyager 10y ago
      In Fisk's statement. Unless she is actually referring to wife beating or something similar, which would be very confusing in context.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      Like wyager said, she takes a term that usually applies to real, undeniable harm then applies it without evidence of equivalence to something controversial. She uses the same word, though. This is so reducing (controversial thing here) is equivalent to reducing "abuse." This is to setup the passive-aggressive (aka SJW) defense where anyone arguing against the controversial claim must also be arguing for "abuse." They can then side-track the discussion by accusing those that disagree of not caring about stopping "abuse" or being an abuse "apologist." You can insert any negative claim related to social justice into that construct and the setup still works on many readers regardless of logical claims of their opponent. It's a rhetorical device that relies on readers being fooled into the equivalence of what practice the sophist wants to go away and some form of harm. There's no equivalence, though. It's just rhetoric to obscure their actual argument that's probably indefensible or just weaker to rational people. The author of the counterpoint shows that nicely by illustrating what the actual critiques were with evidence, showing the author that was griping had a personal stake in that evidence not coming out, and was just using sophistry to preserve preferred status quo and her career. Do you understand the technique now? I can provide more links to disinformation tactics in general or the ones preferred by manufactured-harm subset commonly called SJW's if you need.

by s_q_b 10y ago

mafribe 10y ago

only an incredibly insular community Or a community that has had previous success with adversarial labelling.

s_q_b 10y ago
Ahh.. I forgot which field with which we're dealing. However, I do like the ring of it. Instead of Data Scientist, I think my new title will be Senior Methodological Terrorist.
- nonbel 10y ago
  What about this resume/cv: Junior Open Data Vexationer(2008-2010) Associate Shameless Little Replication Bully (2010-2012) Lead Methodological Harasser (2012-2015) Senior Methodological Terrorist (2015-2016) Chief Research Parasite (2016-Current) All those terms have really been used to label people trying to get psych and medical research up to pretty minimal scientific standards. It is really telling about the kind of immature high school mentality that pervades those fields.

hackuser 10y ago

> I don't understand why rapid feedback is bad She doesn't say rapid feedback is bad. She says online personal attacks and abuse are bad.

wyager 10y ago
You are falling for a classic argumentative attack. Everyone agrees "abuse" (e.g. beating your wife) is bad, so Fisk just redefines "abuse" to mean "earnest, blunt, non-sugar-coated feedback" but you keep on using the connotations of the real definition.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Where can I find the redefinition?
  - wyager 10y ago
    In Fisk's statement. Unless she is actually referring to wife beating or something similar, which would be very confusing in context.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Like wyager said, she takes a term that usually applies to real, undeniable harm then applies it without evidence of equivalence to something controversial. She uses the same word, though. This is so reducing (controversial thing here) is equivalent to reducing "abuse." This is to setup the passive-aggressive (aka SJW) defense where anyone arguing against the controversial claim must also be arguing for "abuse." They can then side-track the discussion by accusing those that disagree of not caring about stopping "abuse" or being an abuse "apologist." You can insert any negative claim related to social justice into that construct and the setup still works on many readers regardless of logical claims of their opponent. It's a rhetorical device that relies on readers being fooled into the equivalence of what practice the sophist wants to go away and some form of harm. There's no equivalence, though. It's just rhetoric to obscure their actual argument that's probably indefensible or just weaker to rational people. The author of the counterpoint shows that nicely by illustrating what the actual critiques were with evidence, showing the author that was griping had a personal stake in that evidence not coming out, and was just using sophistry to preserve preferred status quo and her career. Do you understand the technique now? I can provide more links to disinformation tactics in general or the ones preferred by manufactured-harm subset commonly called SJW's if you need.