4 ms·

what is the context of this?

by wnevets 9y ago

richardknop 9y ago
My thoughts exactly. I want to know full story behind this.
- munificent 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman The irony is that Kahneman has spent a lot of time both raising awareness of the replication crisis and studying the kind of cognitive biases people often have, yet got bit by exactly that. In his defense, his comment here is, I think, a master study in what a detailed, sincere "I was wrong" should look like.
hannob 9y ago
Large parts of psychology research of the past couple of decades turned out to be crap. ("non-reproducible" in scientific terms, but "crap" is close enough.) Kahneman has defended much of this research in the past. But at least he's smart enough to recognize his mistakes, which cannot be said about many of his colleagues.
- kenjackson 9y ago
  Is it limited to priming or is it a bunch of other parts of psychology too?
  - drivers99 9y ago
    There were some problems last year reproducing ego depletion despite its prominence for the last couple decades.[1][2] Personally, I run across the concept a lot in popular books and articles that I read (from before the controversy), so it presents a problem for me in whether to believe them if it's not actually true. [1] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/07/31/end-of-ego-depletion/#.Wbg5Ouvyu5M http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/07/31/en... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_controversy_and_conflicting_meta_analyses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_...
- corn_dog 9y ago
  Or famous enough to be able to do so at no real to cost himself.
tw1010 9y ago
If you follow HN daily you'll notice these obsessions around certain subjects that often stretch for years. P-hacking and the reliability of scientific papers is one of these. This is just another article in that series.
- hannob 9y ago
  Which is kinda funny, because nobody (ok, almost nobody) ever asks those questions when it comes to computer science or particularly IT security. Many of the "studies" thrown around would be laughed at by the community caring about scientific reliability. If you would have the same standards for large parts of CS that shattered psychology then you'd have to admit some pretty dire things.
  - beagle3 9y ago
    > Which is kinda funny, because nobody (ok, almost nobody) ever asks those questions when it comes to computer science or particularly IT security. Actually, I've hardly seen any vendor study (especially Microsoft, but basically all vendors) which was NOT ridiculed by anyone who cares about science. > If you would have the same standards for large parts of CS that shattered psychology then you'd have to admit some pretty dire things. Can you give an example? Unlike "software engineering", which is neither science nor engineering but mostly a craft, Computer Science is a field of Math, and rarely has anything to do with probability (p-Hacking), or selecting a favorable data set; There's a lot of criticism directed at the relevance of test sets (e.g. MNIST), but that's basically the opposite problem, which might impede progress, but does yield out very well defined and verifyable conclusions.

what is the context of this?

richardknop 9y ago

My thoughts exactly. I want to know full story behind this.

munificent 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman The irony is that Kahneman has spent a lot of time both raising awareness of the replication crisis and studying the kind of cognitive biases people often have, yet got bit by exactly that. In his defense, his comment here is, I think, a master study in what a detailed, sincere "I was wrong" should look like.

hannob 9y ago

Large parts of psychology research of the past couple of decades turned out to be crap. ("non-reproducible" in scientific terms, but "crap" is close enough.) Kahneman has defended much of this research in the past. But at least he's smart enough to recognize his mistakes, which cannot be said about many of his colleagues.

kenjackson 9y ago
Is it limited to priming or is it a bunch of other parts of psychology too?
- drivers99 9y ago
  There were some problems last year reproducing ego depletion despite its prominence for the last couple decades.[1][2] Personally, I run across the concept a lot in popular books and articles that I read (from before the controversy), so it presents a problem for me in whether to believe them if it's not actually true. [1] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/07/31/end-of-ego-depletion/#.Wbg5Ouvyu5M http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/07/31/en... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_controversy_and_conflicting_meta_analyses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_...
corn_dog 9y ago
Or famous enough to be able to do so at no real to cost himself.

tw1010 9y ago

If you follow HN daily you'll notice these obsessions around certain subjects that often stretch for years. P-hacking and the reliability of scientific papers is one of these. This is just another article in that series.

hannob 9y ago
Which is kinda funny, because nobody (ok, almost nobody) ever asks those questions when it comes to computer science or particularly IT security. Many of the "studies" thrown around would be laughed at by the community caring about scientific reliability. If you would have the same standards for large parts of CS that shattered psychology then you'd have to admit some pretty dire things.
- beagle3 9y ago
  > Which is kinda funny, because nobody (ok, almost nobody) ever asks those questions when it comes to computer science or particularly IT security. Actually, I've hardly seen any vendor study (especially Microsoft, but basically all vendors) which was NOT ridiculed by anyone who cares about science. > If you would have the same standards for large parts of CS that shattered psychology then you'd have to admit some pretty dire things. Can you give an example? Unlike "software engineering", which is neither science nor engineering but mostly a craft, Computer Science is a field of Math, and rarely has anything to do with probability (p-Hacking), or selecting a favorable data set; There's a lot of criticism directed at the relevance of test sets (e.g. MNIST), but that's basically the opposite problem, which might impede progress, but does yield out very well defined and verifyable conclusions.