5 ms·

That random guy in Pakistan, India, or China would absolutely submit his [1] publication to NEJM or Nature if he could get it accepted there. [1] I say "his" b

by et2o 8y ago

That random guy in Pakistan, India, or China would absolutely submit his [1] publication to NEJM or Nature if he could get it accepted there. [1] I say "his" because it seems like men are highly overrepresented in submitting falsified data. Obviously there are probably more men in science to start with, but consider that 30/30 of the most retracted scientists are men. https://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-leaderboard/ https://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-leaderboard...

anoncoward111 8y ago
Additionally, in older English grammar books, "his" is the default gender neutral pronoun. "They/their" is a modern invention with disputed acceptance. I personally prefer "they/their" over even "his or her" EDIT: Please don't downvote statements of fact. My karma score pays the price for your momentary burst of dopamine.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  Shakespeare used they, those grammar books are stupid. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.h...
ggg9990 8y ago
Then surely a generic CEO can be referred to as “him” since 29/30 of Fortune 500 CEOs are men.
- et2o 8y ago
  Yes I agree men are statistically overrepresented as CEOs of fortune 500 companies. I don't think that's debatable.
eftychis 8y ago
30 is not even statistically significant... Plus, my belief at least, this is the tip of the iceberg for some fields. (So don't worry there will be more.)
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  30 vs. 0 is statistically significant for something that's theoretically a coin flip. It even beats a stringent five-sigma threshold.
  - et2o 8y ago
    Definitely! If I were being pedantic [I guess I am :-) ], I'd probably say the best prior would be p =(n male scientists/number all scientists) Overall I bet men are slightly more than 1/2, but even if it's an 80/20 split the p value for this would be many sigma.
- et2o 8y ago
  It's extremely statistically significant, given any reasonable prior. Don't take my word for it, here's a couple lines of R code. # vector of prior probabilities, natural choice is proportion of men prop.men <- seq(0, 1, length.out=100) # compute prob of observation (30/30) given prior probability pvals <- dbinom(x=30, size=30, prob=prop.men) plot(prop.men, log10(pvals), type="l", col="blue", lwd=2, ylab="log10 pval for 30/30 offenders being men", xlab="Baseline male percentage in science" ) abline(h=log10(0.05), col="red", lwd=2, lty=2) # "significance" line text(x=0.6, y=-30, lab="Below red line\nsignificant at α=0.05") # since prob vector is 100 long, indices of entries returned here # correspond to % men needed for this to have α > 0.05 which(pvals>0.05) The actual figure for completeness: https://imgur.com/a/E47AfSW https://imgur.com/a/E47AfSW Of course this is a bit back-of-the-envelope done in 5 minutes, but you get the point.
whatshisface 8y ago
Catching a fraudster is a delicate combination of not them working hard enough to fake the data, close scrutiny (why would a study be subjected to abnormally close scrutiny?), and many other factors. It is also worth mentioning that failed replications do not necessarily lead to retractions - in fact, in most cases (of an honest mistake or an unlucky sampling) retracting the original paper wouldn't make any sense. Finally, not all retractions involve fraud, for example mathematicians will issue retractions when mistakes are pointed out. For these reasons, retractions are not a good measure of behavior.
- et2o 8y ago
  True. However, if your comment about is about gender, that would only be true if you think that women are less likely than men to get caught falsifying data (there was differential detection by gender). I can't imagine why that would be the case. Edit: this was in response to your comment before your edit I agree retractions are an imperfect measure, but it's not like there is much more to go on. Most importantly, the 30 people on this leaderboard who have dozens of retracted papers are not just people who got unlucky with sampling or made one mistake and had to retract a paper–they are those who repeatedly and knowingly faked data and then published it.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Retractions aren't issued just for falsifying data. Each field has its own culture of retracting papers, some only retracting deliberate fraud (each one with a different standard of evidence), and others retracting mistakes as well. It is also well-known that certain countries contribute more than others to scientific fraud - and it would be unlikely for them to all have exactly the same gender ratio. By the time all of these factors (along with whatever else can be thought of) are included there might be a lot less statistical significance left than we started with.
    - et2o 8y ago
      The retractions of people on this top 30 list are generally for falsifying data, severe plagiarism, or other misbehavior which would fall into the category of deliberate fraud. I don't disagree that the rate of misbehavior and gender balance of scientists differ internationally and would ideally be factored into an analysis.

by et2o 8y ago

anoncoward111 8y ago

Additionally, in older English grammar books, "his" is the default gender neutral pronoun. "They/their" is a modern invention with disputed acceptance. I personally prefer "they/their" over even "his or her" EDIT: Please don't downvote statements of fact. My karma score pays the price for your momentary burst of dopamine.

maxerickson 8y ago
Shakespeare used they, those grammar books are stupid. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.h...

ggg9990 8y ago

Then surely a generic CEO can be referred to as “him” since 29/30 of Fortune 500 CEOs are men.

et2o 8y ago
Yes I agree men are statistically overrepresented as CEOs of fortune 500 companies. I don't think that's debatable.

eftychis 8y ago

30 is not even statistically significant... Plus, my belief at least, this is the tip of the iceberg for some fields. (So don't worry there will be more.)

Dylan16807 8y ago
30 vs. 0 is statistically significant for something that's theoretically a coin flip. It even beats a stringent five-sigma threshold.
- et2o 8y ago
  Definitely! If I were being pedantic [I guess I am :-) ], I'd probably say the best prior would be p =(n male scientists/number all scientists) Overall I bet men are slightly more than 1/2, but even if it's an 80/20 split the p value for this would be many sigma.
et2o 8y ago
It's extremely statistically significant, given any reasonable prior. Don't take my word for it, here's a couple lines of R code. # vector of prior probabilities, natural choice is proportion of men prop.men <- seq(0, 1, length.out=100) # compute prob of observation (30/30) given prior probability pvals <- dbinom(x=30, size=30, prob=prop.men) plot(prop.men, log10(pvals), type="l", col="blue", lwd=2, ylab="log10 pval for 30/30 offenders being men", xlab="Baseline male percentage in science" ) abline(h=log10(0.05), col="red", lwd=2, lty=2) # "significance" line text(x=0.6, y=-30, lab="Below red line\nsignificant at α=0.05") # since prob vector is 100 long, indices of entries returned here # correspond to % men needed for this to have α > 0.05 which(pvals>0.05) The actual figure for completeness: https://imgur.com/a/E47AfSW https://imgur.com/a/E47AfSW Of course this is a bit back-of-the-envelope done in 5 minutes, but you get the point.

whatshisface 8y ago

Catching a fraudster is a delicate combination of not them working hard enough to fake the data, close scrutiny (why would a study be subjected to abnormally close scrutiny?), and many other factors. It is also worth mentioning that failed replications do not necessarily lead to retractions - in fact, in most cases (of an honest mistake or an unlucky sampling) retracting the original paper wouldn't make any sense. Finally, not all retractions involve fraud, for example mathematicians will issue retractions when mistakes are pointed out. For these reasons, retractions are not a good measure of behavior.

et2o 8y ago
True. However, if your comment about is about gender, that would only be true if you think that women are less likely than men to get caught falsifying data (there was differential detection by gender). I can't imagine why that would be the case. Edit: this was in response to your comment before your edit I agree retractions are an imperfect measure, but it's not like there is much more to go on. Most importantly, the 30 people on this leaderboard who have dozens of retracted papers are not just people who got unlucky with sampling or made one mistake and had to retract a paper–they are those who repeatedly and knowingly faked data and then published it.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Retractions aren't issued just for falsifying data. Each field has its own culture of retracting papers, some only retracting deliberate fraud (each one with a different standard of evidence), and others retracting mistakes as well. It is also well-known that certain countries contribute more than others to scientific fraud - and it would be unlikely for them to all have exactly the same gender ratio. By the time all of these factors (along with whatever else can be thought of) are included there might be a lot less statistical significance left than we started with.
  - et2o 8y ago
    The retractions of people on this top 30 list are generally for falsifying data, severe plagiarism, or other misbehavior which would fall into the category of deliberate fraud. I don't disagree that the rate of misbehavior and gender balance of scientists differ internationally and would ideally be factored into an analysis.