4 ms·

I don't know how familiar you are with research in the social sciences, but as wgerard's comment observes, this isn't a trumped-up charge. They could have done

by theoh 8y ago

I don't know how familiar you are with research in the social sciences, but as wgerard's comment observes, this isn't a trumped-up charge. They could have done this without claiming that it was part of their university-affiliated research, and thus not fallen foul of ethical guidelines. But they published an official academic paper describing the stunt (afterwards) and claimed that it was a legitimate research project. They can't have it both ways: either it's a rogue hoax carried out outside of their day job, or it has to comply with the rules, which aren't onerous, but do require certain ethical standards to be met.

gpm 8y ago
Are university professors prohibited from submitting official academic papers outside of their university life? If so that sounds like a violation of the first amendment (when talking about state schools anyways). If not, what made this part of their university life?
- wgerard 8y ago
  > If not, what made this part of their university life? The fact that he likely included his academic affiliation on any papers he wrote, likely used university resources to conduct or discuss some part of the research (e.g. meeting rooms, his office, his office phone), is an employee of the university, etc. I mean, come on - no IRB is going to let you claim a technicality like that. If you could skirt around research regulations by just claiming you were doing it "on your own" with no affiliation to the university, the IRB would be effectively pointless.
  - guitarbill 8y ago
    But they used pseudonyms, right? He didn't say "I'm Peter Boghossian with PSU". Anyway, what's shocking to me coming from Physics is how hard it is to read these papers from outside of academia (no arXiv even to at least see pre-prints). So I'm already more sympathetic to the hoaxers.
twblalock 8y ago
The rules are not being applied out of a sense of ethical obligation, but rather to punish Boghossian for his views and for causing offense to other academics. If he had done this outside of his university-affiliated research I bet the university would be investigating him anyway. I bet the university and the academics he offended would also claim that nothing he publishes happens "outside" his university affiliation because everybody knows he is a professor there, he represents the university, he published articles in academic journals whose editors believed he was doing academic stuff, and so on.
- tomlock 8y ago
  > The rules are not being applied out of a sense of ethical obligation, but rather to punish Boghossian for his views and for causing offense to other academics. This seems like a bit of a leap. What evidence is there for this being the case?
eduah 8y ago
The hell are you talking about, none of the cliamed in any way that this was an academic research affiliated with any university, only one of them is affiliated with one. In their quillete article they even talk about how this is not an academic study, but rather a hoax like the Sokal hoax before it
- theoh 8y ago
  Here's the situation as described in a good and fairly neutral (I think!) nymag article: "Crucially, it does not matter that the hoaxsters didn’t attempt to publish their final results in a peer-reviewed journal. “Publishing in a magazine that’s not peer reviewed doesn’t matter if they’re reporting on their research,” said Celia Fisher, director of the Fordham University Center for Ethics Education. All that matters is that Boghossian is an employee at PSU, and that he conducted what the university deemed to be human-subjects research based on a plain reading of how that term is normally defined for this purpose." http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/is-peter-boghossian-getting-railroaded-for-his-hoax.html http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/is-peter-boghossian-g... So it appears that Boghossian's academic affiliation is something he can't just leave at work; i.e. it seems that it was unsafe to go public with his involvement in the hoax. The Areo article makes it sound like the hoaxers thought they were doing the right thing by dropping their anonymity: "This generated further attention that eventually got the Wall Street Journal involved, and far more importantly, it changed the ethics of utilizing deception within the project. With major journalistic outlets and (by then) two journals asking us to prove our authors’ identities, the ethics had shifted away from a defensible necessity of investigation and into outright lying. We did not feel right about this and decided the time had come to go public with the project. As a result, we came clean to the Wall Street Journal at the beginning of August and began preparing a summary as quickly as possible even though we still had several papers progressing encouragingly through the review process." https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/ https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studi... They thought this move would make it OK to complete their research project in good faith (without submitting any further hoax articles). But it wouldn't be the first time somebody thought they were off the hook, when in fact they were still exposed to accusations of ethical wrongdoing.

by theoh 8y ago

gpm 8y ago

Are university professors prohibited from submitting official academic papers outside of their university life? If so that sounds like a violation of the first amendment (when talking about state schools anyways). If not, what made this part of their university life?

wgerard 8y ago
> If not, what made this part of their university life? The fact that he likely included his academic affiliation on any papers he wrote, likely used university resources to conduct or discuss some part of the research (e.g. meeting rooms, his office, his office phone), is an employee of the university, etc. I mean, come on - no IRB is going to let you claim a technicality like that. If you could skirt around research regulations by just claiming you were doing it "on your own" with no affiliation to the university, the IRB would be effectively pointless.
- guitarbill 8y ago
  But they used pseudonyms, right? He didn't say "I'm Peter Boghossian with PSU". Anyway, what's shocking to me coming from Physics is how hard it is to read these papers from outside of academia (no arXiv even to at least see pre-prints). So I'm already more sympathetic to the hoaxers.

twblalock 8y ago

The rules are not being applied out of a sense of ethical obligation, but rather to punish Boghossian for his views and for causing offense to other academics. If he had done this outside of his university-affiliated research I bet the university would be investigating him anyway. I bet the university and the academics he offended would also claim that nothing he publishes happens "outside" his university affiliation because everybody knows he is a professor there, he represents the university, he published articles in academic journals whose editors believed he was doing academic stuff, and so on.

tomlock 8y ago
> The rules are not being applied out of a sense of ethical obligation, but rather to punish Boghossian for his views and for causing offense to other academics. This seems like a bit of a leap. What evidence is there for this being the case?

eduah 8y ago

The hell are you talking about, none of the cliamed in any way that this was an academic research affiliated with any university, only one of them is affiliated with one. In their quillete article they even talk about how this is not an academic study, but rather a hoax like the Sokal hoax before it

theoh 8y ago
Here's the situation as described in a good and fairly neutral (I think!) nymag article: "Crucially, it does not matter that the hoaxsters didn’t attempt to publish their final results in a peer-reviewed journal. “Publishing in a magazine that’s not peer reviewed doesn’t matter if they’re reporting on their research,” said Celia Fisher, director of the Fordham University Center for Ethics Education. All that matters is that Boghossian is an employee at PSU, and that he conducted what the university deemed to be human-subjects research based on a plain reading of how that term is normally defined for this purpose." http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/is-peter-boghossian-getting-railroaded-for-his-hoax.html http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/is-peter-boghossian-g... So it appears that Boghossian's academic affiliation is something he can't just leave at work; i.e. it seems that it was unsafe to go public with his involvement in the hoax. The Areo article makes it sound like the hoaxers thought they were doing the right thing by dropping their anonymity: "This generated further attention that eventually got the Wall Street Journal involved, and far more importantly, it changed the ethics of utilizing deception within the project. With major journalistic outlets and (by then) two journals asking us to prove our authors’ identities, the ethics had shifted away from a defensible necessity of investigation and into outright lying. We did not feel right about this and decided the time had come to go public with the project. As a result, we came clean to the Wall Street Journal at the beginning of August and began preparing a summary as quickly as possible even though we still had several papers progressing encouragingly through the review process." https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/ https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studi... They thought this move would make it OK to complete their research project in good faith (without submitting any further hoax articles). But it wouldn't be the first time somebody thought they were off the hook, when in fact they were still exposed to accusations of ethical wrongdoing.