5 ms·

This is very helpful. Assuming Dan is being honest, it seems pretty obvious the insurance company is at fault here. It's so hard to know though. He could be cov

by warent 5y ago

This is very helpful. Assuming Dan is being honest, it seems pretty obvious the insurance company is at fault here. It's so hard to know though. He could be covering for the whole group, or a teammate, or even himself. Frankly I'm fine believing it was the insurance company though. Auto insurance has already screwed me before and now I have an irrational and emotionally charged inclination to view them as villain

drno123 5y ago
However, car insurance company has nothing to gain from faking the numbers. Researches who publish an influential study that gets a lot of citations, and because of it they can get tenure, big contracts or lucrative job offers, have everything to gain from faking numbers.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  That's a good point, but it could be that the person tasked with gathering the numbers had something to gain (their own time, if they felt they could fudge and still get paid), and nobody checked the work. Still seems like a long shot. Typically we ask, "Cui bono?"
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    The guy who’s now a senior executive at a very large public company making quite good money and was very well regarded in the field for a long time for making a breakthrough discovery?
- tpoacher 5y ago
  This is only true of researchers whose career depends on fraud. In this case, if anything, an established researcher has everything to lose from such data, whereas the insurance company could give out flaky data for whatever reason and not care about it.
vlovich123 5y ago
Yeah… in cases like this it always seems to be the PI doing something shady. Notwithstanding your personal hatred for the insurance industry, I would bias my prior towards malfeasance on the PIs part, especially since his defense is basically the equivalent “I totally have a girlfriend, she just goes to a different school… in Canada. You don’t know her”. This is a smart CYA response and nothing more. When you hear the totality of the evidence (primarily that he kept promoting this study after he 100% knew it didn’t replicate, he was investigating other similar kinds of effects that would have to be dead ends), it paints a clearer picture of him as a researcher.
DantesKite 5y ago
The thing is Dan has a history of lying and exaggerating results, specifically around this idea of nudging peoples behaviors. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/dan-ariely-honesty-study-retraction https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/dan-ariel...

by warent 5y ago

drno123 5y ago

However, car insurance company has nothing to gain from faking the numbers. Researches who publish an influential study that gets a lot of citations, and because of it they can get tenure, big contracts or lucrative job offers, have everything to gain from faking numbers.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
That's a good point, but it could be that the person tasked with gathering the numbers had something to gain (their own time, if they felt they could fudge and still get paid), and nobody checked the work. Still seems like a long shot. Typically we ask, "Cui bono?"
- vlovich123 5y ago
  The guy who’s now a senior executive at a very large public company making quite good money and was very well regarded in the field for a long time for making a breakthrough discovery?
tpoacher 5y ago
This is only true of researchers whose career depends on fraud. In this case, if anything, an established researcher has everything to lose from such data, whereas the insurance company could give out flaky data for whatever reason and not care about it.

vlovich123 5y ago

Yeah… in cases like this it always seems to be the PI doing something shady. Notwithstanding your personal hatred for the insurance industry, I would bias my prior towards malfeasance on the PIs part, especially since his defense is basically the equivalent “I totally have a girlfriend, she just goes to a different school… in Canada. You don’t know her”. This is a smart CYA response and nothing more. When you hear the totality of the evidence (primarily that he kept promoting this study after he 100% knew it didn’t replicate, he was investigating other similar kinds of effects that would have to be dead ends), it paints a clearer picture of him as a researcher.

DantesKite 5y ago

The thing is Dan has a history of lying and exaggerating results, specifically around this idea of nudging peoples behaviors. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/dan-ariely-honesty-study-retraction https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/dan-ariel...