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Just to be pedantic (I am not contesting that this individual was involved in malfeasance or not, just that the enumerated proofs are insufficient at best) - >

Just to be pedantic (I am not contesting that this individual was involved in malfeasance or not, just that the enumerated proofs are insufficient at best) - > If the data had been fabricated by the insurance company as an Excel file, they'd show up as the creators. Digital forensics does not work this way. It is very rare when many digital evidence line up and imply that an actual person did or did not do something in the digital realm. A user account that shows up in an Excel file is absolutely insufficient to tie a person to the keyboard. > it wouldn't show the inconsistent styling. This is also inconsistent how digital forensics works. It can imply that something changed, but nothing about who, when, and why. It could have been an incorrectly propagated filter, or coloring, template, or functions.

jsnell 3y ago
Yes, of course I'm not going to retype thousands of words of somebody else's investigation[0] into a HN comment. It's a summary. > This is also inconsistent how digital forensics works. It can imply that something changed, but nothing about who, when, and why. It could have been an incorrectly propagated filter, or coloring, template, or functions. No, sorry, I don't agree. It shows the "when" of the data fabrication, i.e. after the data was imported to Excel not before. The nature of the styling inconsistencies shows the "why", since it shows that the data was duplicated and one half of the duplicates was manipulated. Half the data was in one font, half in the other, and the two sets of data can be matched with each other. It also shows the "who" in combination with the metadata, due to the chain of reasoning in my previous message, since it shows that the data fabrication happened after the import to Excel and we know Ariely is the person who did that import. [0] https://datacolada.org/98 https://datacolada.org/98
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Taking a look at the conclusion in the link you provide, it states: > it is impossible to tell from the data who fabricated it. But because the fourth author has made it clear to us that he was the only author in touch with the insurance company, there are three logical possibilities: the fourth author himself, someone in the fourth author's lab, or someone at the insurance company. So you seem to be much more confident about it only being one possibility, when the link explicity provides three possibilities.
  - jsnell 3y ago
    Yes, the article lists three theoretical possibilities. I expect the datacolada authors are not stating how likely they think each of those theoretical possibilities is, for obvious reasons. I don't feel under such constraints. One of those logical possibilities can be excluded entirely thanks to everyone involved agreeing that Ariely was the only person in contact with the company and handling the data ingestion. It could not have been anybody else in the lab. The other theory is beyond absurd. Not only did the insurance company fabricate the data, but they happened to fabricate results that showed the effect Ariely needed for a high profile publication. Theories like your "slacking off data entry clerk" just don't make sense there. Now, maybe if Ariely could provide even a shred of evidence for this being the data he received, I could change my mind. But he can't produce the file he received from the company. He can't tell who at the company sent it to him. The trail just runs cold at Ariely.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      > they happened to fabricate results that showed the effect Ariely needed for a high profile publication He'd already done lab experiments that showed the effect he thought existed, and it's easy to imagine an associate who actually fabricated the data already knew what he was looking to confirm. Again, I'm not saying I think he's guilty or not. I'm just saying that from everything I've read so far, it seems plausible it was sloppiness and not checking data for signs of manipulation. That this sloppiness isn't "beyond absurd", but rather more like the classic "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" (or by an overworked/overambitious academic).
      - jcranmer 3y ago
        > He'd already done lab experiments that showed the effect he thought existed, and it's easy to imagine the associate at the company knew what he was looking to confirm. Based on Bazerman's response, actually, he hadn't: > [The fradulent paper] came together in a merger of two prior non-published empirical efforts. Mazar-Ariely independently provided the data for Study 3, while Shu-Gino-Bazerman had written a paper containing two laboratory experiments (Studies 1 and 2). The Shu-Gino-Bazerman group knew of the Mazar-Ariely data from multiple public presentations by Ariely.

jsnell 3y ago

Yes, of course I'm not going to retype thousands of words of somebody else's investigation[0] into a HN comment. It's a summary. > This is also inconsistent how digital forensics works. It can imply that something changed, but nothing about who, when, and why. It could have been an incorrectly propagated filter, or coloring, template, or functions. No, sorry, I don't agree. It shows the "when" of the data fabrication, i.e. after the data was imported to Excel not before. The nature of the styling inconsistencies shows the "why", since it shows that the data was duplicated and one half of the duplicates was manipulated. Half the data was in one font, half in the other, and the two sets of data can be matched with each other. It also shows the "who" in combination with the metadata, due to the chain of reasoning in my previous message, since it shows that the data fabrication happened after the import to Excel and we know Ariely is the person who did that import. [0] https://datacolada.org/98 https://datacolada.org/98

crazygringo 3y ago
Taking a look at the conclusion in the link you provide, it states: > it is impossible to tell from the data who fabricated it. But because the fourth author has made it clear to us that he was the only author in touch with the insurance company, there are three logical possibilities: the fourth author himself, someone in the fourth author's lab, or someone at the insurance company. So you seem to be much more confident about it only being one possibility, when the link explicity provides three possibilities.
- jsnell 3y ago
  Yes, the article lists three theoretical possibilities. I expect the datacolada authors are not stating how likely they think each of those theoretical possibilities is, for obvious reasons. I don't feel under such constraints. One of those logical possibilities can be excluded entirely thanks to everyone involved agreeing that Ariely was the only person in contact with the company and handling the data ingestion. It could not have been anybody else in the lab. The other theory is beyond absurd. Not only did the insurance company fabricate the data, but they happened to fabricate results that showed the effect Ariely needed for a high profile publication. Theories like your "slacking off data entry clerk" just don't make sense there. Now, maybe if Ariely could provide even a shred of evidence for this being the data he received, I could change my mind. But he can't produce the file he received from the company. He can't tell who at the company sent it to him. The trail just runs cold at Ariely.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    > they happened to fabricate results that showed the effect Ariely needed for a high profile publication He'd already done lab experiments that showed the effect he thought existed, and it's easy to imagine an associate who actually fabricated the data already knew what he was looking to confirm. Again, I'm not saying I think he's guilty or not. I'm just saying that from everything I've read so far, it seems plausible it was sloppiness and not checking data for signs of manipulation. That this sloppiness isn't "beyond absurd", but rather more like the classic "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" (or by an overworked/overambitious academic).
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      > He'd already done lab experiments that showed the effect he thought existed, and it's easy to imagine the associate at the company knew what he was looking to confirm. Based on Bazerman's response, actually, he hadn't: > [The fradulent paper] came together in a merger of two prior non-published empirical efforts. Mazar-Ariely independently provided the data for Study 3, while Shu-Gino-Bazerman had written a paper containing two laboratory experiments (Studies 1 and 2). The Shu-Gino-Bazerman group knew of the Mazar-Ariely data from multiple public presentations by Ariely.