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Taking the devil's advocate side for a bit: this is what defamation law is for. If believed, these allegations basically end her career. It's good to have recou

Taking the devil's advocate side for a bit: this is what defamation law is for. If believed, these allegations basically end her career. It's good to have recourse in law against baseless accusations of this magnitude. I'm not even surprised that neither Harvard nor the three institutions the authors of the Data Colada blog are prepped / insured for this: this kind of lawsuit would mark the person levying it as dangerous to work with in general and probably mark the end of their academic career one way or the other. It's an exit gambit for someone who will not be working in academia in the future. The breakdown in process is a failure to protect the defendants until the lawsuit is resolved. That issue is kind of endemic to how law is done in the US; the process is expensive, and the costs sit on the shoulders of the parties involved until the suit is resolved. It'll be interesting to see how institutions react to this suit in the future. I imagine a pool of insurance money against spurious defamation claims would become standard, especially among the universities that gather more reputation from spot-checking other people's work than from producing trail-blazing research.

dekhn 3y ago
She was already investigated by her own university, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67659904/1/12/gino-v-harvard-university/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67659904/1/12/gino-v-ha... and they retracted her papers for apparent manipulation and irreproducibility. I would hazard that the productive period of her academic career is likely over.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
techwizrd 3y ago
How should defamation be handled? It is good to have recourse against baseless accusations, but we also want to prevent chilling effects discouraging fact-checking. If handled privately, then the public may not even be aware of falsified information while the parties resolve the claims; and we wouldn't want decisions or further research to be based upon falsified data. > With defamation lawsuits, White said, “The process is the punishment.” Even assuming that Gino’s claims are dismissed at trial, the suit will still have bullied researchers who pointed out problems with her work — and may make other researchers more reluctant to follow in their footsteps by speaking out when they notice signs of data manipulation. > “However, it is not worth it for me to do this in the future, or to share my findings publicly,” Pallesen wrote. “This would give me a non-zero risk of financial ruin, and no real personal upside. Probably many researchers are making this same calculation at this moment.”
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  Precisely. This is why I'm interested to see how institutions will react to this threat vector. If defamation suits become a standard go-to for disgraced researchers, the knowledge that institutions will defend them without even batting an eye (via a pot of insurance-backed money) will likely de-fang that approach. "Sure, you could sue for defamation, but you know you're wrong; do you really want to burn years just to enrich a couple lawyers instead of accepting the inevitable here?" The only way pulling the other researchers into this suit seems rational to me at all is if she had reason to believe they might roll over and settle instead of digging into their affirmative defense and further shredding her reputation.
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    What will this do for individuals not bound to institutions though? Will regular people just have to accept whatever is published as scientific research?
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      That's the current status quo. In general, if it's not published (with peer review) its reflection of reality is suspect from a scientific standpoint. "... Anyone who says differently is selling something." ;)
- xoa 3y ago
  >How should defamation be handled? With a strong federal anti-SLAPP statute. We have the legal tools for this already, the problem is simply that they've been haphazardly adopted. Anti-SLAPP is a straight forward decent measure that doesn't stop valid defamation lawsuits, but merely makes sure the lawsuit has legs before it gets into the expensive (discovery) part, and has provisions to recover attorney fees. Former prosecutor, now defense lawyer Ken White did an excellent, fairly exhaustive 3 part series on Anti-SLAPP laws covering their rational, how they work, and what makes good or bad statutory implementations in "What Is An Anti-SLAPP, Anyway? A Lawsplainer Series" [0, 1, 2]. Well worth a read as it's a reasonably important issue and also something that doesn't fall along traditional politicization lines and can be quite doable for citizens to push their reps on. ---- 0: https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-a-lawsplainer https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-... 1: https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-a-lawsplainer-44b https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-... 2: https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-a-lawsplainer-46c https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-...
taeric 3y ago
But the claims aren't being questioned? How is this what the law is for? They specifically have a carve out for true statements being protected, don't they?
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  Her lawsuit doesn't claim the data is not flawed; it does claim that they have ascribed to her intent where there was none, and that's the "defamation" part. Pushes their statements over the edge from "She made mistakes" to "This pattern of mistakes suggests malfeasance;" one is something that sometimes happens in the pursuit of science, the other is career-ending. (Even if she were just pushing back on the fact claims: unfortunately, truth is an affirmative defense in a defamation suit. They'll still have to show up to present it, and that'd cost them lawyer time. An insurance pool to keep that lawyer-time money on standby would allow researchers to have less concern over such challenges in the future).
  - taeric 3y ago
    I don't remember the original articles ascribing intent. I grant that if their intent was to defame her, than I can see this being a somewhat expected use of defamation laws. That said, without questioning the truth of their claims, this seems to be an abuse of the system. As you are suing in when you know they have a valid and acceptable defense to the claims. As the article says, this is using the process as punishment.

dekhn 3y ago

She was already investigated by her own university, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67659904/1/12/gino-v-harvard-university/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67659904/1/12/gino-v-ha... and they retracted her papers for apparent manipulation and irreproducibility. I would hazard that the productive period of her academic career is likely over.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

techwizrd 3y ago

How should defamation be handled? It is good to have recourse against baseless accusations, but we also want to prevent chilling effects discouraging fact-checking. If handled privately, then the public may not even be aware of falsified information while the parties resolve the claims; and we wouldn't want decisions or further research to be based upon falsified data. > With defamation lawsuits, White said, “The process is the punishment.” Even assuming that Gino’s claims are dismissed at trial, the suit will still have bullied researchers who pointed out problems with her work — and may make other researchers more reluctant to follow in their footsteps by speaking out when they notice signs of data manipulation. > “However, it is not worth it for me to do this in the future, or to share my findings publicly,” Pallesen wrote. “This would give me a non-zero risk of financial ruin, and no real personal upside. Probably many researchers are making this same calculation at this moment.”

shadowgovt 3y ago
Precisely. This is why I'm interested to see how institutions will react to this threat vector. If defamation suits become a standard go-to for disgraced researchers, the knowledge that institutions will defend them without even batting an eye (via a pot of insurance-backed money) will likely de-fang that approach. "Sure, you could sue for defamation, but you know you're wrong; do you really want to burn years just to enrich a couple lawyers instead of accepting the inevitable here?" The only way pulling the other researchers into this suit seems rational to me at all is if she had reason to believe they might roll over and settle instead of digging into their affirmative defense and further shredding her reputation.
- Aerroon 3y ago
  What will this do for individuals not bound to institutions though? Will regular people just have to accept whatever is published as scientific research?
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    That's the current status quo. In general, if it's not published (with peer review) its reflection of reality is suspect from a scientific standpoint. "... Anyone who says differently is selling something." ;)
xoa 3y ago
>How should defamation be handled? With a strong federal anti-SLAPP statute. We have the legal tools for this already, the problem is simply that they've been haphazardly adopted. Anti-SLAPP is a straight forward decent measure that doesn't stop valid defamation lawsuits, but merely makes sure the lawsuit has legs before it gets into the expensive (discovery) part, and has provisions to recover attorney fees. Former prosecutor, now defense lawyer Ken White did an excellent, fairly exhaustive 3 part series on Anti-SLAPP laws covering their rational, how they work, and what makes good or bad statutory implementations in "What Is An Anti-SLAPP, Anyway? A Lawsplainer Series" [0, 1, 2]. Well worth a read as it's a reasonably important issue and also something that doesn't fall along traditional politicization lines and can be quite doable for citizens to push their reps on. ---- 0: https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-a-lawsplainer https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-... 1: https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-a-lawsplainer-44b https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-... 2: https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-a-lawsplainer-46c https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-...

taeric 3y ago

But the claims aren't being questioned? How is this what the law is for? They specifically have a carve out for true statements being protected, don't they?

shadowgovt 3y ago
Her lawsuit doesn't claim the data is not flawed; it does claim that they have ascribed to her intent where there was none, and that's the "defamation" part. Pushes their statements over the edge from "She made mistakes" to "This pattern of mistakes suggests malfeasance;" one is something that sometimes happens in the pursuit of science, the other is career-ending. (Even if she were just pushing back on the fact claims: unfortunately, truth is an affirmative defense in a defamation suit. They'll still have to show up to present it, and that'd cost them lawyer time. An insurance pool to keep that lawyer-time money on standby would allow researchers to have less concern over such challenges in the future).
- taeric 3y ago
  I don't remember the original articles ascribing intent. I grant that if their intent was to defame her, than I can see this being a somewhat expected use of defamation laws. That said, without questioning the truth of their claims, this seems to be an abuse of the system. As you are suing in when you know they have a valid and acceptable defense to the claims. As the article says, this is using the process as punishment.