12 ms·
They studied dishonesty – Was their work a lie?
- zestyping 3y agoThis quote from a statement to NPR by The Hartford (the insurance company that provided Ariely with the car odometer data), made my jaw drop. > The published study data includes two different fonts. All data in Calibri font can be tied to our data while all data of Cambria font appears to have been synthesized or fabricated. https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190568472/dan-ariely-francesca-gino-harvard-dishonesty-fabricated-data https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190568472/dan-ariely-frances...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- loeg 3y agohttps://archive.ph/ifxn6 https://archive.ph/ifxn6
- webel0 3y agoThere was also a piece in the nyt this morning [0]. Seems like someone was rushing for a scoop (what scoop? This is old news.) or someone’s PR firm is getting results. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/30/business/the-harvard-professor-and-the-bloggers.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/30/business/the-harvard-prof...
- mwexler 3y agoThe TV show "The Irrational" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irrational https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irrational just premiered in the US. This show is loosely based on Ariely's work. As PR ramped on the show, so did dig-ups like these.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zerocrates 3y agoThe other reply to your comment mentioned the TV show, but also, Gino's lawsuit was quite recent: it was filed in August.
- dblack12705 3y agoIn case anyone hasn’t read it, the Datacolada article demonstrating Ariely committed fraud is a great read and extremely convincing. https://datacolada.org/98 https://datacolada.org/98
- nkurz 3y agoGreat article. The "Author Feedback" section at the bottom is interesting. All 4 that are there read exactly like you would hope: dedicated researches agreeing with the Datacolada analysis and expressing disappointment that they did not catch this error in time. One wonders where the truth is.
- ColoursofOSINT 3y agoMy favorite thing is that Gino is now suing DataColada [1], and basically is claiming that 'they were right in every other case and I supported them, but with me they are lying'. 1: https://datacolada.org/113 https://datacolada.org/113
- tqi 3y ago(Not an excuse in any way) This data was so shoddily faked that I have a hard time believing someone did this with an intention to deceive. Uniform distribution with a hard cutoff at 50K??
- bombcar 3y agoIf you fake and get away with it you’re already admitting to a type of laziness, so it expands y til finally you are faking it so lazily that you get caught. Faking data realistically is almost as hard as getting it honestly. I know, I “expanded the data pool” for my eight grade science project.
- bee_rider 3y agoThat somehow loops around to becoming an interesting 8’th grade science project. Do an easy experiment once correctly, then again with falsified data. Present the results side-by-side. Ask people if they can tell you which is which. Present have a bit on what sort of statistics could catch your faked data set.
- curiousgal 3y agoDay after day I grow more convinced psychology research is a sham.
- christkv 3y agoThe joke has always been that psychology studies is the study of small groups of psychology students and their afflictions.
- curiousgal 3y agoThat or Mechanical Turk workers...
- kwere 3y agoAs a patient i see the field at best as a set of best practices in theoretical scenarios. But i imagine getting valuable insights out of (troubled and ashamed) people minds to help them is really hard. Surprisingly pharmacology in Psychiatry instead works well and reliably for a lot of conditions
- tepitoperrito 3y agoYou might like the psych writing over at https://www.astralcodexten.com/archive?sort=top https://www.astralcodexten.com/archive?sort=top or gwern.net
- whimsicalism 3y agoDespite his positive reputation here, Scott Alexander has similar issues - he does not only rely on gold standard research
- jdietrich 3y agoIncluding less-than-ideal data in a broader analysis is completely fine as long as you're aware of the data quality issues and adjust your weights accordingly. IMO Alexander does a pretty good job of this - I recall many occasions where his writing references a study while also caveating that reference because of a limited sample size or a slightly implausible effect size or some other qualm. There's a world of difference between trying to make sense of a topic when none of the available data is all that great, and outright fabricating data to make a name for yourself.
- ta8645 3y ago[flagged]
- gaze 3y ago“Science and industry only have our best interests at heart” Coming from both science and industry, that is absolutely the last thing on their minds. Generally it’s some combination of the bottom line, pursuing whatever is most interesting, and not getting sued.
- ta8645 3y agoYou're ignoring the universal religious faith in those institutions that has been demonstrated over the last few years. People who question them are conspiratorial dimwits, who are dangerous to society and should be punished.
- adamsb6 3y agowhooosh
- the_only_law 3y agoIt really is comical to watch
- gaze 3y agoI was 50:50 on this being sincere. It’s hacker news after all.
- Yoric 3y agoScience is imperfect, but usually pretty good at detecting bad science. And, as far as I can tell, this is exactly what happened here, so... yeah, this case is a good argument for trusting science.
- ta8645 3y ago[flagged]
- gatinsama 3y agoIf you are into this kind of thing (science going wrong), I recommend the book Bad Science. Also, Science Fictions, by Stuart Ritchie, who also now has a great podcast called The Studies show.
- rdtsc 3y ago> In statements, each disowned any responsibility. Gino, unaware that she was also being investigated by Data Colada, praised the team for its determination and skill: “The work they do takes talent and courage and vastly improves our research field.” Ariely, apparently taken aback, underscored that he had been the only author who handled the data. He then seemed to imply that the findings could have been falsified only by someone at the insurance company. The insurance company then showed their data and it wasn’t falsified. That’s just amazing. They both falsified data, and when caught, pointed at each other. Gino was fired but Ariely kept his job then sued Data Colada. She had claimed it was misogyny and discrimination. She may be right in respect to how she was treated compared to Ariely. Was it still worth cheating for both of them? Money-wise, absolutely! Add up all their book fees and speaking fees that they’ll never have to repay back. They can already retire comfortably. EDIT: Gino wasn't fired. She was placed on administrative leave. Revocation of tenure was only implied as a possibility.
- whimsicalism 3y agoThey are employed at different institutions, only Gino works at Harvard. I dont believe she has been fired either, yet.
- rdtsc 3y agoYou're right she wasn't fired. It was implied it might happen only. I misread: > she would be placed on administrative leave, and that he was instituting perhaps unprecedented proceedings to revoke her tenure. They are at different institutions. I meant that her claim at her own institution about misogyny seems like lashing out. She falsified data, the evidence is fairly convincing. But in a broader picture, in the media, she has gotten more scrutiny and flak than Ariely, that's what I meant.
- bachmeier 3y ago> Add up all their book fees and speaking fees that they’ll never have to repay back. They can already retire comfortably. Don't forget their faculty salaries. Duke is a private institution, so we don't have access to his salary, but absolute minimum Ariely makes 400K (and probably way more). You don't leave MIT for a chaired professorship at Duke unless it comes with a very, very hefty salary. 25 years of a salary like that will by itself provide you with a good retirement. You don't need to get the media attention of Ariely to benefit from fraud.
- DonsDiscountGas 3y agoAnother take: https://www.experimental-history.com/p/im-so-sorry-for-psychologys-loss https://www.experimental-history.com/p/im-so-sorry-for-psych... > So what was the scientific fallout of Stapel's demise? What theories had to be rewritten? What revisions did we have to make to our understanding of the human mind? > Basically none, as far as I can tell. The universities where Stapel worked released a long report cataloging all of his misdeeds, and the part called “Impact of the fraud” (section 3.7 if you're following along at home) details all sorts of reputational harm: students, schools, co-authors, journals, and even psychology itself all suffer from their association with Stapel. It says nothing about the scientific impact—the theories that have to be rolled back, the models that have to be retired, the subfields that are at square one again. And looking over Stapel's retracted work, it's because there are no theories, models, or subfields that changed much at all. The 10,000+ citations of his work now point nowhere, and it makes no difference. > As a young psychologist, this chills me to my bones. Apparently is possible to reach the stratosphere of scientific achievement, to publish over and over again in “high impact” journals, to rack up tens of thousands of citations, and for none of it to matter. Every marker of success, the things that are supposed to tell you that you're on the right track, that you're making a real contribution to science—they might mean nothing at all. So, uh, what exactly am I doing? It's kinda like finding out an athlete has been cheating. You probably want to throw away any of their inspirational talk, but it doesn't affect the rest of your life because it was just a sport to begin with. Somebody was gonna win, somebody was gonna lose, and it matters a whole lot to the players (and fans) but that's it. Except worthwhile science is supposed to actually matter whether it's true or false.
- norwalkbear 3y agoPeople are right to distrust the institutions
- sealeck 3y agoNice to add a very vague statement here.
- RandomLensman 3y agoMost research is kind of irrelevant outside of research which is why one can get away with dishonesty as no-one places big financial bets on the findings being correct.
- huitzitziltzin 3y agoAn exception to the general rule: “if a newspaper headline ends in a question mark the answer is no” Here the answer is yes. Dan Ariely is a complete fraud and so is Francesca Gino. There are so many credible accusations of fraud against Ariely that about four of them get treated together very quickly at the end of the article, else the article would be several times longer. If you own his books, throw them away or shelve them with your fiction. Also note that there are serious behavioral economics researchers who do hard work that isn’t remotely like this “nudging” or “priming” BS.
- whimsicalism 3y agoNudging is real, but I think can only really be detected by large-scale web services a/b, not university scales.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago> and throwing accusations at every chance while appealing to the mob's emotions. Then argue against the accusations rather than lobbing ad hominems.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jgaa 3y agoThe nice thing with science is that if you cherry-pick your scientists, you will always find some who "prove you right" ;)
- d0mine 3y agoit is a pity that "social science" has the word "science" in it. It is like calling homeopathy a medicine. Neither science nor medicine should be judged based on these examples.
- dash2 3y agoI think you're naive if you imagine that medicine is innocent of these problems. Medical companies have huge incentives - literally worth billions - to make their results "come in right".
- rossdavidh 3y agoThe number of medical researchers who sell their hot prospect to a corporation that is unable to replicate the initial exciting results, is clearly more than the statistics of small sample sizes vs. large would indicate. This suggests that this problem exists anywhere that the incentives are in favor of it.
- waterheater 3y ago>It is like calling homeopathy a medicine. It is medicine, but don't take my word for it: >allopathic medicine: a system of medical practice that emphasizes diagnosing and treating disease and the use of conventional, evidence-based therapeutic measures (such as drugs or surgery) [1] >osteopathic medicine: a system of medical practice that emphasizes a holistic and comprehensive approach to patient care and utilizes the manipulation of musculoskeletal tissues along with other therapeutic measures (such as the use of drugs or surgery) to prevent and treat disease [2] >homeopathic medicine: a system of alternative medicine that treats a disease especially by the administration of minute doses of a remedy that would in larger amounts produce symptoms in healthy persons similar to those of the disease [3] >medicine: the science and art dealing with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease [4] Homeopathy is still a form of medicine, though it is not allopathic medicine. That said, the lines are quite blurred. I know that at least one type of leukemia is treated with a cocktail of arsenic and vitamin A. That treatment is given in a standard hospital setting. By the definitions above, such a treatment is actually homeopathic medicine, not allopathic. Yet, the treatment does indeed work. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/allopathic%20medicine https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/allopathic%20medi... [2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/osteopathic%20medicine https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/osteopathic%20med... [3] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homeopathic%20medicine https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homeopathic%20med... [4] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medicine https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medicine
- 77pt77 3y ago> Some behavioral economist is going to win the Nobel Prize—what do I have to do to be in contention? Just a reminder that there is no Nobel Prize in Economics.
- hcks 3y agoYou could also use your common sense when these results were mentioned and realise anyone believing them was intellectually challenged
- neilv 3y agoThis piece is very readable, but a tiny bit funny is how loaded the storytelling is, given the subject matter. The storyteller wants the reader to think certain things about characters and events, and facts and impressions are cherry-picked and deployed just so, to support that. I guess seeing the persuasion as that of a storyteller might be understood in this kind of journalism (I don't know, especially since the subject matter seems delicate), but I believe that scientific research needs higher standards.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nerdponx 3y agoI think it was done somewhat deliberately here. The author first portrays Ariely in one way, and then gradually starts revealing the doubtful and conflicted elements. The other characters are all portrayed more or less neutrally.
- moffkalast 3y agoIt's always great to see a study made by real experts on the topic.
- rossdavidh 3y agoAs they say, "research is me-search".
- paulpauper 3y agoSimilar to Gladwell, the lines between research, journalism and storytelling are becoming increasingly blurred. Dan Ariely's backstory of being a teenage burn victim somehow factors into his research as adding credibility. Ideally, the anecdotal should be separate from the actual data, but research which may be dubious is given the benefit of the doubt because it confirms what we want to believe through storytelling, which confirms or revivifies a preexisting experience or bias.
- einpoklum 3y ago"Kahneman and his partner, Amos Tversky, had pioneered the field of “judgment and decision-making,” which revealed the rational-actor model of neoclassical economics to be a convenient fiction. " There was nothing to "reveal". Neoclassical economics and the mental model of "rational actors" is no more science than phlogiston or alchemical conversion of lead to gold. It's worse than those, since it's an ideological construct used to buttress the social order. Which is why we should understand how whole branches of economics are strange pursuits within the realms of fantasy devoid from reality; and when someone introduces a shred of it back in, this is hailed as some great achievement. Reminds me of this segment in "Yes Minister": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgUemV4brDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgUemV4brDU
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y agoThere's a lot of celebrity chasing going on even in the physical sciences. I see it most in theoretical physics where papers can be published at an astonishing clip. Experiments however take much longer and if the numbers don't line up, they don't get published. In the rare cases that they do, the penalties are severe. But, when a theory or family of theories gets wiped out by a measurement, there's not the same blowback. I am also concerned by the willingness of so many physicists to cozy up to the oligarchs.
- l0b0 3y agoIn theoretical physics it's understood that the work is speculative, not empirical - reality always wins, after all. There's no ill will towards people who propose wrong theories of physics, because they are trying to guide where experimental physics should look next. Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino were faking empirical evidence, the thing that, more than anything else in science, determines what is actually true about the world. > Experiments however take much longer and if the numbers don't line up, they don't get published. If by "they" you mean experimental physics results which don't line up with popular theories, you must be talking about another planet than Earth. Physicists love nothing more than a surprising result.
- monero-xmr 3y agoAn oligarch is just a label for a rich person you don’t like. If you have an expensive experiment and need a lot of cash, it makes sense to go with people who have extra cash and an interest in funding science.
- neilv 3y ago> When she expressed her doubts, the adviser snapped at her, “Don’t ever say that!” I don't know whether the advisor was referring to collegial decorum in how good faith research is discussed, or more like whisper networks about bad faith that are impolitic or scared to speak aloud. But I did actually once get a snap response like that. I was chatting with another grad student, who'd mentioned a student who'd just arrive, who'd be working for Prof. X. I hadn't worked with Prof. X, but I happened to see them treat multiple students poorly over time, belittling the student, disciplining them in front of groups of others, giving them non-research chores like a personal assistant rather than a research assistant, not letting them pursue their research, etc., so I blurted out, concerned, "Oh no!", and that X was a bad advisor. This other grad student surprised me by snapping back at me, sternly, "You shouldn't say that!", and something about reputations. That other grad student's parent was a prominent academic, so I figured they were admonishing me in some decorum that they were brought up in, and which they knew better than me. It might've been weeks later, that same grad student came back to me, apologetically, and spoke with surprise, of how miserable the new student was, once they realized the career disaster that they'd stumbled into. Epilogue: A long time later, that grad student, who'd admonished me and then apologized, contacted me about a different professor, because they knew a prospective new student of that professor, they had some suspicions, and they thought that I might know something. The truth was much worse than they suspected, and the student fled after hearing only a little, in vague terms. BTW, there's apparently a lot of all kinds of poor behavior, but the people doing it are almost never cliched evil, IME. For example, a couple times I saw Prof. X do something kind, and I think probably they had something like a very stern taskmaster upbringing that caused their other side. There was also another one, who was kind to me, but I later learned that they were decidedly unkind to some others, and were actually nudged out. And one of the most body-count professors I saw was actually genuinely warm and charismatic and humble in some ways, and I don't think they realized that they seemed to have emotional/cognitive problems that they let kill other people's careers in an awful way. Off-the-record gossip with grad students and (later) professors will tell you of all sorts of other misbehavior, especially by people who aren't all bad, but very driven and pressured. (Raging narcissist/psycho, however, seems relatively rare, or their trail of bodies doesn't survive long enough to complain about it. Maybe the worse people tend to go for careers with more money and power?) And, back to this article, I once met with Ariely, and he came across as empathetic, down-to-earth, and of goodwill, so -- iff it turns out that he's found to have done something academically dishonest -- again, that would seem like a bit of human frailty, in a more wholesome larger picture. (Note: I've been a grad student a few places, and have talked with people at countless other places, so am not calling out a particular school or person. A lot of people have seemed paranoid about saying anything at all, myself included, so please don't speculate, or I think that would have even more of a chilling effect than already exists.)
- dang 3y agoRelated. Others? Crowdfunding a defense for scientific research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37393502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37393502 - Sept 2023 (47 comments) Is it defamation to point out scientific research fraud? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37152030 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37152030 - Aug 2023 (13 comments) Harvard professor Francesca Gino was accused of faking data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36968670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36968670 - Aug 2023 (146 comments) Fabricated data in research about honesty - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36907829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36907829 - July 2023 (46 comments) Fraudulent data raise questions about superstar honesty researcher (2021) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36726485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36726485 - July 2023 (33 comments) UCLA professor refuses to cover for Dan Ariely in issue of data provenance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36684242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36684242 - July 2023 (131 comments) Harvard ethics professor allegedly fabricated multiple studies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36665247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36665247 - July 2023 (215 comments) Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424090 - June 2023 (201 comments) Data Falsificada (Part 1): “Clusterfake” – Data Colada - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36374255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36374255 - June 2023 (7 comments) Noted study in psychology fails to replicate, crumbles with evidence of fraud - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28264097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28264097 - Aug 2021 (102 comments) A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28257860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28257860 - Aug 2021 (90 comments) Evidence of fraud in an influential field experiment about dishonesty - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28210642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28210642 - Aug 2021 (51 comments)
- green-eclipse 3y agoPeople have been pointing out these frauds for a while now. Aug 2021: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9914493/Landmark-study-honesty-cheating-relied-faked-data.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9914493/Landmark-st... July 2023: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190568472/dan-ariely-francesca-gino-harvard-dishonesty-fabricated-data https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190568472/dan-ariely-frances... etc etc