4 ms·

I do sometimes wonder if the same attributes that puts people at their top of their fields is the same atribute that makes them more willing to sacrifice their

I do sometimes wonder if the same attributes that puts people at their top of their fields is the same atribute that makes them more willing to sacrifice their integrity for prestige... It seems like this just happens too frequently (or maybe it just appears that way because these are media reported).

ProllyInfamous 3y ago
>wonder if the same attributes that puts people at their top of their fields is the same atribute that makes them more willing to sacrifice their integrity for prestige I have a HLS lawyerbro that absolutely attests to this theory. "You hear that? That's `pride` fuckin'with'ya."
39838sjdjn 3y ago
I'm not sure what direction of causation you have in mind but as someone in academics (tenured professor etc) I think the answer is definitely yes. One thing that should be setting off alarm bells now is how often these scandals in the last couple of years have involved people who are in very high-level administrative positions at these institutions. Not only because of the values that might be instilled downward in the future, but also what it says about what has been valued already to reach those positions. I have seen and heard stuff like this routinely that never makes the press. Not everyone in academics is corrupt, but the rot is prevalent enough that it's pretty systemic at this point and affects everyone. I think sometimes people don't even realize what they're suggesting sometimes, it's so common. I have a theory that as some indicator of success deviates from a normal tail, there's more likely to be corruption or luck involved. The incentives just don't work the other way. But I'm biased based on my experiences, which reflect one domain of modern society.
- svnt 3y ago
  > I have a theory that as some indicator of success deviates from a normal tail, there's more likely to be corruption or luck involved. And/or abuse, coercion, and exploitation of others.
  - pitherpather 3y ago
    In relation to both the quoted sentence and your addition, I have seen speculation that where once "being in the clergy" was esteemed and attracted predators and psychopaths seeking cover, today that attraction is toward a position in science work as cover.
- goalieca 3y ago
  If you take incentivation to the extreme, look no further than the publishing criteria for academic positions in China. https://www.nature.com/articles/463142a https://www.nature.com/articles/463142a
  - breckenedge 3y ago
    Anecdotally I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on recommended systems and it blows me away how many Chinese papers there are (papers written by researchers in China) and how many claim to beat the current “state-of-the-art” often without saying what that is.
    - nsagent 3y ago
      No joke, I was just reviewing a paper for NAACL a couple of weeks ago and the authors made up a brand new task, then stated that they had achieved the state-of-the-art on it. In my review I mentioned that was a meaningless statement for a new task, but I guess some researchers are incentivized to claim that in their papers.
  - lupire 3y ago
    I can't trust that research until it's published in a more trustworthy journal than Nature. ;-) Crazy that Nature published a article highlighting fraud concerns about Nature's own publications, but Nature has no plans to reduce that fraud.
- nsagent 3y ago
  Academics with surprising results are rewarded with more fame, prestige, funding opportunities, etc. It's not a big surprise that people naturally cheat, in big or small ways. The general public often think that academia is merit-based with the smartest being rewarded, but as you know it's a more complicated picture than that. You're not alone in your thinking; I'm pretty sure everyone in academia recognizes the problems. It's just that enough people benefit from the current incentive structures that the occasional scandal isn't enough for academics to reassess the predominant paradigm.
- int_19h 3y ago
  This is a broad issue with any kind of hierarchical power structure, no matter what it is ostensibly about. Once you have hierarchy, you have politics as a profession/lifestyle, and sociopaths always win that game in the long run.
  - jjackson5324 3y ago
    Uh no? Every functioning system we have on the planet is hierarchical. And each system has a different degree of effectiveness & success with some being more corrupt than others. Just dismissing everything as "welp, that's just hierarchical power structures" is dumb.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      There are many working systems that are small enough that they don't need any hierarchy, and function just fine. Larger systems do require some degree of it, yes. But the ones that have more hierarchy and where it is more rigid, inevitably end up with more of this kind of thing.
- ninjaK4t 3y ago
  [dead]
- cbsmith 3y ago
  Worth noting that with success also comes scrutiny. The "causation" here may just be the added scrutiny.
readthenotes1 3y ago
Great people usually aren't good people... Or to put it differently, the unquenched desires of acquisition, rivalry, vanity, and power lead people to do things they oughtn't
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Great people usually aren't good people... The flip side of this is most societies’ model citizens are highly compliant, possibly even supplicant. Entire categories of rudeness are, in essence, about not challenging authority and convention.
itronitron 3y ago
I can think of three former colleagues that have had very successful careers and that are also gifted liars (one stands out as also being a pathological liar.) None of them are ever going to be reported in the media.
PedroBatista 3y ago
Yes. For a sector/area/industry that deals with "hard facts" and Science, it's "surprising" how much of these groups and institutions run on prestige, greed and ego. We are talking about institutions run by these people who have annual budgets of BILLIONS of dollars, sometimes I feel most people view these schools and institutions like just one step above their local high-school, nothing is further from the truth.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  I.e. people are human, regardless of their position, prestige, etc.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> or maybe it just appears that way because these are media reported When thinking about it more, I think that is also highly likely. It many of these cases the most "famous" author is the last one on the paper, but is the first to be highlighted in the media. That is, oftentimes the work was just done in their labs but they did little more than review. But there is such pressure for those toiling in the labs to make a "big" splash that it's not hard to think that some small number of them would be willing to cheat. This line from the original blog post (https://forbetterscience.com/2024/01/02/dana-farberications-at-harvard-university/ https://forbetterscience.com/2024/01/02/dana-farberications-...) reporting on the findings is telling: > “You should reach out to Dr. Hidde Ploegh- the first author, Dr. Boaz Tirosh was in his laboratory.” > Well Laurie, it’s your paper, if you care about it being correct, you could very well reach out yourself! While I agree that Laurie Glimcher should be very concerned about any research misconduct done under her authorship, I think it's premature to get out the pitchforks when there are potentially many levels of indirection here.
- theGnuMe 3y ago
  They know and if they don't they should not be a co-author.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    Baloney. That's literally not how academic papers work in any part of the world. At some point you need to be able to trust your co-authors aren't lying. For example, co-authors of Francesca Gino (the Harvard Biz School prof accused of falsifying data) had to start a project, https://manycoauthors.org/ https://manycoauthors.org/, to essentially compare notes. I'd also consider some of these co-authors victims here. To be clear, I'm not saying any of the authors get a free pass, but different authors have vastly different levels of culpability.

ProllyInfamous 3y ago

>wonder if the same attributes that puts people at their top of their fields is the same atribute that makes them more willing to sacrifice their integrity for prestige I have a HLS lawyerbro that absolutely attests to this theory. "You hear that? That's `pride` fuckin'with'ya."

39838sjdjn 3y ago

I'm not sure what direction of causation you have in mind but as someone in academics (tenured professor etc) I think the answer is definitely yes. One thing that should be setting off alarm bells now is how often these scandals in the last couple of years have involved people who are in very high-level administrative positions at these institutions. Not only because of the values that might be instilled downward in the future, but also what it says about what has been valued already to reach those positions. I have seen and heard stuff like this routinely that never makes the press. Not everyone in academics is corrupt, but the rot is prevalent enough that it's pretty systemic at this point and affects everyone. I think sometimes people don't even realize what they're suggesting sometimes, it's so common. I have a theory that as some indicator of success deviates from a normal tail, there's more likely to be corruption or luck involved. The incentives just don't work the other way. But I'm biased based on my experiences, which reflect one domain of modern society.

svnt 3y ago
> I have a theory that as some indicator of success deviates from a normal tail, there's more likely to be corruption or luck involved. And/or abuse, coercion, and exploitation of others.
- pitherpather 3y ago
  In relation to both the quoted sentence and your addition, I have seen speculation that where once "being in the clergy" was esteemed and attracted predators and psychopaths seeking cover, today that attraction is toward a position in science work as cover.
goalieca 3y ago
If you take incentivation to the extreme, look no further than the publishing criteria for academic positions in China. https://www.nature.com/articles/463142a https://www.nature.com/articles/463142a
- breckenedge 3y ago
  Anecdotally I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on recommended systems and it blows me away how many Chinese papers there are (papers written by researchers in China) and how many claim to beat the current “state-of-the-art” often without saying what that is.
  - nsagent 3y ago
    No joke, I was just reviewing a paper for NAACL a couple of weeks ago and the authors made up a brand new task, then stated that they had achieved the state-of-the-art on it. In my review I mentioned that was a meaningless statement for a new task, but I guess some researchers are incentivized to claim that in their papers.
- lupire 3y ago
  I can't trust that research until it's published in a more trustworthy journal than Nature. ;-) Crazy that Nature published a article highlighting fraud concerns about Nature's own publications, but Nature has no plans to reduce that fraud.
nsagent 3y ago
Academics with surprising results are rewarded with more fame, prestige, funding opportunities, etc. It's not a big surprise that people naturally cheat, in big or small ways. The general public often think that academia is merit-based with the smartest being rewarded, but as you know it's a more complicated picture than that. You're not alone in your thinking; I'm pretty sure everyone in academia recognizes the problems. It's just that enough people benefit from the current incentive structures that the occasional scandal isn't enough for academics to reassess the predominant paradigm.
int_19h 3y ago
This is a broad issue with any kind of hierarchical power structure, no matter what it is ostensibly about. Once you have hierarchy, you have politics as a profession/lifestyle, and sociopaths always win that game in the long run.
- jjackson5324 3y ago
  Uh no? Every functioning system we have on the planet is hierarchical. And each system has a different degree of effectiveness & success with some being more corrupt than others. Just dismissing everything as "welp, that's just hierarchical power structures" is dumb.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    There are many working systems that are small enough that they don't need any hierarchy, and function just fine. Larger systems do require some degree of it, yes. But the ones that have more hierarchy and where it is more rigid, inevitably end up with more of this kind of thing.
ninjaK4t 3y ago
[dead]
cbsmith 3y ago
Worth noting that with success also comes scrutiny. The "causation" here may just be the added scrutiny.

readthenotes1 3y ago

Great people usually aren't good people... Or to put it differently, the unquenched desires of acquisition, rivalry, vanity, and power lead people to do things they oughtn't

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Great people usually aren't good people... The flip side of this is most societies’ model citizens are highly compliant, possibly even supplicant. Entire categories of rudeness are, in essence, about not challenging authority and convention.

itronitron 3y ago

I can think of three former colleagues that have had very successful careers and that are also gifted liars (one stands out as also being a pathological liar.) None of them are ever going to be reported in the media.

PedroBatista 3y ago

Yes. For a sector/area/industry that deals with "hard facts" and Science, it's "surprising" how much of these groups and institutions run on prestige, greed and ego. We are talking about institutions run by these people who have annual budgets of BILLIONS of dollars, sometimes I feel most people view these schools and institutions like just one step above their local high-school, nothing is further from the truth.

WalterBright 3y ago
I.e. people are human, regardless of their position, prestige, etc.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

> or maybe it just appears that way because these are media reported When thinking about it more, I think that is also highly likely. It many of these cases the most "famous" author is the last one on the paper, but is the first to be highlighted in the media. That is, oftentimes the work was just done in their labs but they did little more than review. But there is such pressure for those toiling in the labs to make a "big" splash that it's not hard to think that some small number of them would be willing to cheat. This line from the original blog post (https://forbetterscience.com/2024/01/02/dana-farberications-at-harvard-university/ https://forbetterscience.com/2024/01/02/dana-farberications-...) reporting on the findings is telling: > “You should reach out to Dr. Hidde Ploegh- the first author, Dr. Boaz Tirosh was in his laboratory.” > Well Laurie, it’s your paper, if you care about it being correct, you could very well reach out yourself! While I agree that Laurie Glimcher should be very concerned about any research misconduct done under her authorship, I think it's premature to get out the pitchforks when there are potentially many levels of indirection here.

theGnuMe 3y ago
They know and if they don't they should not be a co-author.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Baloney. That's literally not how academic papers work in any part of the world. At some point you need to be able to trust your co-authors aren't lying. For example, co-authors of Francesca Gino (the Harvard Biz School prof accused of falsifying data) had to start a project, https://manycoauthors.org/ https://manycoauthors.org/, to essentially compare notes. I'd also consider some of these co-authors victims here. To be clear, I'm not saying any of the authors get a free pass, but different authors have vastly different levels of culpability.