12 ms·
Data sleuths who spotted research misconduct cleared of defamation
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- teekert 2y ago“… the court has ruled that evidence-backed conclusions regarding fabricated data cannot constitute defamation—which is probably a very good thing for science.” “Probably good for science”? That is science!
- kortilla 2y agoYes, that’s why the ruling is good for science. It would be a dark world if publishing statistical analysis opened you up to defamation
- bluGill 2y agoIn the uk at least truth is not defense againts defamation. Beware if you live there.
- bugglebeetle 2y agoThe same is true in Japan. Very few are aware of how little press freedoms and speech rights are protected there and have regressed further under assault from the ruling LDP party.
- cortesoft 2y agoMy understanding is it is a little more nuanced than that. The truth is still an absolute defense against defamation in the UK, just like it is in the US, but the difference is who the burden of proof is on. In the US, it is up to the person suing for defamation to prove the statements were false AND that the person knew them to be false when they said them (or should have known they were false). In the UK, for someone to use the truth as an absolute defense, they have to prove the statements were true, which is often not very easy.
- mr_toad 2y agoIn both bases proof is only on balance of evidence, so the difference between proving something is or isn’t true is not as great as it would be if the standard was proof beyond reasonable doubt.
- dgfitz 2y agoIt’s a lot easier to prove that there is a white swan than a black swan in the world somewhere.
- appendix-rock 2y agoVery ‘ironic’ that this is quite a…dishonest representation of the truth.
- smcin 2y agoMy own post here [0] got suddenly multiply downvoted and flagged, even though I wrote it very carefully and double-checked every single statement. Truth defense. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41526702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41526702
- jakedata 2y ago[flagged]
- striking 2y agoIf you suspect a voting ring is interfering with HN in some way, you can ask the mods and they'll pull the data and tell you. Is it not the more likely explanation that some people / a moderator decided a summary makes for boring reading, especially given that you need 500 karma to downvote?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- oefrha 2y agoTL;DRs are frowned upon on HN because HN encourages people to read the article (especially before commenting) rather than Don’t Read the article.[1] You’re further breaking guidelines by complaining about votes. That said, your comment isn’t a summary of the article at all. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12667459 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12667459
- mr_toad 2y agoThis is ironically, not true. “It is a defence for defamation to show the imputation in the statement complained of is substantially true.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_Act_2013#Defences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_Act_2013#Defences
- immibis 2y agoThe same in Germany.
- komali2 2y agoIt also cited a precedent I didn't know existed for the courts: > The court cites precedent to note that “[s]cientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than by the methods of litigation” I wonder if this a specific case or just a general precedent? Is general precedent a thing?
- exegete 2y agoI saw that quote in the article but cannot find it in the ruling itself: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.259933/gov.uscourts.mad.259933.74.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.259... It seems to be a quote from a London court ruling in 2010: https://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c1895 https://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c1895
- vitus 2y agoIt's mentioned around page 30-31: > Instead, this is a case where the trial of ideas plays out in the pages of peer > reviewed journals, and the scientific public sits as the jury.” (cleaned up)); Underwager v. Salter, > 22 F.3d 730, 736 (7th Cir. 1994) (affirming summary judgment against defamation claims and > stating that “[s]cientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than by > the methods of litigation”). So, https://casetext.com/case/underwager-v-salter https://casetext.com/case/underwager-v-salter
- exegete 2y agoThanks! I don’t know why my search didn’t find that.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- anitil 2y agoWe're lucky to have hard-headed people willing to put up with legal threats and bullying tactics. I'm not sure I'd have the spine for it. It reminds me of when Ben Goldacre was sued [0] which luckily his publisher covered the costs for. [0] https://www.badscience.net/files/The-Doctor-Will-Sue-You-Now.pdf https://www.badscience.net/files/The-Doctor-Will-Sue-You-Now...
- afh1 2y agoThe problem is being able to sue for something like defamation. At the extreme, like happens in Brazil, innocent people are sent to jail for criticizing politicians. https://mises.org/mises-wire/rothbard-suits-defamation https://mises.org/mises-wire/rothbard-suits-defamation
- AtlasBarfed 2y agoThat is true, but this is so much worse. 1) this is a college 2) it was about research, fundamental to the mission of higher education 3) it was fraud, not error 4) It was HARVARD, exalted bastion of elite colleges, the most prestigious university in the US I get Harvard is always more about influence and an insiders club rather than any real academic work, but still ... So many heads should roll over this.
- smcin 2y ago[tl;dr] US District Court dismisses Francesca Gino's controversial $25m defamation lawsuit against Harvard Business School and DataColada scientist-bloggers (Simonsohn, Nelson, and Simmons). The judge allowed Gino's breach of contract claim against Harvard to continue. DataColada's legal defense (so far) was paid for by their own universities; there is also a $378K private GoFundMe organized by Simine Vazire [https://www.gofundme.com/f/uhbka-support-data-coladas-legal-defense https://www.gofundme.com/f/uhbka-support-data-coladas-legal-...]. Yet apparently not a penny from the journals which Gino published in, or by HBS, or the funders of Gino's research. (EDIT: this got upvoted, then suddenly multiply downvoted and flagged - why? I wrote it very carefully and double-checked every single statement. If anyone's quibbling the term "Francesca Gino's controversial $25m defamation lawsuit", that term was used by the MBA-watching blog https://poetsandquants.com/2024/09/12/judge-dismisses-francesca-ginos-defamation-claims-against-harvard-data-colada/?pq-category=mba-faculty&pq-category-2=mba-news https://poetsandquants.com/2024/09/12/judge-dismisses-france... )
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoDo universities typically go to bat for their faculty? Presumably the blog investigation is not done with any direct university involvement.
- smcin 2y agoI can't comment, but it's a truly bizarre spectacle to see research integrity being upheld by three public-minded researchers (one of them based in Spain) and a defense fund on GoFundMe organized by an Australian academic. The academic publishers didn't fund them and neither did the funders of the research. We need a discussion about frameworks to fund misconduct researchers (including related legal defense), also about pressures to publish irreproducible results with mediagenic, counterfactual findings. The entity with the least incentive to fully investigate HBS is, paradoxically... HBS itself... because questions have been raised about multiple other coauthors, the reputational and financial consequences and wrongful termination claims look set to run for a decade. Some have conjectured that whenever the full facts are finally disclosed, this scandal will take out the reputation of Harvard in general (not just HBS, or Behavioral Economics as a field, or priming), or all the Ivies, at least for business-school.
- PaulKeeble 2y agoThere is no limits a grifter wont go to in order to continue their grift. Those with the funds regularly get away with it purely because they have the funds to sue their opponents into bankruptcy. The system worked in this case but it so rarely does and we see so often people having to back down due to legal threats.
- onlypassingthru 2y agosee: Lance Armstrong.† † https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lance_armstrong_admits_to_lawsuit_bullying https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lance_armstrong_admi...
- jujube3 2y agoTime flies when you're having funds.
- taeric 2y agoThis whole ordeal has been crazy. Glad to see some sanity prevailing at this level. Curious where the rest of the story is at. Anyone have a good primer on where things ultimately are, at this point? Curious on more than just this case. If I recall, there were several large scale misconduct cases that hit back to back. All of those still in flight?
- nikcub 2y agoPete Judo's channel on YouTube has been covering this since the beginning, and other cases: https://www.youtube.com/@PeteJudo1 https://www.youtube.com/@PeteJudo1
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoI'd love to hear more about the outcome for harvard. it seems that they mostly did the right thing, but how they went about it may not have been conforming to the pre-determined rules for employees.
- apwheele 2y agoWhile a favorable ruling for the Data Colada defendants seemed incredibly likely in the end (and of course being dismissed pre-trial before discovery is a good thing). But it still took over a year, and consisted of several pre-trial hearings with multiple back and forths between them. If I ctrl-f https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.259933 https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.259... I see Pyle (their lawyer) listed 11 times. All the motions and responses are a non-trivial amount of work. Do folks have a sense of how much the costs would have been just to get dismissed for DC? Seems to be definitely over 10k (50k?) Or am I overestimating.
- teractiveodular 2y agoI'm pretty sure this guy wouldn't get out of bed for $10k: https://princelobel.com/professional/jeffrey-j-pyle/ https://princelobel.com/professional/jeffrey-j-pyle/ Although given that the New Yorker stated that Pyle "appeared not only professionally but personally incensed by the fact of the lawsuit", perhaps some of the work was pro bono. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-a-scientific-dispute-spiralled-into-a-defamation-lawsuit https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-a-scientific-di...
- pclmulqdq 2y agoThankfully, a lot of the filings appear short enough that I doubt he's going to charge very much. I assume the retainer was still $20-30k, but they may get some of it back. I was hoping that there would be some fee-shifting here, but it's federal court.
- yial 2y agoI would guess a 20-30k retainer in this occurrence would be a discounted retainer as well. I say this just based upon my personal experience with a few smaller firms.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoIf you're known to be good for the money, you can often get lower retainer bills from lawyers. That's why Donald Trump has to put up tens of millions for any legal project. Many of my lawyers do not ask for retainers for work at all, even for bigger things.
- Validark 2y ago“[s]cientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than by the methods of litigation” Boom. And the researchers didn't accuse a person of fabrication, they accused the data of being fabricated.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sparsely 2y agoCourts have had little hesitation to decide these matters themselves for a long time - check out "Bite Mark Analysis" or any number of trials involving medical evidence. While I do think that they need to consider scientific matters they are vastly overconfident in the conclusions reached.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- baobabKoodaa 2y agoI don't see any distinction there.
- RachelF 2y agoThe irony is that Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely are famous for their pop-sci/TED talks studying dishonesty. Turns out they were dishonest themselves. 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...
- hughesjj 2y agoI'm at the point where if I see it in a TED talk I'm assuming it's a bullshit grifter
- usea 2y agoEven 8 years ago that was a safe view to hold.
- hughesjj 2y agoIndeed. By 2016 I think I had moved from "wow tedx is junk but official Ted still has some good stuff" to "man even the official ones really are more hype than substance are are in dire need of quality control"
- hilux 2y agoMe too. Same for pretty much any "scientist" on NPR, or with a popular book. Not EVERY one is a hack or a fraud, but enough are that as a group, they're not trustworthy. That's a big chunk of my adult life I need to forget, because I was so into the broad field of applied social science, Ariely in particular. It's a real shame.
- zo1 2y agoI blocked the TED channel on YouTube a few years back as it was getting bad. They first diluted their "brand" or quality with TEDx, and it's been downhill since as they've been scraping the bottom of the barrel and tried to "scale" or "franchise". Happens everytime, growth at all costs. The only way to stop it is to have passionate leaders who care more about the goal than the money. Unfortunately, usually by the time these leaders have established their company they are also on a downward life trajectory in terms of years left, so they switch to "extraction" mode.
- SMAAART 2y agoShe wrote the book "Rebel Talent: why it pays to break the rules".
- larsnystrom 2y agoPractice what you preach, as they say.
- kmeisthax 2y agoIn my opinion, defamation law is not fit for purpose, it's far too easy for rich people with axes to grind to sue their accusers in an attempt to stifle speech by putting a price on their words. Anti-SLAPP motions are supposed to fix this by allowing fee shifting, but they only exist in a handful of states, and I'm still not 100% sure how effective that alone can be at restoring freedom of speech[0]. Until such time as that legal system is fixed, the scientific community should take countermeasures against the law. I'm calling for some kind of universal default clause[1]. If you sue scientific accusers for defamation, you're not doing science anymore, so you should be automatically fired from or kicked out of any scientific institution you're a member of. You could obviously restrain this to only unproven allegations - i.e. get a scientific board to call the allegations bullshit first and then you can bring it to a court. But the pathway of allegations of fraud becoming "put up $100k in legal fees or shut up" is not acceptable in a free society. [0] Related note: do you remember when Donald Trump was saying he wanted to "open up our libel laws" to make it EASIER to pull this shit!? [1] "Universal default" is a concept in banking that treats defaulting on any loan the same as defaulting on the specific loan mentioned in the contract.
- nullc 2y agoUnfortunately for malicious litigants their whole goal is to damage you with the process or to use the threat of doing so to coerce you. They'll use defamation law when its the path of least resistance but if that's off the table they'll just cook up some other claim.
- Simon_ORourke 2y agoSo what happens with these costs - surely the failed litigant should shoulder some if not all of the costs of defending this defamation claim?
- proto-n 2y agoTo my (totally uninformed) eyes it looks like maybe this could count as a SLAPP suit [1], in which case there's a possbility for a counterclaim for legal costs. However, Massachusetts apparently has "much weaker anti-SLAPP laws" [2] (than California, in the context of the article) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ... [2] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23841742/francesca-gino-data-colada-lawsuit-gofundme-science-culture-transparency-academic-fraud-dishonesty https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23841742/francesca-gino-d...
- perihelions 2y agoOften, no. There's a relevant specific fee-recovery mechanism [0] in some, not all, states, because this class of lawsuit acknowledged as being problematic, as being an effective way to silence 1A-protected speech. The deeper problem is that litigation is extraordinarily expensive in the US, and generically easy to abuse as an intimidation weapon—for rich entities to use against those who can't afford lawyers; or for fanatics to use against normal risk-averse people who don't want lawsuits–don't value whatever it is the fanatic is fanatic about, highly enough to go to court to argue it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
- progbits 2y agoSadly it doesn't work like that but even that wouldn't be fair. If you lose the defamation as the plaintiff you should be forced to pay the full amount you were suing for to the defendant. Or even a multiple of that.
- csbs1 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dudeinjapan 2y agoIf only Prof. Gino had signed her papers at the beginning she would have been less inclined to falsify the data. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3458378/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3458378/
- mzs 2y agobravo!
- tanepiper 2y agoI posted this a while back on here, but my wife works in Behavioural Science, and wrote this about it last year https://www.squarepeginsight.com/post/the-dark-side-of-behavioural-science-stardom-unpacking-the-ariely-gino-controversy https://www.squarepeginsight.com/post/the-dark-side-of-behav...
- lern_too_spel 2y agoUnlike Gino, Ariely doesn't seem to have had a downfall. He still has a lab at Duke, he keeps getting invited to give talks, his consultancy is still getting contracts. It doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe another behavioral scientist can fake an experiment to explain it.
- andrelaszlo 2y ago> To believe that the Original data are fake and the Posted data are real, you’d have to believe that the sensible data are fake and the backwards data are real. That is a difficult thing to believe. > We were right about how the data were altered, Gino’s prevailing explanation for the alterations does not make sense, and yet we are the defendants in this case. What's the academic term for "mic drop"? https://datacolada.org/118 https://datacolada.org/118
- andrelaszlo 2y agoThis analysis is simple but brilliant. Some rows appeared out of order. They changed them back to what they should be according to their position, then checked the effects on the distributions: https://datacolada.org/111 https://datacolada.org/111
- polartx 2y agoIf she was falsifying data, I must assume it was to support a biased hypothesis she held however the article doesn’t elaborate on what conclusion her fraudulent data supported beyond this being a “behavioral science” study. Can anyone fill in the gaps to those conspicuously missing details?
- kayge 2y ago> What's the academic term for "mic drop"? I've always gone for "QED" but I'm sure there are better options out there :)
- hdhfjfidi 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoRelated. Others? Harvard Probe Finds Honesty Researcher Engaged in Scientific Misconduct - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39712021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39712021 - March 2024 (15 comments) They studied dishonesty – Was their work a lie? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37714898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37714898 - Sept 2023 (153 comments) Crowdfunding a defense for scientific research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37393502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37393502 - Sept 2023 (47 comments) I’m so sorry for psychology’s loss, whatever it is - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37315292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37315292 - Aug 2023 (94 comments) Support Academic Freedom of Speech - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37153168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37153168 - Aug 2023 (1 comment) 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) 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 (91 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)
- kernal 2y agoHow ironic that the people exposing a fraudster must defend themselves from the false allegations of a fraudster. The sad and pathetic part is that Francesca Gino even tried to blame her colleagues for the fake data. These videos are a good primer on the dishonesty of Francesca Gino. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNK4nXWA_s8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNK4nXWA_s8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE5V_nW7pPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE5V_nW7pPo
- red_admiral 2y agoIn theory, if the other side can't outpay you on lawyers, truth should be an absolute defense to allegations of defamation. If you're careful enough not to just write "she faked the data" but "based on this evidence ... we believe the data is fake", that should be watertight.
- xbar 2y agoArrivederci, Francesca Gino.