9 ms·

My Apology

113 points by petenixey 14y ago

oh_sigh 14y ago
Who cares anymore?
- kmfrk 14y ago
  It's a legitimate question the parent asks. In my book, the guy deserves oblivion, after he has been revealed to be a pathological liar and fabulist. If you love the field of journalism, this guy should disgust you. Bonus trivia: Lehrer was paid $20,000 to deliver this speech. Ridiculous and a mountainous source of embarrassment for the Knight Foundation.
  - gknoy 14y ago
    If we discount someone's current contributions and ideas because we are disgusted by their past mistakes, we risk losing some useful and insightful things. This speech had a very important message: It's not enough to acknowledge or apologize for mistakes. You need to give yourself (and others) a reason to trust that you won't make similar mistakes in the future. Jonah goes into more detail: you need a standard operating procedure which prevents sloppiness, so that the routine ensures you don't make mistakes. If you've not read this, because you feel he deserves oblivion, you should read it and pretend it was written by someone else. Also ... if someone deserves "oblivion" for mistakes, even egregious ones, what's the point of rehabilitation?
    - kmfrk 14y ago
      An apology doesn't get more sincere than when you've been paid $20k to make it! In that light, it's almost performance art.
    - a_c_s 14y ago
      But his problem isn't that he is sloppy, it is that he is unscrupulous. This isn't some error in procedure, it is a deep character flaw. At best that takes years of self reflection and self refinement to remedy, not a simple list of rules. Rehabilitation for this is possible, but not probable and he should work in a different field that doesn't rely so much on personal integrity.
  - hammerzeit 14y ago
    First, I find it's unproductive to make psychological diagnoses of people you haven't met before. Having met actual pathological liars there is not remotely enough evidence that Lehrer is one, unless you're just using the word to mean "a liar I don't like," in which case you're cheapening the phrase. Second, do you really want a world where errors -- even massive ones -- automatically disqualify you from being relevant again? Where there are no second acts in American life? I do think there are places where that makes sense, but they tend to be places where the supply is perceived to be abundant and commoditized. Ergo why we encourage failure amongst entrepreneurs. Nobody automatically deserves forgiveness, but I do think Lehrer is a giften enough storyteller that we should not necessarily consign him to the dustbin.
    - Millennium 14y ago
      If Lehrer gets a second act, he will earn it by convincing people that he is worth giving one. That's something each person will have to decide individually, and some will be convinced more easily than others. Perhaps he will succeed, after some soul-searching and change. This article represents a step in the right direction: some people seem to already be on the cusp of forgiveness, while others would like (as is their right) some more assurance. Or maybe he'll fail in this: his sins may be too great, or he may prove to be incorrigible. Either way will be telling. And this is as it should be. Forgiveness is earned, one way or another, and should be.
  - groby_b 14y ago
    Yep. And his speech is rather disgusting, too. "I need standards"? What, in his part of the world "Don't lie" is not an accepted standard?
  - jessaustin 14y ago
    Does the Knight Foundation not make a habit of giving its speakers such staggering sums? If not, this is mysterious, and it would lead me to suspect he was being paid for something besides the speech. Were any decision-makers at Knight involved with any of Lehrer's discredited work? If the Knight Foundation does regularly pay speakers this much, then I agree with those who say that the bulk of this fee should go to some agreeable charity.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      KF is a charity. They should have their tax deductible nonprofit status revoked for funneling money like this.
      - kmfrk 14y ago
        The reputational damage is going to cost them plenty, if it's any consolation. The journalist nerds are tearing them apart.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I care. Jonah Lehrer is good writer who has written things that I enjoyed reading. I was saddened to hear about how he was taking such sloppy and dishonest shortcuts, and as a fellow imperfect human, I find it interesting to see how he's reflecting on the experience and trying to grow from it.
kmf 14y ago
Some background on Mr. Lehrer's previous resignation from the New Yorker via the NY Times: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/jonah-lehrer-resigns-from-new-yorker-after-making-up-dylan-quotes-for-his-book/ http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/jonah-lehre...
- RyanZAG 14y ago
  Thanks for this - I had no idea who this was or what he was possibly apologizing for. Context is always great! It definitely is something he needs to apologize for, too - probably in-person to everyone involved.
- dclowd9901 14y ago
  What the hell book was it for? Why can't I find this most basic information?
  - jholman 14y ago
    Respectfully, it's not that hard to search Wikipedia for Jonah Lehrer. Link for the lazy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Lehrer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Lehrer
- acqq 14y ago
  See also http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jon...
kjackson2012 14y ago
This was extremely well-written. It's a shame he had to sully his good name by taking the easy route and make up quotes, etc. Hopefully he can bounce back and revitalize his career.
gfunk911 14y ago
I'm going to read this again after I post this comment. Everything he says applies equally to me. Thought I had something more insightful to say. Guess not.
muglug 14y ago
Good for him. I hope for his sake that he can win back some of the trust he squandered, and keep on the straight and narrow.
PakG1 14y ago
The first phase involved a literal reconstruction of my mistakes. I wanted to have an accounting, in my head, of how I fabricated those Dylan quotes. I wanted to understand the mechanics of every lapse, to relive all those errors that led to my disgrace. I wanted to understand so that I could explain it to people, so that I could explain it in a talk like this. This is basically doing a post-mortem. When I think about things I've done wrong, I go through this process. Then when I try to explain to people, I go through this process. However, when I do this, I fear that other people think I'm just trying to justify my mistakes. As such, I don't often try to explain myself to others. I apologize, but I don't go into detail; and usually, people are willing to accept simply the apology and the high-level explanation. When I say go into detail, I mean a truly blow by blow account of every premise, piece of context, and minor decision that led to the big one. I think part of it is that a lot of people simply don't have the patience for such details. To clarify what I'm talking about in terms of level of detail, I give the example of a time a girl asked me, "So do you prefer Vancouver food or Hong Kong food?". And I responded with a 5 minute dissection of the question to better understand what the question was asking, because the answer could vary depending on the question's true meaning and intent. Then she got exasperated and said, "Wow, I just asked you whether you prefer this food or that food!!! What's the big deal???") So maybe I have two fears when I want to give the blow by blow account. The stupid fear is that people will think I'm crazy for going into such detail. The more scary fear is that people will think I'm trying to justify myself when I'm in fact not trying to do that at all. And this fear keeps me from sharing my thoughts with others. I have no idea whether this guy is sincere or not, and so it's funny that the fear I have regarding other people being suspicious of my sincerity, I am casting similar suspicions (though not aggressively, as it's not a significant event to me whether or not this guy is sincere).
- VLM 14y ago
  "Then she got exasperated" Expand your failure analysis... I suspect the root cause is she was trying to ask you out on a date, unless there were reasons to the contrary. A similar scenario happened to me in high school, after I finally figured it out, my pattern matching improved.
- roc 14y ago
mashmac2 14y ago
Slate's take on this article is particularly interesting and has one strong perspective about Lehrer - http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/02/jonah_lehrer_apology_standard_operating_procedures_can_t_fix_arrogance_and.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... (not a positive viewpoint)
- duggieawesome 14y ago
  Thanks for the link, I did not know who he was previously.
- tokenadult 14y ago
  Please submit this article as a separate submission to HN. I think it's a better article than the one kindly submitted to open this thread.
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    How could you possibly evaluate whether this article was correct without having read Lehrer's original article? For what it's worth, I think this whole thing is dumb. The main problem with Lehrer isn't that he plagiarized a few articles, but that his writing is mostly b-level propaganda to begin with.
  - jessaustin 14y ago
    The Slate article slagging on Lehrer is of no inherent interest to hackers. His speech, self-serving and dishonest as it may have been, addresses some interesting and little-discussed aspects of psychology, work, and knowledge. That is something I appreciate on HN. Of course the GP provides valuable context for the speech, and I'm glad it was shared, but it doesn't stand by itself as a top-level post.
- dylangs1030 14y ago
  I agree that you should submit this. It's a very good commentary on the article, scathing though it might be.
kintamanimatt 14y ago
It would be cool if he could go back through all the "defective" works he's produced, rewrite them so as to be accurate, and republish them for free. Those who have bought his work will be able to get the updated and amended copy without charge, and those who haven't been exposed to anything other than the drama around his transgressions will have an almost no-risk access to his works. It's easier to forgive when an apology is combined with action. His work had so much promise and appeal. If anything, it would be a shame if we couldn't benefit from his ability to convey concepts in an interesting and engaging way.
dkuebric 14y ago
Hard to dislike a guy that writes so well, and I agree with the general premise of recognizing the human capacity, and necessity, for error. But I do think it's a bit disingenuous to compare the "mistakes" of scientists to fabrication and deceit. Would Niels Bohr have been referring to the manufacture of evidence when he spoke of "all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field?"
fallous 14y ago
This is an apology? "I screwed up, and I will focus on my mistakes by only discussing the FBI and forensic scientists."
- sp332 14y ago
  He already did the official apologies.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    Some people haven't even gotten that far. Ira Glass got right in front of credibility issues on his watch and it served him very well. Dan Rather, in comparison, was still sticking to the "I wasn't proven false in a court of law" defense as of last week.
homosaur 14y ago
I hope he follows it up with another apology about the horrible unreadable text on that website. Good luck with that career, though, bud. You're going to need it.
taylorbuley 14y ago
Journalistically, there's a rather large asterisk that needs to be put out here: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/204097/lehrer-falls-into-familiar-pattern-fails-to-face-his-reckoning/ http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/204097/l...
chasing 14y ago
Non-fiction writing is entirely built upon trust. I have to trust that the author is attempting to tell the truth because I don't have the resources to fact-check every little thing. Jonah Lehrer violated this trust. Big time. He has shown himself to be someone who lies and manipulates. And I think this is a cynical manipulation in an attempt to restore his career. (He should donate that $20k to some charity, btw.) But he has forever lost my trust. There are too many other good writers and good books out there -- there will never be a reason for me to pick up a Jonah Lehrer book or pay attention to his words. Sorry. Let's find some less well-known thinkers who deserve our attention and leave this guy out of the public conversation.
- jessaustin 14y ago
  I've never read anything by him, but I'd say I'm more likely to do so now, having read this speech. Of course I won't just believe whatever he says because he says it, but then again I could say that about anyone. My default position is skepticism. Popular non-fiction writing is about marketing and what will sell from an airport book kiosk far more than it is about trust. It may well be that Lehrer has nothing to offer us in book form but marketability, and he may not have that anymore. Unlike most speeches, however, this one said something of interest.
  - chasing 14y ago
    I might suggest that you help (in some small way) improve the quality of these popular non-fiction books by not supporting people like Jonah Lehrer. Let him experience a literary death penalty. It'll help keep other writers from falling into that same trap.
    - jessaustin 14y ago
      That is good advice for anyone who cares about the quality of popular non-fiction.
  - robbiep 14y ago
    Not suggesting this isn't true, but consider this: Most people on this site consider themselves skeptics; Most people on this site will read something that comes from a source and, if they are not experts in the field being discussed, will tend to accept it; This is more likely should the argument be well put together; This will happen despite us considering ourselves skeptics; Because it is easier to accept a well written article on an issue we know little about rather than research it ourselves; Many of us will subsequently argue a position based upon the information contained in said article or discussion, especially against other non-experts It doesn't matter how skeptical you consider yourself it's simply too mentally expensive to look for backup on everything you read, and we are really bad at guessing what things are outright lies when those lies are presented in an intelligent and intelligible form
mrmiller 14y ago
Does anyone else feel like Lehrer is receiving more criticism than he deserves? The fact that he defended the fabricated Dylan quotes is regrettable, but it's so trivial compared to lies we hear everyday from people we "trust" (media, politicians, bloggers, friends). And I don't give a damn about the self plagiarism. It was sloppy, not evil. I personally wish we could forget about the whole thing. After this debacle, I'd trust Lehrer over almost any other science writer. If he ever writes Frontal Cortex again, I'm sure it will be the most thoroughly fact-checked journalism available.
- ahoyhere 14y ago
  The thing is that when somebody lies about trivial but pointless stuff -- not little white lies like "Ooh, I'd love to come but I'm booked that day" or "No, that dress looks great on you" but rather, "Bob Dylan said this" -- then you can't trust the rest of what they write. People criticize Lehrer because they liked him and trusted him. Now everything they liked about him was cast into doubt, over something totally idiotic. It seriously calls his judgment and character into question. There was no compelling reason for him to fabricate what he fabricated. There was no enormous gain from that fabrication. It's a sign of either laziness, OR pathological lying. Pathological liars are distinguished from the rest of us because they lie about pointless things, without a direct thing to gain from it. We understand that politicians lie for gain… they are not, GENERALLY, pathological. Because they lie for gain, we can ferret out their lies because we can ask, "Gee, does xyz have something to gain here?" - and we understand them. That doesn't make it excusable, but that's probably part of why there's more uproar about Lehrer (we trusted him! WHY did he lie about THAT?!) than yet one more political lie.
jessaustin 14y ago
Was that a real Joan Didion quote? Seriously, he's correct in many of the things he said, but he's probably the wrong person to be saying this. Perhaps in a couple of decades he might be the right person. Humans really are flawed creatures. We really do screw up all the time. It really isn't enough to be governed by a strong moral compass: that sense of morality must be assisted by the wisdom to avoid situations that will corrupt it. Strong habits, traditions, or even "standard operating procedures" assist the wise in this avoidance. I still have sympathy for this guy. My suspicion is that those in the media who are really piling on, are doing so at least partially to avoid hearing what's being said. Lehrer is bad, so we can't admit that most of what he did, we do if only to a lesser degree. Otherwise we would be bad. This sort of binary morality is really primitive and pathetic, but many people don't have anything else available to them. If's fine if you don't sympathize with Lehrer as I do, but I don't understand how people can complain that he brought up the FBI lab as an example. Why would they be above him? He didn't send any innocent people to jail! If you'd like proof that this is a serious problem, read up on the mess they have in Mississippi with bogus forensics. If Lehrer does anything to improve forensics in this country, all his plagiarism will have been worth it.
- DigitalJack 14y ago
  I think he is the right person to be saying this. And I'd like to read an update in a year or two as well, see how it's working out for him. Frankly the state of US journalism is so weighed down by bias, the institution in general could probably use a dose of the Checklist Manifesto. And if this guy can come up with some SOPs that work for him, he should publish them and maybe they can help others who are willing. I think a lot of the HN reaction to this is understandable. It's akin to a fall down drunk getting his 30 day chip, and announcing it to the world. But Lehrer didn't sound like he was proud of his "30 day chip", just that he's starting to see what the road to wellness is going to take. It's the first step in his making amends. People can take what he offers and accept it, disregard it, chew him up and spit him on the ground, or whatever. But at least he is offering something. That's his part. I'll be interested to see how he does and where he goes.
- ScottBurson 14y ago
  > Lehrer is bad, so we can't admit that most of what he did, we do if only to a lesser degree. Otherwise we would be bad. Yes. The technical psychoanalytic term is "projection". There's lots of it out there if you look.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
untog 14y ago
The weird (infuriating?) part of this is that he was paid $20,000 by the Knight foundation to give this speech. We shouldn't be rewarding plagarisers, he should have given the speech for free out as an opportunity to explain himself.
auggierose 14y ago
I could not even get as far to wonder what he was apologizing for. The type face is just too horrible to read.
mimiflynn 14y ago
Blogging has always been questioned and critqued by trained journalists. We should be questioning anything self-published that appears to be journalism. For reference, this is the original article that Michael Moynihan wrote: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jon... Q/A with Michael Moynihan: http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-bob-dylan-07302012/ http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-...
bzalasky 14y ago
Bold paragraph text... awful.
pdog 14y ago
In the Navy, your career is over if your ship goes aground. Even if it wasn’t your fault. The lack of justice for the one guy is way more than made up by a greater justice for everybody else when every captain makes sure their ship doesn’t go aground. Unfortunately, non-fiction writing is a system entirely built on trust. The system may be unfair, but Jonah Lehrer violated that trust, and now his career is rightfully over.
- mesofile 14y ago
  In the Navy, not necessarily: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/16/admiral-nominee-rose-through-ranks-despite-illogic/?page=all http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/16/admiral-nomi... With regards to Mr Lehrer: if he could write a worthwhile nonfiction book, I'm guessing that he could find someone to publish it, and it would have the chance to rise on its own merits -- no one can really 'end' the career of an author, only damage their reputation, and most of the time (as in this case) that is self-inflicted. But his hopes for making the short list of lite-fare nonfiction authors who can sell a lot of books, alongside Gladwell et al, would appear to be well and truly dashed.
dylangs1030 14y ago
This might just be me, but I don't like wordsy apologies. I don't like apologies with intricate explanations. Lehrer's point is that a lot of people try to soften apologies and remove some accountability, as if the apology is just part of a status quo, and he's worried people will think he's trying to do that; really, he's just trying to make a record of his actions. But honestly, I think he's got it a bit wrong. People don't distrust verbose apologies because they're intended to be excuses, but because they are excuses by design. If Lehrer said something to the effect of, "I fucked up. I'm sorry. I understand you may never trust me again and I'll have to deal with that." I would trust his apology much more than I do now. But providing an explanation, however benign it is (especially in a highly media fueled instance like this where not much explanation isn't already known) garners sympathy from the audience and wraps the apology in something tolerable for the author. I don't think it should be tolerable. But that's just my thought on it.
- notahacker 14y ago
  I think wordy apologies are a lot more appropriate when it's a for technical mistake "this is how the security breach happened and this is what we've done to prevent a reoccurrence" than a moral misjudgement "this is how I cheated and lied to everyone; please trust me again because I'm candid about it"
csense 14y ago
From the article: > Designers refer to this sort of rule as a forcing function. These functions are everywhere and they keep us from doing all sorts of stupid things. Just think of your car. There is, for instance, the reverse lockout, which prevents us from throwing a moving car into reverse and accidentally ripping apart the transmission. > whatever I write will be fact-checked and fully footnoted. I was interested in learning more about this "reverse lockout." From the Wikipedia entry [1] which is the top Google result for "reverse lockout" (I typed it into Google without quotes): > a forcing function or poka-yoke, is a technique used in error-tolerant design to prevent the user from making common errors or mistakes. One example is the reverse lockout on the transmission of a moving automobile. I don't want to spend time researching this further, but it's interesting that he came up with the same name and example of the concept as the Wikipedia article (without attribution). Wikipedia articles are supposed to be secondary sources -- "original research" is an explicitly discouraged category of content. But none of the links cited by the Wikipedia article mention "forcing function." So here's someone, writing a mea culpa about his past plagiarism, who uses a phrase and idea without proper footnoting of it (nebulously crediting "designers" with the idea); and a single Google search for the idea turns up a Wikipedia article which also mentions the idea without citing a source! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-shaping_constraint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-shaping_constraint
gadders 14y ago
Just so that we don't feel left out, we have our own UK equivalent with a weirdly similar name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Journalistic_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Journalistic_contro...

My Apology

113 points by petenixey 14y ago

oh_sigh 14y ago

Who cares anymore?

kmfrk 14y ago
It's a legitimate question the parent asks. In my book, the guy deserves oblivion, after he has been revealed to be a pathological liar and fabulist. If you love the field of journalism, this guy should disgust you. Bonus trivia: Lehrer was paid $20,000 to deliver this speech. Ridiculous and a mountainous source of embarrassment for the Knight Foundation.
- gknoy 14y ago
  If we discount someone's current contributions and ideas because we are disgusted by their past mistakes, we risk losing some useful and insightful things. This speech had a very important message: It's not enough to acknowledge or apologize for mistakes. You need to give yourself (and others) a reason to trust that you won't make similar mistakes in the future. Jonah goes into more detail: you need a standard operating procedure which prevents sloppiness, so that the routine ensures you don't make mistakes. If you've not read this, because you feel he deserves oblivion, you should read it and pretend it was written by someone else. Also ... if someone deserves "oblivion" for mistakes, even egregious ones, what's the point of rehabilitation?
  - kmfrk 14y ago
    An apology doesn't get more sincere than when you've been paid $20k to make it! In that light, it's almost performance art.
  - a_c_s 14y ago
    But his problem isn't that he is sloppy, it is that he is unscrupulous. This isn't some error in procedure, it is a deep character flaw. At best that takes years of self reflection and self refinement to remedy, not a simple list of rules. Rehabilitation for this is possible, but not probable and he should work in a different field that doesn't rely so much on personal integrity.
- hammerzeit 14y ago
  First, I find it's unproductive to make psychological diagnoses of people you haven't met before. Having met actual pathological liars there is not remotely enough evidence that Lehrer is one, unless you're just using the word to mean "a liar I don't like," in which case you're cheapening the phrase. Second, do you really want a world where errors -- even massive ones -- automatically disqualify you from being relevant again? Where there are no second acts in American life? I do think there are places where that makes sense, but they tend to be places where the supply is perceived to be abundant and commoditized. Ergo why we encourage failure amongst entrepreneurs. Nobody automatically deserves forgiveness, but I do think Lehrer is a giften enough storyteller that we should not necessarily consign him to the dustbin.
  - Millennium 14y ago
    If Lehrer gets a second act, he will earn it by convincing people that he is worth giving one. That's something each person will have to decide individually, and some will be convinced more easily than others. Perhaps he will succeed, after some soul-searching and change. This article represents a step in the right direction: some people seem to already be on the cusp of forgiveness, while others would like (as is their right) some more assurance. Or maybe he'll fail in this: his sins may be too great, or he may prove to be incorrigible. Either way will be telling. And this is as it should be. Forgiveness is earned, one way or another, and should be.
- groby_b 14y ago
  Yep. And his speech is rather disgusting, too. "I need standards"? What, in his part of the world "Don't lie" is not an accepted standard?
- jessaustin 14y ago
  Does the Knight Foundation not make a habit of giving its speakers such staggering sums? If not, this is mysterious, and it would lead me to suspect he was being paid for something besides the speech. Were any decision-makers at Knight involved with any of Lehrer's discredited work? If the Knight Foundation does regularly pay speakers this much, then I agree with those who say that the bulk of this fee should go to some agreeable charity.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    KF is a charity. They should have their tax deductible nonprofit status revoked for funneling money like this.
    - kmfrk 14y ago
      The reputational damage is going to cost them plenty, if it's any consolation. The journalist nerds are tearing them apart.
MartinCron 14y ago
I care. Jonah Lehrer is good writer who has written things that I enjoyed reading. I was saddened to hear about how he was taking such sloppy and dishonest shortcuts, and as a fellow imperfect human, I find it interesting to see how he's reflecting on the experience and trying to grow from it.

kmf 14y ago

Some background on Mr. Lehrer's previous resignation from the New Yorker via the NY Times: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/jonah-lehrer-resigns-from-new-yorker-after-making-up-dylan-quotes-for-his-book/ http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/jonah-lehre...

RyanZAG 14y ago
Thanks for this - I had no idea who this was or what he was possibly apologizing for. Context is always great! It definitely is something he needs to apologize for, too - probably in-person to everyone involved.
dclowd9901 14y ago
What the hell book was it for? Why can't I find this most basic information?
- jholman 14y ago
  Respectfully, it's not that hard to search Wikipedia for Jonah Lehrer. Link for the lazy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Lehrer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Lehrer
acqq 14y ago
See also http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jon...

kjackson2012 14y ago

This was extremely well-written. It's a shame he had to sully his good name by taking the easy route and make up quotes, etc. Hopefully he can bounce back and revitalize his career.

gfunk911 14y ago

I'm going to read this again after I post this comment. Everything he says applies equally to me. Thought I had something more insightful to say. Guess not.

muglug 14y ago

Good for him. I hope for his sake that he can win back some of the trust he squandered, and keep on the straight and narrow.

PakG1 14y ago

The first phase involved a literal reconstruction of my mistakes. I wanted to have an accounting, in my head, of how I fabricated those Dylan quotes. I wanted to understand the mechanics of every lapse, to relive all those errors that led to my disgrace. I wanted to understand so that I could explain it to people, so that I could explain it in a talk like this. This is basically doing a post-mortem. When I think about things I've done wrong, I go through this process. Then when I try to explain to people, I go through this process. However, when I do this, I fear that other people think I'm just trying to justify my mistakes. As such, I don't often try to explain myself to others. I apologize, but I don't go into detail; and usually, people are willing to accept simply the apology and the high-level explanation. When I say go into detail, I mean a truly blow by blow account of every premise, piece of context, and minor decision that led to the big one. I think part of it is that a lot of people simply don't have the patience for such details. To clarify what I'm talking about in terms of level of detail, I give the example of a time a girl asked me, "So do you prefer Vancouver food or Hong Kong food?". And I responded with a 5 minute dissection of the question to better understand what the question was asking, because the answer could vary depending on the question's true meaning and intent. Then she got exasperated and said, "Wow, I just asked you whether you prefer this food or that food!!! What's the big deal???") So maybe I have two fears when I want to give the blow by blow account. The stupid fear is that people will think I'm crazy for going into such detail. The more scary fear is that people will think I'm trying to justify myself when I'm in fact not trying to do that at all. And this fear keeps me from sharing my thoughts with others. I have no idea whether this guy is sincere or not, and so it's funny that the fear I have regarding other people being suspicious of my sincerity, I am casting similar suspicions (though not aggressively, as it's not a significant event to me whether or not this guy is sincere).

VLM 14y ago
"Then she got exasperated" Expand your failure analysis... I suspect the root cause is she was trying to ask you out on a date, unless there were reasons to the contrary. A similar scenario happened to me in high school, after I finally figured it out, my pattern matching improved.
roc 14y ago

mashmac2 14y ago

Slate's take on this article is particularly interesting and has one strong perspective about Lehrer - http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/02/jonah_lehrer_apology_standard_operating_procedures_can_t_fix_arrogance_and.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... (not a positive viewpoint)

duggieawesome 14y ago
Thanks for the link, I did not know who he was previously.
tokenadult 14y ago
Please submit this article as a separate submission to HN. I think it's a better article than the one kindly submitted to open this thread.
- Alex3917 14y ago
  How could you possibly evaluate whether this article was correct without having read Lehrer's original article? For what it's worth, I think this whole thing is dumb. The main problem with Lehrer isn't that he plagiarized a few articles, but that his writing is mostly b-level propaganda to begin with.
- jessaustin 14y ago
  The Slate article slagging on Lehrer is of no inherent interest to hackers. His speech, self-serving and dishonest as it may have been, addresses some interesting and little-discussed aspects of psychology, work, and knowledge. That is something I appreciate on HN. Of course the GP provides valuable context for the speech, and I'm glad it was shared, but it doesn't stand by itself as a top-level post.
dylangs1030 14y ago
I agree that you should submit this. It's a very good commentary on the article, scathing though it might be.

kintamanimatt 14y ago

It would be cool if he could go back through all the "defective" works he's produced, rewrite them so as to be accurate, and republish them for free. Those who have bought his work will be able to get the updated and amended copy without charge, and those who haven't been exposed to anything other than the drama around his transgressions will have an almost no-risk access to his works. It's easier to forgive when an apology is combined with action. His work had so much promise and appeal. If anything, it would be a shame if we couldn't benefit from his ability to convey concepts in an interesting and engaging way.

dkuebric 14y ago

Hard to dislike a guy that writes so well, and I agree with the general premise of recognizing the human capacity, and necessity, for error. But I do think it's a bit disingenuous to compare the "mistakes" of scientists to fabrication and deceit. Would Niels Bohr have been referring to the manufacture of evidence when he spoke of "all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field?"

fallous 14y ago

This is an apology? "I screwed up, and I will focus on my mistakes by only discussing the FBI and forensic scientists."

sp332 14y ago
He already did the official apologies.
- danielweber 14y ago
  Some people haven't even gotten that far. Ira Glass got right in front of credibility issues on his watch and it served him very well. Dan Rather, in comparison, was still sticking to the "I wasn't proven false in a court of law" defense as of last week.

homosaur 14y ago

I hope he follows it up with another apology about the horrible unreadable text on that website. Good luck with that career, though, bud. You're going to need it.

taylorbuley 14y ago

Journalistically, there's a rather large asterisk that needs to be put out here: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/204097/lehrer-falls-into-familiar-pattern-fails-to-face-his-reckoning/ http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/204097/l...

chasing 14y ago

Non-fiction writing is entirely built upon trust. I have to trust that the author is attempting to tell the truth because I don't have the resources to fact-check every little thing. Jonah Lehrer violated this trust. Big time. He has shown himself to be someone who lies and manipulates. And I think this is a cynical manipulation in an attempt to restore his career. (He should donate that $20k to some charity, btw.) But he has forever lost my trust. There are too many other good writers and good books out there -- there will never be a reason for me to pick up a Jonah Lehrer book or pay attention to his words. Sorry. Let's find some less well-known thinkers who deserve our attention and leave this guy out of the public conversation.

jessaustin 14y ago
I've never read anything by him, but I'd say I'm more likely to do so now, having read this speech. Of course I won't just believe whatever he says because he says it, but then again I could say that about anyone. My default position is skepticism. Popular non-fiction writing is about marketing and what will sell from an airport book kiosk far more than it is about trust. It may well be that Lehrer has nothing to offer us in book form but marketability, and he may not have that anymore. Unlike most speeches, however, this one said something of interest.
- chasing 14y ago
  I might suggest that you help (in some small way) improve the quality of these popular non-fiction books by not supporting people like Jonah Lehrer. Let him experience a literary death penalty. It'll help keep other writers from falling into that same trap.
  - jessaustin 14y ago
    That is good advice for anyone who cares about the quality of popular non-fiction.
- robbiep 14y ago
  Not suggesting this isn't true, but consider this: Most people on this site consider themselves skeptics; Most people on this site will read something that comes from a source and, if they are not experts in the field being discussed, will tend to accept it; This is more likely should the argument be well put together; This will happen despite us considering ourselves skeptics; Because it is easier to accept a well written article on an issue we know little about rather than research it ourselves; Many of us will subsequently argue a position based upon the information contained in said article or discussion, especially against other non-experts It doesn't matter how skeptical you consider yourself it's simply too mentally expensive to look for backup on everything you read, and we are really bad at guessing what things are outright lies when those lies are presented in an intelligent and intelligible form

mrmiller 14y ago

Does anyone else feel like Lehrer is receiving more criticism than he deserves? The fact that he defended the fabricated Dylan quotes is regrettable, but it's so trivial compared to lies we hear everyday from people we "trust" (media, politicians, bloggers, friends). And I don't give a damn about the self plagiarism. It was sloppy, not evil. I personally wish we could forget about the whole thing. After this debacle, I'd trust Lehrer over almost any other science writer. If he ever writes Frontal Cortex again, I'm sure it will be the most thoroughly fact-checked journalism available.

ahoyhere 14y ago
The thing is that when somebody lies about trivial but pointless stuff -- not little white lies like "Ooh, I'd love to come but I'm booked that day" or "No, that dress looks great on you" but rather, "Bob Dylan said this" -- then you can't trust the rest of what they write. People criticize Lehrer because they liked him and trusted him. Now everything they liked about him was cast into doubt, over something totally idiotic. It seriously calls his judgment and character into question. There was no compelling reason for him to fabricate what he fabricated. There was no enormous gain from that fabrication. It's a sign of either laziness, OR pathological lying. Pathological liars are distinguished from the rest of us because they lie about pointless things, without a direct thing to gain from it. We understand that politicians lie for gain… they are not, GENERALLY, pathological. Because they lie for gain, we can ferret out their lies because we can ask, "Gee, does xyz have something to gain here?" - and we understand them. That doesn't make it excusable, but that's probably part of why there's more uproar about Lehrer (we trusted him! WHY did he lie about THAT?!) than yet one more political lie.

jessaustin 14y ago

Was that a real Joan Didion quote? Seriously, he's correct in many of the things he said, but he's probably the wrong person to be saying this. Perhaps in a couple of decades he might be the right person. Humans really are flawed creatures. We really do screw up all the time. It really isn't enough to be governed by a strong moral compass: that sense of morality must be assisted by the wisdom to avoid situations that will corrupt it. Strong habits, traditions, or even "standard operating procedures" assist the wise in this avoidance. I still have sympathy for this guy. My suspicion is that those in the media who are really piling on, are doing so at least partially to avoid hearing what's being said. Lehrer is bad, so we can't admit that most of what he did, we do if only to a lesser degree. Otherwise we would be bad. This sort of binary morality is really primitive and pathetic, but many people don't have anything else available to them. If's fine if you don't sympathize with Lehrer as I do, but I don't understand how people can complain that he brought up the FBI lab as an example. Why would they be above him? He didn't send any innocent people to jail! If you'd like proof that this is a serious problem, read up on the mess they have in Mississippi with bogus forensics. If Lehrer does anything to improve forensics in this country, all his plagiarism will have been worth it.

DigitalJack 14y ago
I think he is the right person to be saying this. And I'd like to read an update in a year or two as well, see how it's working out for him. Frankly the state of US journalism is so weighed down by bias, the institution in general could probably use a dose of the Checklist Manifesto. And if this guy can come up with some SOPs that work for him, he should publish them and maybe they can help others who are willing. I think a lot of the HN reaction to this is understandable. It's akin to a fall down drunk getting his 30 day chip, and announcing it to the world. But Lehrer didn't sound like he was proud of his "30 day chip", just that he's starting to see what the road to wellness is going to take. It's the first step in his making amends. People can take what he offers and accept it, disregard it, chew him up and spit him on the ground, or whatever. But at least he is offering something. That's his part. I'll be interested to see how he does and where he goes.
ScottBurson 14y ago
> Lehrer is bad, so we can't admit that most of what he did, we do if only to a lesser degree. Otherwise we would be bad. Yes. The technical psychoanalytic term is "projection". There's lots of it out there if you look.

deleted 14y ago

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untog 14y ago

The weird (infuriating?) part of this is that he was paid $20,000 by the Knight foundation to give this speech. We shouldn't be rewarding plagarisers, he should have given the speech for free out as an opportunity to explain himself.

auggierose 14y ago

I could not even get as far to wonder what he was apologizing for. The type face is just too horrible to read.

mimiflynn 14y ago

Blogging has always been questioned and critqued by trained journalists. We should be questioning anything self-published that appears to be journalism. For reference, this is the original article that Michael Moynihan wrote: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jon... Q/A with Michael Moynihan: http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-bob-dylan-07302012/ http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-...

bzalasky 14y ago

Bold paragraph text... awful.

pdog 14y ago

In the Navy, your career is over if your ship goes aground. Even if it wasn’t your fault. The lack of justice for the one guy is way more than made up by a greater justice for everybody else when every captain makes sure their ship doesn’t go aground. Unfortunately, non-fiction writing is a system entirely built on trust. The system may be unfair, but Jonah Lehrer violated that trust, and now his career is rightfully over.

mesofile 14y ago
In the Navy, not necessarily: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/16/admiral-nominee-rose-through-ranks-despite-illogic/?page=all http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/16/admiral-nomi... With regards to Mr Lehrer: if he could write a worthwhile nonfiction book, I'm guessing that he could find someone to publish it, and it would have the chance to rise on its own merits -- no one can really 'end' the career of an author, only damage their reputation, and most of the time (as in this case) that is self-inflicted. But his hopes for making the short list of lite-fare nonfiction authors who can sell a lot of books, alongside Gladwell et al, would appear to be well and truly dashed.

dylangs1030 14y ago

This might just be me, but I don't like wordsy apologies. I don't like apologies with intricate explanations. Lehrer's point is that a lot of people try to soften apologies and remove some accountability, as if the apology is just part of a status quo, and he's worried people will think he's trying to do that; really, he's just trying to make a record of his actions. But honestly, I think he's got it a bit wrong. People don't distrust verbose apologies because they're intended to be excuses, but because they are excuses by design. If Lehrer said something to the effect of, "I fucked up. I'm sorry. I understand you may never trust me again and I'll have to deal with that." I would trust his apology much more than I do now. But providing an explanation, however benign it is (especially in a highly media fueled instance like this where not much explanation isn't already known) garners sympathy from the audience and wraps the apology in something tolerable for the author. I don't think it should be tolerable. But that's just my thought on it.

notahacker 14y ago
I think wordy apologies are a lot more appropriate when it's a for technical mistake "this is how the security breach happened and this is what we've done to prevent a reoccurrence" than a moral misjudgement "this is how I cheated and lied to everyone; please trust me again because I'm candid about it"

csense 14y ago

From the article: > Designers refer to this sort of rule as a forcing function. These functions are everywhere and they keep us from doing all sorts of stupid things. Just think of your car. There is, for instance, the reverse lockout, which prevents us from throwing a moving car into reverse and accidentally ripping apart the transmission. > whatever I write will be fact-checked and fully footnoted. I was interested in learning more about this "reverse lockout." From the Wikipedia entry [1] which is the top Google result for "reverse lockout" (I typed it into Google without quotes): > a forcing function or poka-yoke, is a technique used in error-tolerant design to prevent the user from making common errors or mistakes. One example is the reverse lockout on the transmission of a moving automobile. I don't want to spend time researching this further, but it's interesting that he came up with the same name and example of the concept as the Wikipedia article (without attribution). Wikipedia articles are supposed to be secondary sources -- "original research" is an explicitly discouraged category of content. But none of the links cited by the Wikipedia article mention "forcing function." So here's someone, writing a mea culpa about his past plagiarism, who uses a phrase and idea without proper footnoting of it (nebulously crediting "designers" with the idea); and a single Google search for the idea turns up a Wikipedia article which also mentions the idea without citing a source! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-shaping_constraint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-shaping_constraint

gadders 14y ago

Just so that we don't feel left out, we have our own UK equivalent with a weirdly similar name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Journalistic_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Journalistic_contro...