tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post369893290140689491..comments2023-10-30T12:26:15.822+01:00Comments on Research as a Second Language: Epistemological ToxicologyThomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-22443164110281647792014-06-25T13:05:27.376+02:002014-06-25T13:05:27.376+02:00Hej Thomas,
This might be of interest, in case y...Hej Thomas, <br /><br />This might be of interest, in case you haven't seen it: The 'exchange' between Jill Lepore and Clayton Christensen about the theory of disruptive innovation. <br /><br />The critique: <br />http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/06/23/140623fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=all<br /><br />The response<br />http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-20/clayton-christensen-responds-to-new-yorker-takedown-of-disruptive-innovation#p1<br /><br />Rasmusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-29032350289115309212014-06-18T22:12:08.536+02:002014-06-18T22:12:08.536+02:00Everything here depends on the way people try to &...Everything here depends on the way people try to "hurt your career". I don't know what those UC people tried to do, but if it amounted only to publicly criticizing your work, opening laying out their reasons for disliking it, etc. then, well, the chips should fall where they may, I'd say. (They won't be having any direct effect on your opportunities; they will only have their ordinary influence on the formation of your peers' opinions of you.) But if the use behind-the-scences machinations to undermine your opportunities then that's obviously creepy.<br /><br />In short, I don't think we should worry about setting other people's careers back by publishing our doubts about their work. I like your point about pre-pub/post-pub too. But I have heard some people complain about too harsh review reports by people "who just won't give me a chance", and even people who been "kind" because the author probably needs the publication.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-81654758388980643122014-06-18T22:00:47.460+02:002014-06-18T22:00:47.460+02:00What a scary thought for a researcher: just as a ...What a scary thought for a researcher: just as a stunningly good project can make a career, a stunningly bad project can harm a career!<br /><br />It's an interesting thought to me for a few reasons. First, my colleagues at the University of California many years ago did try to harm my career because of work that I did that they did not like. Second, one of the criticisms that's been levied at me in my science criticism is that I might hurt the careers of vulnerable young researchers.<br /><br />It's a funny thing, though: Nobody says you should suppress a legitimate point in a referee report, even though lack of publication can hurt someone's career. But, post-publication, it's another story. I'm reminded of Kahneman and Tversky's work on loss aversion, the idea that a loss is worse than an equivalent foregone gain.Andrew Gelmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02715992780769751789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-76403323338833111212014-06-18T16:32:22.948+02:002014-06-18T16:32:22.948+02:00Yes, I was thinking about this while re-watching W...Yes, I was thinking about this while re-watching Welch's videos about this. First, imagine if there were researchers whose job it was mainly to find and expose pseudo-significant studies like this. I.e, imagine that Gilbert Welch spent his whole career doing mainly what I know him for. Then, imagine that researchers planned their research not with an eye to the positive publicity they might get from a sexy result, but the negative publicity they might get … like what we've seen with himmicanes. What we would get is a lot less "results".<br /><br />It may have been possible to delay the full introduction of PSA screening into the population until significant correlations between mortality-causing cancers and positive PSA tests had been found. This would have spared millions of men form a lot of unnecessary trouble. It would also have reduced our overall background anxiety about cancer.<br /><br />Mutatis mutandes for gender perception bias. Of course, like in medical science, there are "powerful forces" that think all public awareness of social problems is a good thing. We still have to learn the lesson that medical science (against the powerful force of the pharma industry) is starting to learn.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-39103224271928831362014-06-18T15:58:56.644+02:002014-06-18T15:58:56.644+02:00Thomas:
Interesting idea! I'm going to apply...Thomas:<br /><br />Interesting idea! I'm going to apply it to "Gone Girl," which I recently finished reading. It's a thriller that has some real strengths, along with plot and motivational holes big enough to drive the proverbial SUV through, without any worry about scratching the wing mirrors. Could chemo be done on Gone Girl to preserve the good stuff while killing off the egregious implausibilities? I'm not sure. For that matter, perhaps the implausibilities are part of what made the book "work" in a commercial sense. And, don't get me wrong, had the book not been a monster hit, to the extent of being displayed in every airport bookstore for a year straight, I probably never would've thought of buying it.<br /><br />Sort of like himmicanes and hurricanes in that sense: if the research had been done a bit better, the authors would've known not to make the dramatic claims, and PNAS would never have considered publishing it. (Can you imagine PNAS publishing a paper with a title such as, "An exploration of the effects of hurricane naming"? that made no strong positive claims?) And if the researchers had known a little bit more than that, they wouldn't have tried their study in the first place.<br /><br />Similarly for the ovulation-and-pink-clothing people. Their success (that is, a success in terms of publicity; I certainly would <em>not</em> consider their work to be a success in any scientific sense) is a direct result of their ignorance and naivety. With a better understanding of statistics, they would've realized the hopelessness of studying what they were trying to study using such noisy measurements. And with better measurements and more data, they would've found smaller effects. And if they'd been open to uncertainty, they wouldn't have had statistical significance. And then Psychological Science wouldn't have published their paper. Etc.<br /><br />Complicated knots.<br /><br />Hmmm . . . I better blog this. After all, how many people are going to read this comment??? Thanks for pointing me to your post!Andrew Gelmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02715992780769751789noreply@blogger.com