
A Cornell Scientist’s Downfall - melling
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-cornell-scientists-downfall-1537915735
======
melling
Abusing statistics:

“Mr. Wansink’s fall from grace began with a 2016 blog post in which he
blithely confessed to using improper research techniques known as p-hacking
and HARKing. P-hacking involves running statistical analyses until they
produce a statistically significant result; HARKing stands for “hypothesizing
after the results are known.” The post prompted a small group of skeptics to
take a hard look at Mr. Wansink’s past scholarship. Their analysis, published
in January 2017, turned up an astonishing variety and quantity of errors in
his statistical procedures and data.”

~~~
soperj
>The post prompted a small group of skeptics to take a hard look at Mr.
Wansink’s past scholarship

It's funny that this is basically the peer-review version of harking.

~~~
pcrh
It's also pretty close to the Baysian approach. The difference being that in
the Baysian approach one is "permitted" to revise the hypothesis as new data
is acquired.

~~~
antidesitter
Correction: Bayesian, not Baysian.

------
sremani
We replace people who are curious about science with people who are good at
getting grants.

Iron law of bureaucracy at work.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
"If you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have
something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not
been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not
come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible
result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very
embarrassing and he would naturally take to work on a lower, or at any rate a
different plane where he could be sure of getting year by year tangible
results which would justify his salary. The position is this: You want one
kind of research, but, if you pay a man to do it, it will drive him to
research of a different kind. The only thing to do is to pay him for doing
something else and give him enough leisure to do research for the love of it."

Quote attributed to J.J. Thompson via a previous HN comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14022158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14022158)

~~~
ataturk
That quote is very profound. I know from my own doctoral research how
difficult innovation is and how stressful that becomes. I want to also have a
personal life outside of just working and what I saw at my university was
unhealthy to the extreme. I got my doctorate, but I quit academia. You only
get one life to live and I couldn't see why I should work endless hours for
shit wages, worrying about obtaining funding year in and year out, dealing
with the terrible communists who run US campuses these days, and so on. It was
a completely undesirable lifestyle with only a few redeeming qualities.

Bottom line, for me it was less headache to become a software engineer and
take longer vacations once in awhile. I would rather do hard research or R&D,
but it is what it is.

~~~
frankling_
Honest question: what do you mean by "communists who run US campuses these
days"? Is this about bureaucracy, or particular leftist views being upheld, or
something else entirely?

------
DanielleMolloy
Starting to get mixed feelings about these cases. Impostors and fraudsters
certainly need to be exposed. But publicly ripping apart few individuals who,
together with their peer reviewers, in _some_ cases may simply not know better
(e.g. because their whole field has low standards – nutrition science seems to
be one of these fields –; or because they are inexperienced and their co-
authors and supervisors don't care about details and correct science and just
want to have their names on the paper) can not be the solution for an overall
malfunctioning scientific communication and incentive system, or for bad
methods that are used by entire fields.

The current situation also invites all sorts of abuse. Need to say that
certain parts of the open science movement appear to be a bit angry, not to
say sadistic. Wansinks case was one that was ripped apart on Twitter. Wansinks
research has received lots of media attention before - would his statistical
methods have been investigated and debunked without that? How many Wansinks
are out there, still having their job, continuing to apply bad methods (while
not committing active fraud), never to be called out for their mistakes? I've
been in Japan during the Obokata stem cell case. Her public apology was
broadcasted on national TV. In konbinis you could see various tabloid
newspapers with her name and her crying face on the cover for weeks. There
seemed to be different mechanisms at play than a genuine interest in correct
science. One of Obokata's supervisors, Yoshiki Sasai, committed suicide as a
consequence of the case.

~~~
nonbel
These people ostracize and hassle those who try to do a honest job and point
out the issues with their methods. They also drive the people trying to do a
good job out of the field because they can't compete with the fake
productivity people like Wansink enjoyed.

Also, the unnecessary suffering caused by this behavior is basically
unimaginable. Who knows what advances we would have made if 90+% of resources
dedicated to science during this golden era of cheap energy hadn't been
wasted? We can't even estimate that.

But yea, Wansink is just the tip of the iceberg. I've been saying for awhile
that future generations will need to double check _everything_ since about
1940, because the professional researchers have not been checking each others
work, and have been using known incorrect methods to draw conclusions (NHST).

------
sampo
Also e.g. The Atlantic wrote about this 2 days ago:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/09/what-
is-f...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/09/what-is-food-
science/571105/)

------
sn41
[http://archive.is/II8xf](http://archive.is/II8xf)

~~~
misiti3780
off topic, but does anyone know how the technology behind archive.is works and
how they make money (assuming they do). it seem pretty impressive to me that
it always gets the article right.

~~~
cheeko1234
The site is a commercial enterprise, and as such can go kaputt at any given
point, especially if it does not find a lucrative business model. Although
it's not a strong indication of long-term issues; in October 2016 the site
"made transparent" the server costs, and started to accept donations. A weekly
crowdfunded target of $800[4] is set to maintain the site.

Prior to this, the site actively refused donations. A donation link took the
user to an animal shelter donation page.

Stated in January 2017, through donations the site only receives "more than
$1.50 every day, enough for a bowl of phở".

Src:
[https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/Archive.is](https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/Archive.is)

~~~
true_religion
I thought archive.is was part of the internet archive project which is a
public library of California.

~~~
sp332
Nope, archive.org is a whole different organization. Also note that the
"Wayback Machine" is only one project at the Internet Archive. They also have
78 RPM records, video games, tons of books, CD's, etc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Internet_Archive%27s_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Internet_Archive%27s_collections)
You can donate at [https://archive.org/donate](https://archive.org/donate)

Edit: Archive Team is also a separate group.

------
misiti3780
also relevant: [https://andrewgelman.com/2016/12/15/hark-hark-p-value-
heaven...](https://andrewgelman.com/2016/12/15/hark-hark-p-value-heavens-gate-
sings/)

------
fmajid
The guy has a BS in Business Administration, a MA In journalism and a PhD in
Marketing. He is a professor of Marketing at Cornell's School of Economics.

In what universe would such a person be called a scientist and not a huckster
doing what hucksters do?

~~~
qubax
"Social science". The term science has been appropriated by so many
pseudosciences that it has lost any meaning. Because real science has such a
good reputation, all the academic frauds have decided to link their field to
science to enhance their own reputation. There is political "science", legal
"science", economics, etc.

Here is richard feynmann's poignant take on the matter. BTW, it has gotten way
worse since feynmann's interview.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWr39Q9vBgo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWr39Q9vBgo)

~~~
7402
See also "Harary's Law" <[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/26/not-
science/>](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/26/not-science/>), which says
that any field that has the word “science” in its name is guaranteed thereby
not to be a science.

~~~
ausbah
Computer science isn't a real science?

~~~
qubax
It isn't a science period. Computer science is mathematics, not science.
Alonzo Church and Alan Turing ( the fathers of computer science ) were
mathematicians. Algorithms is a mathematical/logical concept.

~~~
nightcracker
Theoretical computer science isn't science, it's maths, just like theoretical
physics.

But there are plenty of empirical studies in computer science that are
certainly science.

~~~
qubax
> Theoretical computer science isn't science, it's maths, just like
> theoretical physics.

Yes. Theoretical physics is theoretical. But physics is not. Computer science
is purely theoretical. It's math. Adding a theoretical designation to computer
science is being redundant.

> But there are plenty of empirical studies in computer science that are
> certainly science.

Plenty of "empirical studies" that you failed to name one? There are
engineering tests for computers and algorithms. But there isn't a "science".
What natural law is postulated within computer science?

You can use computer "science" like any other math to do science, but it isn't
itself a science. It's a mathematical tool.

------
adamc
Eh, paywall.

~~~
elektor
Install this extension to use Outline.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/outline-read-
witho...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/outline-read-without-
clut/daoolpmoieinofbnddaofhkhmbagfmnj?hl=en-US)

~~~
prairiedock
You don't need the extension to get the benefit. Just go to
[https://outline.com](https://outline.com)

