
My Apology - petenixey
http://www.jonahlehrer.com/2013/02/my-apology/
======
chasing
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.

~~~
ScottBurson
I see. And you've never needed a second chance yourself?

I am very grateful for the second chances I've received in life.

~~~
chasing
Being a wealthy, best-selling author is not a right. Of course he deserves a
second chance as a human being. I'm sure he's not that bad of a guy.

But I feel he's forfeited this opportunity [to be a high-profile science
journalist]. At least as far as I'm concerned. Plenty of other great stuff to
read.

~~~
ScottBurson
I've never read any of his writing, so I have no opinion about its quality.

But this was as thorough an apology as I can recall seeing from anyone about
anything. I will be very surprised if he turns out not to have meant it.

It actually predisposes me to take a look at whatever he writes next. The
process of confronting one's character flaws and addressing them deepens a
person. I expect that whatever he has to say next will be edifying -- as
indeed this piece was.

EDITED to add: it's certainly possible I'm being naive and accepting his
apology too easily.

~~~
craigching
> But this was as thorough an apology as I can recall seeing from anyone about
> anything.

I thought that at first too, but then I wondered what was with that story
about the Muslim lawyer who was erroneously picked up and jailed by the FBI
and it turned out they had it wrong. Is he saying he's a victim?!?!? That's
what it started to sound like to me. So I'm not sure I believe it's an
apology.

~~~
jholman
If that story is supposed to be an analogy, Jonah Lehrer is the FBI. The
Muslim lawyer wasn't the one who made mistakes that had consequences, and the
Muslim lawyer wasn't the one that needed explicit procedures to decrease the
odds of it happening again. That was the FBI (and Lehrer).

------
mashmac2
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/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/02/jonah_lehrer_apology_standard_operating_procedures_can_t_fix_arrogance_and.html)

(not a positive viewpoint)

~~~
tokenadult
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.

~~~
jessaustin
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.

------
jessaustin
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.

~~~
ScottBurson
> 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.

~~~
jessaustin
Oy! I intentionally _don't_ look for it, but still I see it _everywhere_!

------
PakG1
_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).

~~~
roc
> _"I responded with a 5 minute dissection of the question"_

I used to do this shit all the time. Turns out I was missing the obvious part:
people ask imprecise questions, not because they're being intellectually
sloppy, but because they're looking for _a conversation_ , not _an answer_.

And you can safely infer this, because the imprecise questions are almost
always about things that simply _do not matter_.

No-one _really_ cares if you like Vancouver food vs Hong Kong food. (If your
opinion on the matter was of objective interest, the question would have been
far more precise.)

As phrased, it's pretty close to a nonsense question. So when you find
yourself thinking "what on earth could they mean by _that_?" just stop and
have the conversation _with_ them, not _at_ them.

That is: stop at your first (appropriate) impression, phrase it as open or
closed based on your desire to actually continue the conversation, and toss
the ball back. And always keep in mind that the _answers_ are irrelevant; what
matters is how you pass the ball.

~~~
PakG1
You've just unraveled one of the mysteries of the world to me. :)

~~~
roc
If I can help just one other geek avoid the social grief I've suffered, it's
all been worth it. ;)

------
untog
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.

------
kmf
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-
lehre...](http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/jonah-lehrer-
resigns-from-new-yorker-after-making-up-dylan-quotes-for-his-book/)

~~~
dclowd9901
What the hell book was it for? Why can't I find this most basic information?

~~~
jholman
Respectfully, it's not that hard to search Wikipedia for Jonah Lehrer.

Link for the lazy: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Lehrer>

------
kintamanimatt
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.

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

~~~
sp332
He already did the official apologies.

~~~
danielweber
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.

------
pdog
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
In the Navy, not necessarily:
[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/16/admiral-
nomi...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/16/admiral-nominee-rose-
through-ranks-despite-illogic/?page=all) 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.

------
dkuebric
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?"

------
kjackson2012
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.

------
mrmiller
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
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.

------
csense
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>

------
oh_sigh
Who cares anymore?

~~~
kmfrk
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
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?

~~~
a_c_s
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.

------
gfunk911
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.

------
dylangs1030
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
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"

------
muglug
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.

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

------
mimiflynn
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/jon...](http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-
politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions)

Q/A with Michael Moynihan: [http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-
jonah-lehrer-...](http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-
bob-dylan-07302012/)

------
homosaur
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.

------
gadders
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_contro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Journalistic_controversy)

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

------
bzalasky
Bold paragraph text... awful.

