HUGE FRANCESCA GINO DRAMA

[@PeteJudo1]

Go to ground.news/Pete to see all sides of every story. Subscribe through my link to get 40% off unlimited access during their biggest sale of the year. Sale ends November 30.

[@bergersworth]

What does Ground News say about Substack?

[@fiel81]

Nope

[@bergersworth]

@@fiel81 Yep

[@ReiniBlue]

The committee members should be investigated honestly

[@odedrim]

Exactly right! The two committee members that demanded all mentions of the paper to be removed from Zoe's thesis should be shamed and removed from academia permanently - they are just as big a part of the problem as the people committing fraud

[@nowayjosedaniel]

By whom? Themselves? Because it will be Themselves.

[@odedrim]

@@nowayjosedaniel I totally agree, there aren't enough checks and balances built into academia, and people get away from all kinds of bad behaviour, from academic dishonestly all the way to abuse of their students under the umbrella protection of "academic freedom" - while this important concept does not actually serve its intended purpose, for example protecting people like Zoe who are actually analysing the objective flaws in other people's work

[@AlphaGeekgirl]

Investigated honestly?

[@MrWizardjr9]

they should at the least send an apology letter and use this as a learning moment

[@aperson2703]

I'll never forget about the story of Dan Shechtman. People believed that crystals could only have periodic structures, he discovered an aperiodic crystal structure and published a paper about it, additionally he produced a material that had the structure he discovered. Instead of looking at his research and trying to understand it, they fired him from his job, discredited his research and he was essentially a pariah. 30 years later he was given the Nobel prize in chemistry because he was right and he had discovered a quasicrystal structure that broke prior understanding. Established research is just that, established, that doesn't mean that a new understanding isn't possible.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

This is such a Human thing, too, to do to others. In the 2000's with the rise of the New Atheist movement and pusbing of "Science!" as a new religion, where the followers displayed identical behavior and irrational thinking as the clownish fundamentalists they were counter-culture to. The irony was so bad. But most of these people werent scientists, so it wasnt as bad as when people who are SUPPOSED to be rational, logical, and solely about the facts are irrational, illogical, or logically (for monetary gain) outright corrupt lying to the extreme. However the leaders of this new irrational religious fanaticism were, in fact, claiming to be scientists. So the sad irony is still there. Academia supported many of these leaders too, just out of (understandable) emotional spite against the christian fundies that are unbearably dumb. The irony is the fundies are on both sides and almost everyone is either a conman or an emotional fundie just like their opposition. It's pathetic.

[@aperson2703]

@@nowayjosedaniel People like being in groups because it simplifies life. When presented with an idea that doesn't fit with their group thinking or previously held belief, they can either introspect or deny the idea. Introspection is hard for most people. It doesn't matter whether the person is smart or dumb, it's a human characteristic because we're social animals.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

@@aperson2703 It's honestly sad. It also kindof makes me very curious about the psychology behind how humans break from this behavior naturally - especially through rebellion. As stereotypical as it sounds, I broke out of this by always feeling alien in society. It is easy to go down a more scientific path when you never feel you fit (often bc youre smart). If youre correct, then it makes sense as it skips the social group aspect. I think youre right and I dont think intelligence plays a role here. I know ppl with intellectual disabilities who broke from the social memes and social norms that can stupify ppl's minds. It's rebellion and alienation that might trigger this mental/emotional freedom. Ironically it reminds me of the 1980's Nerd kid meme or D&D kid meme. Smart Or Bullied = Outcast = Unpopular at School = A bit of a Rebel against social norms = Free of social brainwashing = Smarter Hobby = Smarter Kid. BUT it's a chicken or egg equation. Which came first - Being/Feeling outcasted leading to Rebellion from social norms OR Rebellion leading to social outcasting?

[@Aaron-kj8dv]

They need to have like a hall of shame for scientists who blackball other scientists because their ego is hurt or just because they're lazy. They should actually push to make bad scientists famous for being bad at science. A lot of academia is unchecked egomaniacs and having them be immortalized as someone who actively worked to work science would probably stop a lot of it.

[@Aaron-kj8dv]

@@nowayjosedaniel It's like how a lot of social sciences is similar to race science, but a bit more on the social part. It's a lot of unfounded or uninvestigated claims that are accepted as gospel but even under the tiniest pushback it doesn't stand up. I think a lot of it is about projection of their worst selves. For example how right wingers used to always mock "snowflakes" but now they're the biggest "snowflakes" or how lefties call everyone racist but are always getting caught saying or doing super racist shit.

[@eikosato5297]

This is happening in more branches of science than behavioral science. I’m a chemist and I also feel immense pressure to not criticize the great, high-profile professors’ papers. At the heart of the broken academic system is the arrogance and the swollen egos of the scientists, as well as the outdated, feudalistic, hierarchical organization structure.

[@cg8469]

That's what happens when the talent no longer is drawn to a field. The irony here of course is that "brain drain" occurred in academics over the last 30 years for a variety of reasons that are not allowed to be openly discussed in public. Everything you're seeing here on Pete's channel are lagging indicators of the failure of academia in general. It has been infiltrated from top to bottom by people with a bone to pick rather than a search for truth.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

It's actually worse in hard sciences than in behavior science.

[@sunway1374]

In my opinion, ego is a big problem. I would say at least about half of the academics I worked with are egoistic. Working with them makes me stressed and sucked the joy out of the research that I should enjoy.

[@2021philyou]

You are right I have been denouncing it publicly for some time. Maybe if more people would join in?

[@Entropy3ko]

@@nowayjosedaniel Not at all

[@lukas_613]

What makes me mad is that Zoe was apparently too scientific to be a scientist. Academia seems to be less about scientific, critical thinking and more about marketing and politics

[@Heyu7her3]

Oh that's been-been the case

[@2021philyou]

More about sucking up and loyalty like in the mafia actually

[@DavidSmerkous]

This is especially true in the humanities. Unfortunately when you're stuck in a bubble/echo-chamber of your peers it can be very difficult to criticize and go against the grain. I see it bleeding over to the computer science department, and I am really worried about the future of academia when you hold people up on thrones and deem their work perfect.

[@Tsum1923]

Remember that next time politicians start talking about running a school like a business.

[@debasishraychawdhuri]

Mostly in fields like behavioral 'science'

[@GianmarioScotti]

Zoe is a true hero. I hope her bravery, intelligence and steadfastness will be rewarded. She's a mensch!

[@icecreamsoda9290]

I tried to replicate 1 paper for 4-5 months but couldn't. When I couldn't get the same results week in and week out, my supervisor kept telling me that it's because I'm doing it wrong instead of the paper might be off. Even though the results were different from the 1 million papers out there on the same topic but there was nothing different with the methodology. It was only after I showed my supervisor another paper by the same author using the same SEM images but saying that the results AND methodology were different. I also found other papers from the first author's supervisor stating how these results are not repeatable because they're highly transitional. Even then my supervisor didn't admit the paper might be wrong but instead just that since I can't replicate it, I should let it go.

[@mgm153]

Document your methods exactly and publish what you have found. We need both novel and significant as well as null findings reported to get a true idea of research topics. This is what is required in a thorough systematic review or meta-analysis. I have found similar things as well in my field. In general it might be poor documentation of all methods. In other cases, it might simply be what is discussed here. I think we have an obligation to be transparent.

[@animula6908]

Well, you showed the evidence you showed, which is what you were supposed to do, so then you should let it go. You produce the evidence and then people have to conclude rightly from it. You’re not personally the high court of arbitration for scientific truth. When stuff is shown wrong it’s usually when dozens of scientists repeatedly fail to be able to produce similar results.

[@JP-lz3vk]

Academic fraud is simply not taken seriously by academia because its financial incentives are skewed towards exciting headline-gathering results and not at all towards replication or audit. The main proponents of replication and audit have happened outside the Ivory Tower with considerable resistance from academics that it will slow the flow of money into their grant applications.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

It isn't just headlines and career fame. It's corporate money and financing. Most research is paid for by groups which want specific results.

[@2021philyou]

You are right on the point. I have written a paper on it. It's available on SSRN

[@meneldal]

Maybe they could do a system where you steal someone's clout if you prove they did academical misconduct. Like you get all the original paper citations for your "score" and the original authors get nothing. It would give you a big boost for grants applications.

[@HuckleberryHim]

Very instructive example of how capitalist incentive structures stymie human progress

[@JP-lz3vk]

@@HuckleberryHim Look up "Trofim Lysenko" and then get back to us.

[@mathijs58]

As I understand it, p-hacking does not involve leaving out data points that are unsupportive of the original hypothesis (this is called cherry picking), but taking a dataset and coming up with alternative hypotheses until you find one that fits the data to a certain p-value (typically 0.05). This can happen unconsciously, for instance in biology (my background), looking for correlations in gene expression and a certain phenotype can easily lead to 'finding' a gene that correlates very well, corresponding to a hypothesis that this gene is causally involved in the phenotype. In this case it is called overfitting, and is not considered fraud, just bad statistics. Knowingly trying different hypotheses until one fits a given dataset gets much closer to fraud, and can be avoided by pre-registering the hypothesis that is going to be tested. This is better science, but with a lower chance of getting a high impact publication. Next on the scale are cherry picking, and then outright data fabrication...

[@meow33_33]

This is in line with what I was taught. I think this video explains p-hacking incorrectly.

[@PeteJudo1]

Both can be called p-hacking. From my experience in psychology, it's usually done how I described it. Also, sometimes by generating an alternative hypothesis, you naturally find yourself excluding certain data points. Like, my study was only meant to target people who are right handed. So those inconvenient lefties whose data doesn't' fit my original hypothesis are no longer part of the data. Bs like that you see all the time, unfortunately. Pre-registration helps address this a lot.

[@readyfuels17]

@@PeteJudo1 As a behavioral scientist, you are correct. Another method also considered p-hacking is simply not reporting the study and conducting it again. All p-hacks.

[@seanrrr]

P-hacking is broader than just that type. In addition to what the previous 2 comments said, another form of p-hacking is incrementally collecting more data until you reach statistical significance. At small sample sizes, every additional datapoint can swing the stats from significant to non-significant. So if you run a statistical test on some new data and it's negative, it can be tempting to collect a bit more and check again.

[@LukeEganLyrics]

It is fraud by negligence, because scientists are obligated to understand the statistical methods they employ.

[@ArkhKGB]

If phd in the domain tell people "we don't check other people work" you know it's because their own work would not survive scrutiny. I mean if you're at the point of considering p-hacking "not really data fraud" you're way out of scientific method and into shamanism territory.

[@ChiefBridgeFuser]

Seems like these scandals in behavioral psych could be a new research area for behavior psych. At least for the brave ones to tackle.

[@phillipA123]

Just like for Zoe...cave-in and establish yourself as a p.h.d with solid research then turn and burn when people will actually listen

[@Tcheera]

Haha, having come from academia "Was she celebrated?" I just started laughing at the rhetorical question.

[@danmosley4387]

70% to 80% of academia is status maintenance or acquisition. Zoe's advisors risked losing status by signing off on her paper. Reputation, reputation reputation. Reputation = $

[@alemswazzu]

The two members of the dissertation panel that refused to acknowledge the issue, should be named and shamed.

[@KaiHouston-m6j]

Well it should be publicly available, look up her dissertation, and get the names. They are likely long retired though.

[@Pepesmall]

Let's cancel them!

[@alusandrea1501]

As someone in higher ed, you really are in your committee's control. I know someone removed from papers after conflict with their committee. I have also seen people forced to do projects they don't agree with. Influential academics often take advantage of their grad students and it's expected. Of course, I'm not in a scientific field so it's a bit different.

[@tugger]

everyone exploits in a university, there's no repercussions, it's terrible

[@ideeRotolanti]

you are right, in fact the key point missed by Judo is the exercise of Academic Power. Controlling who and when one can publish is just one of the leverages.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

Just like with everything in ruined capitalist societies, everything is opposites. If someone claims to be scientific then you know they are anti-science. If someone claims to be a fact checker, they ignore facts and push outright lies. If someone claims to advocate for some group, they're actually acting against them to hurt them. If someone is accused of being anti-some-group, they are often the actual group (latest round of this is Jews being accused of anti-semitism for being against Zionist ethnic cleansing of the the 'inferior races') If a newspaper claims to be about exposing truth, it gets proven they just make up lies and discredit truth. If a government says theyre helping, like the U.S.A. foreign policy, theyre actually terrorizing and murdering. If a military says theyre providing aid to a war turn people, we find out decades later they were actually murdering those people and giving aid to violent groups who genocide the victims. In the U.S.A. if someone claims to be Christian, they are actually against literally everything Jesus taught. As opposite as possible. Same for Zionists who are unironically beating and imprisoning Jews in the streets right now during a new holocaust targeting palestine & palestinian jews. Bc the Jews dared to practice Judaism, they get attacked by Zionists who then scream they (the zionist war crimals) are the victims. In the U.S.A. at least, if someone advocates for women or children, they turn out to be rapists or pedophiles. A pharmaceutical company saying it is creating medicine turns out decades later to have been poisoning people or knowingly spreading lies about "chemical imbalances in the brain". FBI literally publicly known now to have straight up murdered Fred Hampton, a heroic American citizen, while they claim they exist to protect American citizens. Everything is opposite in the West. I cannot speak about non-capitalist countries, but those are usually massive victims of U.S. war crimes and economic terrorism...so whether or not theyre bad too is irrelevant since they dont even get the chance to try out a different system.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

My point being, that it's actually a reasonable and more scientifically safe (accurate) position to just automatically assume every group is the exact opposite of their label and mission statement. "A scientific committee to audit research integrity" would be a safe assumption that they're anti-science, controlled by an individual not a committee, dont even audit research, and just give fake results to discredit accurate research and push fraud research. We live in Opposite Land.

[@profdc9501]

The pressure to conform is incredibly strong. The members of her committee probably did not want to sign off on a thesis that they thought might jeopardize their future funding because Gino sits on many study sections reading proposals. Academia is no more dignified than jackals fighting over scraps.

[@douglasb5046]

Gino would have to recuse herself from any grant review because those members are at her institution

[@LJScott1974]

Thanks so much for continuing to cover this incredibly compelling story. I’m also so grateful to the brave scientists like Zoe that bring these things to light. You are very much appreciated.

[@Sheebert]

I want to make this clear, her committee did not want her criticism in her thesis because it was invalid, rather by allowing the criticism in the thesis it makes them look bad as a pseudo endorsement.

[@georgesos]

The names of the "committee " should also be published and ridiculed if not taken to court for fraud. P hacking (all versions) is fraud.

[@theeducatedgrunt2087]

Zoey is a rare hero in today's modern times... She had moral and ethical courage....

[@diggus88]

Thinking that academia is about science or knowledge rather than an elaborate political game of people conniving towards tenure, grants, and promotions is charmingly but also comically naive.

[@BederikStorm]

Well, everything society related is somehow about politics

[@ideeRotolanti]

in fact the real problem is the acquisition and exercise of academic power. One should review all the cv used by professors in top schools have used to gain the position

[@MasterMenahem]

I'm only a senior undergrad student in psychology, but have been a part of 4 different projects thus far that included a supervisor/PI. Each time I have observed p-hacking or other unethical practices. I have also witnessed on two occasions professors stating explicitly (in a lecture) that they would not publish a paper that show any racial disparities in their work. They already presupposed any disparities are a result of human error and refused to, as one put it, "perpetuate beliefs through my work that could be used by scientific racists" (rough paraphrase) . This was said in front of 35 students. I can only imagine the things said behind closed doors with people they trust more. I also just finished my senior thesis and my supervisor effectively took it over to include a couple of her measurements/interests, removing more than half of the measurements I wanted, completely changed most of my hypotheses, and tried shutting down my paper two times when I wasn't going along with her changes lol...The project was suppose to take a year, but it took two years due to her basically sabotaging me for what I can only imagine is a distaste for my research and not gleefully including her research (which is distant from mine). It's such a shame. It's suppose to be my senior thesis yet it felt foreign to me. There was also this large paper I did with a professor (i was first co-author) regarding the ramifications of covid-19 on our state. We went through a couple dozen public databases that included data on a state and national level and my team (2 other student RA) kept finding next to nothing of value to report on. The only things that were significant were glaringly obvious things (telemedicine increasing, shortages in staff, temporary increase in anxiety/depression at the beginning of the pandemic but relatively quickly subsided etc.) Funnily enough, the biggest changes were very odd (homicide skyrocketed, successful suicides went down a good bit, large minority saw mental health increases etc.). However, we managed to fill out over 100 pages of garbage because we fixated on the very few significant changes while ignoring the overall trend and significant changes that went against our narrative. The professor was the most ethical professor I knew at the time as well... it's all so tiresome honestly. I am applying to graduate school and like to believe I can make a change, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm already rather disheartened

[@nowayjosedaniel]

That at least makes sense, as there is very little differences between "races", which is entirely made up recent concept ANYWAY. Race is not scientific so it cannot and should not be studied any more than the idiocy of pretending it's serious science whether you are House Griffon, Snake, or Hufflepuff. Scientists shouldnt even acknowledge race, except in the context of newly imagined social constructs.

[@wabznasm9660]

The race science one is interesting. It’s one of those grey areas of academic rigour and free speech. I can see a lot of credit in the position that research into race differences should be suppressed - we know there’d be no significant findings along genetic lines because we only diverged thousands of years ago and even then not absolutely; and the upshot of doing the research is that you’ve legitimised the idea of being a race scientist. (Edit) just to clarify I’m talking social sciences only here - obviously physiological differences exist that implicate medical research.

[@captainiceberg8637]

Curtis Yarvin’s theory about academia becoming ‘The Cathedral’ is truer every day.

[@notnoaintno5134]

You havent read Yarvin, academia is part of the Cathedral which already exists and has for centuries

[@Pepesmall]

LMAO isn't he like basically a theological right wing extremist anyway? That's the monarchy dude right? So wouldn't that make it a good thing to be the cathedral in his mind? Because it is literally a centralized traditionalist authority like monarchy or religion?

[@mikehome6137]

It's not what is wrong with academia right now, this has been going on for a long time. I'm 63 and still remember my high school science teacher who had a "checkered" past according to the gossip warning those of us looking into going into the sciences as a career path to search our souls first and if we found we had a shred of honesty we might not go very far in our careers. Think Grandpa put it best " Figures lie and liars figure"

[@iamamish]

Aha! I had wondered what got Data Colada interesting in Gino's work, and suspected somebody must have blown the whistle. It's awful that it took a grad student terrified she couldn't graduate to get the wheels of justice moving.

[@jeskaaable]

I have absolutely no doubt that Francescan is a fraud with the most ironic name for a fraud. In addition, the balls of Zoé are admirable.

[@a_yanki]

Hi Pete, thanks for keeping us up to date on this saga. And also thank you for all of the other videos you've been putting up. I hope people are checking those out as well!

[@justinjoseph1719]

Oh wow! Brings back a grad school memory where I had a disagreement with a professor when it was suggested if you do not find support for your hypothesis you should work with data until it works for you. I said no that doesn't sound appropriate or ethical

[@dylantodd9574]

While I was in the behavior science field prior to law school, that was a really long time ago and nothing of my current YT viewing should have led the algorithm to put one of your videos of this scandal in my feed. But I'm so glad it did, because I can't seem to get enough of this. Your videos are great, and I find them very engaging. Well done!

[@ollieoniel]

Ha ha ha, the politics of academia. I remember my Professor blocking me from doing my own research and then telling me that only the Professor's research is to be done in the college.

[@AlgoNudger]

Proud of you, Zoe! 👏

[@9adam4]

Did Zoe ever get an apology from her reviewers?

[@woodificould]

Props to Zoe. I never had the guts to push back against my advisor once he put his foot down on something, let alone to keep trying to push for a year. Really embarrassing how she was treated. Also thought it was funny how the committee said there's no room fir egos in academia... that's literally all academia is these days

[@no-ah3185]

In most fields of science, and I would go so far as to say in most management and leadership roles too, the preferred candidates are those who don’t criticise or dig too deep, but rather are satisfied with ticking the boxes and smoothing things over. Arse licking is rewarded. What Zoe did reflects her thorough and critical analysis of research, and her commitment to verifiable and reliable data, not merely trusting a namesake. I also believe that she is brave and extremely dedicated to upholding her integrity and that of her field. Unfortunately, science (and beyond) are uncomfortable with this level of scrutiny and are likely to steer clear of such candidates. That is how whistleblowers, trailblazers and innovative thinkers are frequently left with little funding opportunities, if not entirely ostracised. Many researchers will silently applaud her actions, few will sign their name in agreement, fewer still would offer employment. The applause rings loudest in hindsight. I hope I’m wrong on this occasion.

[@caseyleedom6771]

Huh, your Ad for Ground News is one of the best Ads I've ever seen. I actually ended up watching it all the way through. They should just copy your ad and use it everywhere.

[@Komainu959]

I hate the mantra that "The science must be believed" as I've always taken the position that true science is the questioning of the things we believe.

[@hamada49920]

She went through alot but only showed her tough built She is the hero we need but not deserve Also She is inspiring

[@HedgehogsAreBetterThanYou]

I wrote my graduate thesis on behavioral economics a decade ago and I failed to replicate any of Dan Ariely’s studies that were part of my literature review. I regret not publishing it as an article now that he got busted for academic fraud.

[@ideeRotolanti]

good point

[@psytoolkit]

Interesting case. I find it really surprising how a chapter critical of research cannot be included in a dissertation. Look forward to watching your other video about this.

[@scottspooner6070]

Good job Zoe! Science and the scientific method must survive.

[@CDeuce152]

I dropped out because I ran out of money. I refused to return because of the toxicity and brokenness.

[@KenJee_ds]

I was under the impression that p-hacking was running t-tests with many different potential variables (Throwing the kitchen sink at the research). If you use enough variables, in theory, 5% of them will still be considered significant through random chance even if there isn't a real relationship there. Maybe both can be the case?

[@sunway1374]

By "both", do you mean "variables" and "hypotheses"? They are same aren't they? If you have a different set of variables to 'explain' the dependent variables, you have different hypotheses. What about cherry picking data to increase statistical significance, but keep to the same variables and hypothesis? That's probably not called p hacking.

[@KenJee_ds]

@@sunway1374 I mean both what I'm describing and what he is describing as "cherry picking data to increase statistical significance"

[@sunway1374]

@@KenJee_ds I suppose p-hacking does not have a formal definition. Any 'trick' people do to hunt for increasing statistical significance could be described as p-hacking. Changing hypotheses/variables involve cherry picking data too. (Pete replies similarly in another comment)

[@lydiamaniatis7241]

I have been very critical of vision science and know first hand how obstinate, bad faith resistance there is to publishing it even on clearcut issues, and how much hate you get for it. One reviewer put it quite clearly: "I don't think that full articles [LtE's] devoted to close, critical readings of other researchers' work have a very important role to play in vision science."

[@PhenomenonGuy]

As a young academic 14:00 researcher. I can resonate with the gate keeping. I see the issue with modern literature and the pressures of “publish or perish”. However. One should only enter academia if they passionate. A Professional Academic will cook the books, create CRAP, and teach the shortcomings to their students. As an early academic researcher. I’ve learnt to read academic papers and decipher the bull shit. That took over 900 pieces of literature to develop. If you not reading. Just do something else with your life.

[@mgm153]

Agreed. I am a biostatistician. I always tell people when training/teaching that if you can't digest the study design and methods, you should not forward any of the papers conclusions in any serious way. Research should always be critically assessed. I think even in my own research as it has evolved and gotten better as I feel like I have a more discerning eye. Good post.

[@profdc9501]

The sad truth is that the one has to understand the motivations of the authors to determine if scientific work is likely to be honest. Crafty words and methods can deceive, so if the authors are incentivized to deceive, the work probably can't be trusted.

[@PhenomenonGuy]

@mgm153 and @profdc9501 Both of you make valid points. They says real academics are being excluded by professional academics. Being a writer and a problem solver makes you a threat. Hopefully one day. We can fix this thing called academia.

[@Nousmourronsseuls]

Nice job, Pete. Well explained at speed.

[@Veptis]

For my thesis I was looking making a correlation plot with existing methods. Only to find out that first party numbers don't agree or slightly change the parameters... I ended up just keeping that section in the appendix.

[@aj1218]

Name the committee members

[@bigol7169]

Thank you for continuing your Corruption videos!!!

[@anna-mariamargariti4308]

I bear witness to a similar situation in the equally fraudulent field of linguistics. It increasingly becoming common knowledge that there’s something rotten in the state of Academia.

[@ericz8982]

to skip to actual start of video jump to 3:14 (aka skip the ads)

[@robertmiller1299]

I just spotted the extraordinary irony that Harvard’s motto on its coat of arms is ‘Veritas’!!

[@mtmms70]

As in the case of Diederik Stapel, the sad thing is that all starts from a student. It is strange that professional researchers are not able to critically analyze papers with disputable results.

[@Sakkura1]

6:21 That's not what p-hacking is. P-hacking is about performing many different hypothesis tests on your data set, then only reporting significant outcomes. Doing many hypothesis tests on your data is often necessary and even a good thing, but you have to account for that. With a 0.05 significance threshold, if you do 20 tests you're liable to find about one apparently statistically significant result just by chance. The old-fashioned way to correct for this is Bonferroni correction, where you simply divide your significance threshold by the number of tests performed. That's extremely conservative though, so more sophisticated methods like reporting the false discovery rate are gaining popularity.

[@WillyKillya]

Especially considering what she went through, I think it's very important to get Zoe Ziona's name out there in a positive light... Such as including it in the title of your video if you rename it?

[@ap80shg]

Zoe’s story speaks to me as it is similar to why I didn't pursue academia. When doing several in-depth analyses on papers in my field and presenting evidence to lecturers of the issues I found, I was told that I couldn’t have found issues because these are published papers by qualified scientists. I tried for months before giving up, taking my degree, and leaving the subject completely.

[@dianecripps204]

In my short career in research, I managed to contribute data to three papers, one first author. No problems like this. But I observed so much research shoddiness. In my lab there was literally no research program, millions in grant money frittered away. The reason I was able to publish anything was because the samples came from other labs.

[@Draconisrex1]

Balance also leads to the Fallacy of the Golden Mean (aka the Argument to Moderation). One side can be wrong and everything you hear from that side is a bald-face, complete error or has some degree of falsification by omission. Balance is not necessarily a 'good thing.' Many times it's a trap.

[@vikramkrishnan6414]

Please share the link to the blog post of Zoe please

[@rollotomasi1832]

I hope people are looking into the research published by the 3 committee members. I smell smoke...

[@annieothername]

Think there’s a lot of ego tripping, politicking and marketing tricks in STEM? Imagine loving Political Science and contemplating a PhD in that clique 😅 Thanks for another great vid, Pete!

[@olgierdborowiecki2424]

I like your work and appreciate it a lot but waiting 3 minutes for the video to start is quite much. Consider moving the ad section to the later part of the video

[@1982nsu]

The 800 lb gorilla in the room is the fact that these research studies are funded in large part with taxpayer money. Sensational results attract more and more taxpayer funding. Private institutions also fund research to address real-life issues. In business we call call this "market research" in order to develop better products and services and to expand markets. Private institutions do not throw around millions of dollars on senseless studies whereas taxpayer funded research only enriches the researchers.

[@Ian-gj1gw]

I'm firmly on the side of the two people on the panel that told her to take the criticism out. It shouldn't be in her dissertation, they're 100% right. That's not what a dissertation is for and literally no one other than the people who examine it will ever read it anyway. That was an incredibly childish thing for her to complain about. She thought she needed to include it, she was wrong about that, move on. If she'd put it in her dissertation, nothing would ever have happened. What she did afterwards, by reporting it was infinitely more effective.

[@AlphaGeekgirl]

I would like to know the names of the two members of the committee who oversaw her dissertation, who potentially would not allow her to graduate unless she removed the "offending" criticism. These guys should be outed.

[@1789Bastille]

can you interview some of the data verfiers? since a lot of studies were calculated with excel, a lot of mistakes can be found easily. remember the study of rogoff and reinhart about austerity, where there dataset was wrong and tge results too, but half europe was already doing the changes on wrong science.

[@christophergoodwin95]

First and foremost Zoe is right to have persued this. BUT a thesis is a bad place to call out bad research. Repeating the study is the best way; even a letter to an editor is a better approach. Using a thesis as a tool to try to disprove established data is wrong. A thesis is your advancement to the field. Not a chance to say how other people are wrong.

[@linasg90]

Completely agree! I think the committee feedback was kind of right tbh. But good that she presented this to data colada.

[@AllyGray]

It’s difficult for whistleblowers to come forward across all industries and government these days. Some industries are downright dangerous

[@billscott1601]

Money and careers will always top academic honesty, especially in the “soft sciences.”

[@jaymoore332]

After bowing to the pressure and censoring her thesis, did she feel an urge to buy cleaning products?

[@brianvernaglia9449]

There was probably no place in her PhD thesis for a 10-page ripping up of someone else's work. If I were a dissertation advisor I would recommend against doing that. That said, what she did from there I fully applaud. Failure to reproduce results, when repeatedly done, is significant. In my PhD work I found that a seminal paper in my field I could not reproduce. When I spoke with others in the field they could not reproduce it either. I didn't rip up their work, instead I simply mentioned that I and others were unable to reproduce the results.

[@markolson4660]

Very interesting -- thank you! One comment, though: I think your final statement is not as nuanced as you probably meant. We should *not* celebrate whistle-blowers. We *should* celebrate whistle-blowers as careful as Zoe and Data Colada seem to have been. A false accusation of fraud can ruin someone's life and tarnish associated researchers and their students. From what you say, this particular case was handled admirably, and should be celebrated. But if the mere denouncing of someone's work gets praised, a lot of innocent people are going to be hurt and by casting doubt on the whole process, bad actors will get away. Your detailed and restrained analysis is most helpful -- keep it up!

[@gloopgloopglorp]

You are so naïve. Academia is fundamentally broken. It has strayed so far from its original goals and the scientific process. All that is left is dogma and politics.

[@sunway1374]

We wouldn't call them whistle blowers if their accusations have little evidence or are just false.

[@LanceHKW]

Thanks for fighting against "the system"!

[@bloemundude]

Every field and niche within every sub-field has papers you determine to be garbage/false. A dissertation is an inappropriate place to rebuke/refute others' papers. Unless you are suggesting and laying out a new paradigm/theory/model, leave the extensive (10 page) literature critiques to a follow-up paper. Attacking others does not add to the corpus of knowledge; suggesting a replacement model does.

[@drarsen33]

If committee members just yielded it would probably would have just blew over and that would be that. But their stubbornness was matched by Zois.

[@manitoublack]

University academic research is broken. It's so difficult for industry professionals who are not university aligned to publish work that's actually relevant. Plus the fact that so much junk research gets done/published by lazy uni-staff simply because it's part of their KPI's

[@michaelshannon9169]

Independent bodies will need to be a part of research now ramping up costs on research. Massive egos, the pressure to be reputable and continuously publish are too inticing.

[@avi4francis]

Can the external committee member justify why they continue being a blot to the society??

[@Ly7_t]

What a brave person Zoe is !!

[@feka2188]

I left Academia ~25years ago... because I saw that researchers are as corruptible by money as any human (+ that my professors were not contributing even w/ ideas, but mostly spending their time to find "sponsoring" money)

[@yogsogothyogosmith]

3 cheers for people like Zoe

[@emiel89]

Science is like any other institution, unfortunately. Run by humans, sensitive to sucking up to status, cronyism, and making a lot of appeals to authority (yes the fallacious version, and not the "sometimes true expertise is needed to thoroughly understand a topic" kind). I work in an academic hospital where a lot of biomedical research is done. And unfortunately, people who dress nice, look beautiful, and suck up to status are the ones who gain the most benefits for their careers. Being honest and critical are not things that are looked for in colleagues, even though vacancy spots often have descriptions of a preference for people who are honest, and critical and say when improvement is needed, or when something is amiss, oftentimes this only accounts for when the mistakes are not made by those in power. Criticism of people with status is not allowed. This is also the case in science. Probably a lot, I see this so often with PhDs and lab technicians, it's so often the case that people who do not outshine others in technical, critical, and creative capabilities still get very far through sucking up. Even though the "naive" view of science is very much wrong. It still is the case though that science is the best way to get reliable facts about the world and other people. It is just so depressing that it is just another example of an institution that is sold overly positive (hyped) but behind closed doors is very much the other way. Even scientists are guilty of hyping the scientific institutions.

[@stanleyklein524]

Business Schools are of a kind with football and other major sports venues in their relevance to academia.

[@donwilkins3059]

Astoundingly brave.

[@blah7983]

Someone somewhere will reward her for her commitment to honesty and rigor.

[@Pheltram]

Damn, the committee really said “ipse dixit”

[@einsibongo]

Is there a playlist for this academic drama?

[@sploofmcsterra4786]

If you have the time, I strongly recommend reading Zoe's original post!

[@kallekivi7892]

Isn't Sage Journals just a publisher? "Administrative Science Quarterly" is indeed a top journal in the field, but Sage Journals is just the publisher for many different good, but also average and poor journals. Seems strange to keep highlighting "sage journals" in the video instead of ASQ, the actual journal?

[@cdorman11]

You can't use the data that gave you the hint of a pattern as _confirmation_ of the pattern. Improbable things happen all the time. Today I saw a license plate that read 'PRF 413.' Isn't that amazing?! I couldn't believe it! This is a 17-million-to-one occurrence, so clearly it's significant and I should write a paper about my observation. This is surely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I may never be the same. You can do P hacking as exploratory work, sure, but then you need to use _new_ data to see if the pattern is real _for that particular slicing of the data._ People get cheap or lazy and don't do that part. Or they don't understand statistics.

[@AlfredKriman]

Ziani's advisor was right. It seems as if Ziani felt she should only reference papers she agreed with or was confident in, but a bibliography is not a list of recommendations. It is a list of important relevant papers. Gino _et_ _al._ was exactly that, and it is understandable that her advisor insisted on at least mentioning it. This didn't mean she had to trust it or agree with its conclusions. Because of her fastidiousness, Ziani ended up discovering very serious problems, but if she had just given it a brief mention and expressed skepticism or reservations, that would not have compromised her own research.

[@arnautarnautsen2564]

Fundamentally: behaviour science tries to posit extremely simple and intuitive hypotheses to explain one of the most complex and chaotic fields. It's like trying to explain turbulent flow by drawing straight lines. The problem is that tenures are only for those who succeed and, as succeeding is impossible, tenures are for those who fake data. It's become less of a science, and more of an art form, where imaginative ideas are supported by fictional data. Perhaps, we should admit that, and take it for what it is, entertainment, good for TED talks and dinner conversation, instead of mixing it with the dreary boredom of things like tensors and wave functions.

[@chrissasin6676]

I don’t care what you feel!!, thinking what counts!!

[@varun5050]

Hey Pete, could please suggest a critical thinking for a beginner?

[@louisnemzer6801]

4:30 Prominent authors, top journal... must be true! What more could you want? Replication? Plausibility? Lack of glaring methodical flaws? That's not how we do science here.

[@khoipham118]

p-hacking is running many statistical tests, usually, many different variables of the same data to get a statistically significant result (by falling into falsely rejecting null hypothesis). Example, collect data on people eating M&Ms and measuring their happiness level, and then running a statistical test for each color of M&M - at p=0.05, 1 out of 20 colors will turn out to significantly change happiness level. Removing data is just cherry picking.

[@MichaelToub]

Great Video!!

[@douginorlando6260]

The Roman Empire often had the technology advantage. The Western Empire has had the technology advantage for centuries. But when science is hijacked, that advantage will falter. The hijackers are so well entrenched we are seeing the decline and fall of the Western Empire.

[@inqwit1]

This is very interesting. I cannot claim to understand it completely, and do observe that this is not a recent phenomenon. There is a video series on "The Ice Age Floods" out of Central Washington University, where the work of various geologists in the early 1900s was looked down upon by other geologists of the period through to today, those who stood their ground on previously held beliefs. The similarity here is about people not doing the work to uncover other possibilities, just towing the existing line. The professor and a geology professor from a college in Idaho commented recently about why they chose not to pursue Doctoral degrees given the pressure to "Publish or Perish" that exists at the University level. It would be an assumption that this pressure could cause a candidate or existing Doctor to make questionable choices. That 2 of 3 of the professors chastised her stand is more a symtom of this breakdown in the system. No alibi suggested here, just a realization of how this happens in an environment with heavily placed expectations.

[@7177YT]

I understood p hacking not as 'chopping up the data' to get desired results but rather shopping around for a method who could reach above threshold results with the given data and/or rerun the analysis until it does. Cheers!

[@kabalder]

Mm. It's all good to question things, as long as you can telegraph in advance that you will agree with your superiors in the end.