We all make mistakes. What’s important is to engage with our mistakes and learn from them. When we don’t, we’re missing an opportunity to learn. Here’s an example. A few years ago there was a Harvard study that notoriously claimed … Continue reading
From the university webpage: Robert J. Sternberg is Professor of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. . . . Sternberg is the author of over 1700 refereed publications. . . . How did he compile … Continue reading
“I don’t think I’ve ever done an interesting study where the data ‘came out’ the first time I looked at it.” — Brian Wansink The funny thing is, I don’t think this quote is so bad. Nothing comes out right … Continue reading
Background Several months ago, Jordan Anaya, Tim van der Zee, and Nick Brown reported that they’d uncovered 150 errors in 4 papers published by Brian Wansink, a Cornell University business school professor and who describes himself as a “world-renowned eating … Continue reading
[cat picture] Laura Kapitula writes: I wanted to share a cute story that gave me a bit of hope. My daughter who is in 7th grade was doing her science project. She had designed an experiment comparing lemon batteries to … Continue reading
[cat picture] Hey! A few days ago I received an email from the Cornell University Media Relations Office. As I reported in this space, I responded as follows: Dear Cornell University Media Relations Office: Thank you for pointing me to … Continue reading
[cat picture] This recent Pizzagate post by Nick Brown reminds me of our discussion of Clarke’s Law last year. P.S. I watched a couple more episodes of Game of Thrones on the plane the other day. It was pretty good! … Continue reading
[cat picture] I firmly believe that the general principles of social science can improve our understanding of the world. Today I want to talk about two principles—division of labor from economics, and roles from sociology—and their relevance to the Pizzagate … Continue reading
[cat picture] 1. The pizzagate story (of Brian Wansink, the Cornell University business school professor and self-described “world-renowned eating behavior expert for over 25 years”) keeps developing. Last week someone forwarded me an email from the deputy dean of the … Continue reading
[cat picture] I’m getting a bit sick of this one already (hence image above; also see review here from Jesse Singal) but there are a couple of interesting issues that arose in recent updates.
There are a bunch of things about this story that just don’t make a lot of sense to me. For those who haven’t been following the blog recently, here’s the quick backstory: Brian Wansink is a Cornell University business school … Continue reading
Colby Vorland writes: In case it is of interest, a paper we reported 3 years, 4 months ago was just retracted: Retracted: Effect of Moderate-Intensity Aerobic Exercise on Hepatic Fat Content and Visceral Lipids in Hepatic Patients with Diabesity: A … Continue reading
Someone pointed me to this post from Jonatan Pallesen: Frequently, when I [Pallesen] look into a discussed scientific paper, I find out that it is astonishingly bad. • I looked into Claudine Gay’s 2001 paper to check a specific thing, … Continue reading
In one of our comment threads about how scholars and journalists should be thanking, not smearing, people who ask for replications, Allan Stam writes: The corollary to all this, and closely related to Javert’s paradox, is the social law: Whistleblowers … Continue reading
Remember that absolutely ridiculous claim that scientific citations are worth $100,000 each? It appears that someone is taking this literally. Or, nearly so. Nick Wise has the story: A couple of months ago a professor received the following email, which … Continue reading
I was dealing with some trolling in blog comments awhile ago and someone sent me an email of support, appreciating my patience in my responses to the troll. The standard advice is “Don’t feed the trolls,” but usually here it … Continue reading
Alexey Guzey asks: How much have you thought about AI and when will AI be able to do scientific research both cheaper and better than us, thus effectively obsoleting humans? My first reply: I guess that AI can already do … Continue reading
Here’s the link: Learning from mistakes Andrew Gelman, Department of Statistics and Department of Political Science, Columbia University We learn so much from mistakes! How can we structure our workflow so that we can learn from mistakes more effectively? I … Continue reading
Dorothy Bishop has the story about “a chemistry lab in CNRS-Université Sorbonne Paris Nord”: More than 20 scientific articles from the lab of one principal investigator have been shown to contain recycled and doctored graphs and electron microscopy images. That … Continue reading
I want to follow up on a suggestion from a few years ago: In judo, before you learn the cool moves, you first have to learn how to fall. Maybe we should be training researchers, journalists, and public relations professionals … Continue reading