A correspondent forwards me this promotional material that appeared in his inbox:
Hello hello, I am happy to announce that my new book MISBELIEF is out today!
Do you have a friend or family member who changed in some dramatic ways in the last few years? So, much so that you no longer understand them? Over the last few years I have been on a journey into some of the darkest corners of the internet, trying to make sense of what was happening around us. In MISBELIEF, which is out this week, I weave my personal story and research in an effort to shed light on this complex and important process. Misbeliefs are not just about other people, they are also about our own beliefs. This book will allow you to question your own beliefs, and how well you really know what you think you know. More generally, and important for society, this book is also about trust, the trust crisis we are in, and what it means for us as we go into the next election season. You can learn more about the book here and here. If you decide you want to read the book, this page includes an option to order a copy for yourself + a copy to be donated to an educator. The book can also be found at Amazon, BAM, or Barnes & Noble.
And if you like the book, please leave a review on Amazon – it will help other people find the book.
I hope you enjoy the book.
Irrationally yours,
Dan
“Misbeliefs are not just about other people, they are also about our own beliefs.” Indeed.
I wonder if this new book includes the shredder story.
P.S. The book has blurbs from Yuval Harari, Arianna Huffington, and Michael Shermer (the professional skeptic who assures us that he has a haunted radio). This thing where celebrities stick together . . . it’s nuts!
P.P.S. The good news is that there’s already some new material for the eventual sequel. And it’s “preregistered”! What could possibly go wrong?
Grounded in years of study as well as Ariely’s own experience as a target of disinformation,
Interesting. I wonder what comprises Dan being targeted by disinformation?
A Michael Shermer endorsement is too perfect, he has effectively endorsed some of Bret Weinstein’s wackiest stuff.
After an investigation that may or may not have occurred, Duke may or may not have taken disciplinary action against Ariely:
“Duke said its policy is to keep such investigations — even their existence — confidential, declining to comment further. While Ariely has resumed his work at Duke, he said he couldn’t comment on specific disciplinary actions he may be facing. However, last month, his status as a James B. Duke Professor — the equivalent of a prestigious “distinguished professor” title at other universities — disappeared from his bio on Duke’s website, something Ariely said he is appealing.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/dan-ariely-duke-fraud-investigation-2024-2
Why are the allegations against Ariely treated so differently than those against Francesca Gino?
What do you mean? Treated by whom? On this blog, people seem pretty consistent in attributing bad practice, if not bad intent, to them equally. If anything, I am more appalled by the Ariely case since it appears that Duke has done nothing to even investigate the accusations. In the popular press I have no idea about their treatment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are treated differently due to gender but I haven’t investigated this at all. But on this blog, I haven’t seen any differential treatment. Can you explain what you are referring to?
Dale:
Yes, as important as Gelman’s blog is, the views of its readers do not determine people’s livelihoods or the outcomes of lawsuits in which they are involved. What you say just underscores my point (e.g., that Duke has done little). Ariely has kept his job; Gina has, as of now, been removed from hers. I don’t know when her case will be settled.
The main difference between Gino’s treatment & Ariely’s comes down to the greater evidence of blatant fraud at HBS.
The Data Colada blog exposed Ariely’s fabricated data first (Aug 2021), and that set in motion a cascade of consequences that destroyed his academic reputation.
Two years later, Gino’s factory scale fabrications were surfaced (June 2023 DataColada). To document the number of Gino’s fraudulent studies required 4 parts.
I’ll phrase this very carefully, as a journalistically privileged summarization in the public interest, of the claims of allegations in an existing lawsuit, without stating any personal belief in any truth of any matter: From my skimming over the Harvard report, it seems to me that they believe they have Gino as you-did-it-sister, no putting up some lab assistant to take the fall. It’s not clear from what’s public right now that Duke has the same confidence about their evidence against Ariely literally holding up in court.
Interestingly, in my skim over the internal Harvard material, I didn’t come across anything about Gino talking about gender discrimination during those proceeding. I certainly didn’t read it all, so it might be there, but I didn’t see it. If you know of some allegation contained there, it would help such discussion to point to it. I mean stuff like “This is a kangaroo court by Prof Womanhater who hates women.” (not so blunt of course).
Regarding the shredder, I wonder if a non-shredding shredder could be relatively easily made by taking a rasp to the teeth and dulling them, enough so they still pulled the sheet but didn’t cut it. I know I once had a cheap shredder that eventually didn’t work very well, due to the teeth getting very dull. The result weren’t whole sheets, but the shredding wasn’t much either, more like random rips. Unfortunately I threw it out (or at least that’s my story …), so this can’t be immediately replicated.
May I add that the Gino v. Harvard case has a Title IX (discrimination on the basis of sex) component: “328. As described in the foregoing paragraphs, when Defendant Harvard abandoned its existing 2013 RI Policy and the procedures outlined in the FRB Principles, and created an onerous policy just for Plaintiff, it subjected Plaintiff to selective enforcement of a Policy, motivated by gender, in violation of Title IX.” https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.259933/gov.uscourts.mad.259933.1.0.pdf (page 73)
Seth wrote:
“they believe they have Gino as you-did-it-sister, no putting up some lab assistant to take the fall. It’s not clear from what’s public right now that Duke has the same confidence about their evidence against Ariely…”
Precisely. The gender angle only makes sense if the cases are similar, and they are not. Ariely was able to muddy the water sufficiently around his insurance company data scam. Gino was in far too deep on multiple studies.
But leaving it at that shines too good a light on Duke. We have no idea what they actually looked at, but when the woman who ran his experiments at USC pointed out that data collection could not possibly have occurred the way Ariely described it in his paper, that was rock solid proof that Ariely was fabricating his methodology description as well. At that point he should have lost the benefit of the doubt on the fraudulent data and Duke should have dropped the hammer. Justice was not served.
I will offer one caveat. Duke – no doubt looking for reasons to acquit – exploited the fact that many of Ariely’s transgressions were time-barred. Harvard worked around this by claiming that Gino was still talking about the old studies, but if I am being objective, I have to admit that Harvard’s reasoning on this is dubious.
Deborah:
I have no idea at all what is going on with Ariely or Gino regarding their jobs. In answer to your question, “Why are the allegations against Ariely treated so differently than those against Francesca Gino?”, all I can say is that they work in different places, and different institutions handle things differently.
Consider the case of the dean of engineering at the University of Nevada at Reno. The allegations against him seem particularly clear, but he still seems to be employed. Brian Wansink did eventually leave Cornell. We’ve discussed lots and lots of cases of academic misconduct in this space, and different cases have different outcomes, not necessarily because of the level of the offenses but more, it seems, because of how the individual institutions decide to handle it. Columbia had a notorious scandal last year from submitting false data on their U.S. News reports, and I don’t know that anyone was fired or even punished for it. Other times, though, people do get fired or are forced to leave, for example the psychology professor Mark Hauser at Havard.