https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/in-...ement.html
EXCERPT: A leading biologist at Harvard, Pardis Sabeti, has called out the replication movement in psychology, calling it a “cautionary tale” of how efforts to reform research may “end up destroying new ideas before they are fully explored.” Her argument, in short, is that the “vicious” debate over statistical errors in that field has only stymied further progress. There’s “a better way forward,” Sabeti says, “through evolution, not revolution.” [...]
Sabeti’s call to end the revolution, which appeared in Sunday’s Boston Globe, has been ballyhooed by several of her well-known campus colleagues. “Put a lid on the aggression & call off the social media hate mobs,” wrote Steven Pinker on Twitter. Sabeti “has written one of the smartest essays about the politics of social psychology that I’ve ever read,” said Daniel Gilbert. “Compelling piece … on how 2 scientific fields made major course corrections,” said Atul Gawande.
These kudos are misguided. While Sabeti makes it sound as if the reformers in psychology all behave like bullies, that’s far from the truth. She also suggests changes in genomics were implemented without rancor, as if rival scientists came together to sing Kumbaya. That’s not true, either. The current revolution in psychology, like the one that happened in genomics, isn’t under anyone’s command. [...]
Who, exactly, are the marauding revolutionaries behind the attacks above? Follow the links on the Globe’s website and you’ll find that seven of Sabeti’s 10 examples come from a single source: Columbia statistician Andrew Gelman. Six are from his blog; the seventh appeared in an article he co-authored with Kaiser Fung for Slate. Two more examples are drawn from anonymous commenters on Gelman’s blog, and the last is pulled from an article by FiveThirtyEight’s (scrupulous, award-winning) science journalist Christie Aschwanden.
In other words, when Sabeti talks about a suffocating atmosphere of terror in social psychology, she’s referring almost entirely to critiques from one professor, who happens not to be a member of that field, along with some readers of his blog....
MORE: https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/in-...ement.html
EXCERPT: A leading biologist at Harvard, Pardis Sabeti, has called out the replication movement in psychology, calling it a “cautionary tale” of how efforts to reform research may “end up destroying new ideas before they are fully explored.” Her argument, in short, is that the “vicious” debate over statistical errors in that field has only stymied further progress. There’s “a better way forward,” Sabeti says, “through evolution, not revolution.” [...]
Sabeti’s call to end the revolution, which appeared in Sunday’s Boston Globe, has been ballyhooed by several of her well-known campus colleagues. “Put a lid on the aggression & call off the social media hate mobs,” wrote Steven Pinker on Twitter. Sabeti “has written one of the smartest essays about the politics of social psychology that I’ve ever read,” said Daniel Gilbert. “Compelling piece … on how 2 scientific fields made major course corrections,” said Atul Gawande.
These kudos are misguided. While Sabeti makes it sound as if the reformers in psychology all behave like bullies, that’s far from the truth. She also suggests changes in genomics were implemented without rancor, as if rival scientists came together to sing Kumbaya. That’s not true, either. The current revolution in psychology, like the one that happened in genomics, isn’t under anyone’s command. [...]
Who, exactly, are the marauding revolutionaries behind the attacks above? Follow the links on the Globe’s website and you’ll find that seven of Sabeti’s 10 examples come from a single source: Columbia statistician Andrew Gelman. Six are from his blog; the seventh appeared in an article he co-authored with Kaiser Fung for Slate. Two more examples are drawn from anonymous commenters on Gelman’s blog, and the last is pulled from an article by FiveThirtyEight’s (scrupulous, award-winning) science journalist Christie Aschwanden.
In other words, when Sabeti talks about a suffocating atmosphere of terror in social psychology, she’s referring almost entirely to critiques from one professor, who happens not to be a member of that field, along with some readers of his blog....
MORE: https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/in-...ement.html