I had a reasonably close friend who, seven years ago, was unmasked as a compulsive liar and whose life turned out to be a house of cards. Watching it unravel was both upsetting and enchanting. Today, they are the CEO of a well-funded startup.
Around the same time, my advisor was involved in a very public academic scandal when it turned out that his co-author had 100% fabricated their study’s data. Once that came to light, people started digging, and it turned out that the co-author had been making stuff up for a long time undetected. He only got caught when two other researchers tried to replicate his methods—an enormous lift—and couldn’t.
I think it was Agnes Callard who wrote that it’s better to trust and to be taken advantage of sometimes than to be distrustful and close yourself off. In my personal life, I try to live by this. It’s too easy to let scar tissue accumulate and find yourself immobilized.
But when large sums of money—particularly other people’s money—are involved, we have to hold ourselves to higher standards, even/especially when it causes social friction.
What’s the opposite of “isolated demands for rigor,” motivated reasoning? Sam came in with big money and big talk and I get why we fell for it—I myself filled out the form to “come hang out in the Bahamas” with them earlier this year.
I agree very much with Jeff’s point that more clarity about who’s doing what in the movement would be a great thing to build from this.
To weigh in on a personal note:
I had a reasonably close friend who, seven years ago, was unmasked as a compulsive liar and whose life turned out to be a house of cards. Watching it unravel was both upsetting and enchanting. Today, they are the CEO of a well-funded startup.
Around the same time, my advisor was involved in a very public academic scandal when it turned out that his co-author had 100% fabricated their study’s data. Once that came to light, people started digging, and it turned out that the co-author had been making stuff up for a long time undetected. He only got caught when two other researchers tried to replicate his methods—an enormous lift—and couldn’t.
I think it was Agnes Callard who wrote that it’s better to trust and to be taken advantage of sometimes than to be distrustful and close yourself off. In my personal life, I try to live by this. It’s too easy to let scar tissue accumulate and find yourself immobilized.
But when large sums of money—particularly other people’s money—are involved, we have to hold ourselves to higher standards, even/especially when it causes social friction.
What’s the opposite of “isolated demands for rigor,” motivated reasoning? Sam came in with big money and big talk and I get why we fell for it—I myself filled out the form to “come hang out in the Bahamas” with them earlier this year.
I agree very much with Jeff’s point that more clarity about who’s doing what in the movement would be a great thing to build from this.