A study on dishonesty was based on fraudulent data
The Economist, linked above, is behind a paywall. There’s a long excerpt here at The Passive Voice, which is where I stumbled across this link.
IF YOU WRITE a book called “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty”, the last thing you want to be associated with is fraud. Yet this is where Dan Ariely, a behavioural economist at Duke University, finds himself, along with his four co-authors of an influential study about lying. … All five members of the original research group admit that the data in their study were fabricated.
I don’t really care about the details. I’m just highly amused at the whole idea. I mean, disgusted, sure, but seriously, making up fake data about lying?
The authors say they were dupes rather than duplicitous. My instant response is: Sure. That’s going to be everyone’s response just because of the topic of the article.
Also, the “Gosh, no one I talked to is still at that company / remembers anything” defense seems suspicious on its face.
Ordinarily bad studies and scientific dishonesty and general methodological screw-ups don’t strike me as amusing in the least. But, although I’m currently reading a book about evidence and what it is, and studies that appear scientific but aren’t, I really just posted this link because it really is pretty funny.
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