SS#3  -  Strange Pushback Against Transparency & Replication
Channel: Saving Democracy dot ca
Date: 2020-10-14

We encounter strange pushback against initiatives calling for more transparency & replication of published scientific findings in psychology.

0:05:57 Putting my scientific principles ahead of friendships & professional goals: Indeed, eventually did lose close friendships & job opportunities in my efforts to raise research standards (documented cases, not just imagined).
0:07:55 Surprisingly, not everyone is on board with the new transparency initiatives, which we thought would be unanimously embraced.
0:09:24 Researchers from Reproducibility Project & other replications, mostly by "outside" cognitive psychologists, so situation quickly became tribal, resulting, ironically, in several nasty social psychological phenomena. This "shows" these social phenomena are real, so how come so many replication difficulties when attempting to replicate social psych effects?
0:12:00 John Bargh's emotional ad hominem attacks on Doyen et al's failed replications of his "elderly priming" effect:
►Response #1: https://bit.ly/3ciJBR0
►Response #2: https://bit.ly/3a2UCEh
0:18:22 Fifty shades of science: From pseudo-science, to proto-science, to science proper, at what stage of science is psychology currently?
0:24:11 Why was Bargh so emotionally upset at the replicators, attacking them so fiercely?
0:31:00 Because reputations were incurring reputational costs on original researchers, journals started demanding higher standards for "replication studies". This ended up raising standards for all research, a brilliant win-win!
0:36:35 PhD advisor: "Cleanup (follow-up) research" is important for the field, but don't do **too much** of it" (it'll reduce job prospects)! "Tragedy of the commons": If most researchers only do preliminary (tenuous) original research, then collective progress isn't possible!
0:40:00 "Repli-gate" scandal: What would motivate Daniel Gilbert to personally attack "replicators" on Twitter, calling us “shameless little bullies"? https://bit.ly/2yfOP0M ("Psychology's replication police prove to be shameless little bullies.") In defense of Simone Schnall, who wrote a piece (unreasonably) dismissing & nitpicking failed replication attempts of her findings, which the broader community justifiably pushed back against.
►Link to re-published version of Schnall's original SPSP.org piece (without comments section): https://tinyurl.com/y8wc9euk  
►Archived version of controversial comments section (eventually removed by SPSP.org), where Gilbert likens Schnall to Rosa Parks for "heroically" standing up to the replication bullies. Ouch! https://bit.ly/2V3P1cI (comments section starts on p. 7)
►Then several researchers rebutted Gilbert's ludicrous & unproductive comments, correctly pointing out that replication is a normal part of science.
0:43:52 Schnall then updates her blog post threatening legal actions (for defamation) against anyone (incl. me), who publicizes failed replications of her work (but then quickly removed the sentence).
0:44:38 Professional consequences of defending fundamental scientific principles: Schnall (questionably) refuses to share her study materials w/ my grad student, interested in extending her research (https://tinyurl.com/yaphffdu), & later calls me a "prolific replicator" in her controversial SPSP.org piece (see above)
0:50:00 Ex-friend yelling (30 cm from my face): ORIGINAL AUTHORS' REPUTATIONS ARE BEING DAMAGED & THE REPLICATORS AREN'T DOING ENOUGH TO PROTECT THEIR REPUTATION! Which was false: Vast majority of replicators in fact overly charitable & even-handed.
0:53:20 "Failure to replicate hurting your career? What about PhDs with no career because they were honest!" 
0:56:19 Irony alert: Social psychologists completely under-estimated extent of pushback we'd get from the simple act of replication & demanding higher transparency.
0:57:00 Michael Slepian friend's ambush at Wilbur's poster of our embodiment of secrecy replications (another aggressive face-to-face confrontation)
1:06:04 Sexy ovulation researcher confrontation: Watch your "judgmental tone"!
1:12:27 Bem's bomb already very dark situation, but pushback against transparency & replication even darker
1:14:03 Several additional fraud cases in social psych: Dirk Smeesters (Netherlands), Lawrence Sanna (UofMichigan), & Jens Forster (Germany)
1:19:00 "Contentious" PsychDisclosure.org: Pushback (& hate mail from senior profs) for requesting basic methodological transparency, but success of initiative led Psych Science to demand higher transparency (starting 2014). A big win for psychology!

In this series I attempt to answer the question "Does academic science need to be saved?" by telling stories of my strange adventures in academia. I relate those observations to objective evidence incl. peer-reviewed evidence (for other vids see https://bit.ly/2V32LnX)

https://etiennelebel.com
https://twitter.com/eplebel
https://CurateScience.org
Inquiries curatescience@gmail.com

European Commission funding #793669 #openScience #replicationCrisis