SS#4 - StrangER pushback against transparency and replication
Channel: Saving Democracy dot ca
Date: 2020-10-26

The pushback against new transparency & replication initiatives in psychology gets even STRANGER and desperate.

0:05:46 Questionable questioning of the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (RPP), the most transparent & rigorous large-scale replication effort in modern science (though not w/out limitations).
0:15:58 Gilbert et al. questionable criticism of RPP: Statistical nit-picking: Replicability rate is indistinguishable from 100%! Same Gilbert who called us "replication bullies" though he eventually quasi-apologized, see https://bit.ly/3b6TTDf
►Their critique completely ignores the broader context & flawed incentive structure in which academics operate. Ironic that (elite) social psychologists would IGNORE the social contexts when interpreting RPP (though I guess it's self-serving).
►Gilbert et al. also ignore the countless & growing # of other replication efforts that were also mostly not working out (https://tinyurl.com/y9lponnw) & the every-day difficulties of replicating others' & even one's own findings.
0:24:06 We produced replication evidence with unprecedented levels of transparency & rigor. Elites response: Feeble & laughable criticisms.
0:25:29 Flawed PNAS critique of RP:P: Van Bavel et al's context-sensitivity alternative explanation of RPP's low replicability rate not supported by evidence (accepted by S. Fiske). See Y Inbar's compelling rebuttal https://tinyurl.com/y8s8o8tk
►Van Bavel's argument is conceptually flawed (dead on arrival): When standards were lower (pre-2015), countless # of labs consistently published positive results across labs, countries, cultures, & languages (so context-INSENSITIVE). But now to explain away RP:P low replicability rate, psych findings all of sudden HIGHLY context-SENSITIVE? Come on, so disingenuous.
0:34:44 Another questionable critique: Replicability is not possible in psychology because humans are too complex! (Iso-Ahola, 2017 https://bit.ly/2yXzO4k). But replicable effects in Many Labs 1 (& many others, though mostly in cognitive psych), unambiguously refutes this silly, & non-scientific, position. (& if standards are lowered that much, then must believe in paranormal ESP effects & G Paltrow's dangerous ideas).
0:39:47 Many Labs 2 unambiguously shows social psychology effects can be replicable (correspondence bias, false consensus effect, etc see https://tinyurl.com/y8dsq8zo).  So replication crisis is forest fire, but entire field is NOT rotten.
0:44:24 Invisible ideological politics impedes raising research standards: Censorship of ideas & shutting down open inquiry in a Facebook group dedicated to improving rigor in psychology. eg https://tinyurl.com/ybjq9m24
0:47:47 Fiske-gate: It's immoral to use social media to criticize scientific findings, calling us "methodological terrorists"! Leaked: https://tinyurl.com/y7l3m49r Official https://tinyurl.com/yaq89cws
►Context: Criticizing Amy Cuddy's questionable behavior when responding to several failed replication attempts of her power posing effects. She moves the goal posts, changes outcome variables, comes up w/ new (non-peer-reviewed) meta-analysis allegedly showing positive power posing effects. She then goes to journalists with this, but when other researchers ask for the paper, she refuses to share it (ouch). https://bit.ly/3b9K8EG
0:56:51 Sexist accusations against men for talking too much and mansplaining during SPSP 2017 conference panel discussing the responsible use of social media to critique published research findings (https://tinyurl.com/yycvdzvu). The accusation was false after several psychologists spent almost a week analyzing the exact # of minutes men vs. women spoke. 
1:01:45 I was then cyber-bullied, on a blog post for questioning the value of spending so much time on this! https://bit.ly/2KedUwd
1:04:14 Personally attacked for being a "white dude" w/ "white privilege" for stating that a conference had insufficient intellectual/political diversity & too much political correctness. https://bit.ly/3b7RqbZ
1:04:55 Replication crisis of epic proportions, strange pushback against transparency/replication becoming stranger, & now an ideological warfare & culture war going on!
1:09:57 We were sacrificing our careers, knowingly entering a bee's nest to improve psychology, yet we're being personally attacked, called "replication bullies", "replication police", "data detectives", & "methodological terrorists"!
1:12:00 Social psychology breaks apart into two groups, slides into a (professional) civil war, which is still on-going (though in a kind of cease fire).

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 then relate those observations to objective evidence, incl. (peer-reviewed) meta-scientific evidence (vid 4 of 7; for other vids, see https://bit.ly/2V32LnX).

https://CurateScience.org
Twitter: @curatescience
Media inquiries curatescience@gmail.com
European Commission funding #793669