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Comment by lliamander | Hacker News Reader

I certainly have a fair degree of sympathy for Cuddy's losses, but should she have been given the accolades (TED talk, tenure track at Harvard, etc.) in the first place?

Her work was interesting no doubt, and in our scientific age we have always celebrated the novelty and originality of the scientific geniuses that have advanced our understanding.

But the real value of science has always been novelty plus certainty. The scientists who we esteem should be known as much for their industrious management of the empirical process (recruiting replicators, statistical auditors, etc.) as they are for they are for their creative insight.

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As I indicated up-thread, I'm mostly on your side of these politics.

geofft's comment hits the nail on the head when it comes to what effect this did vs. should've had on her tenure case, I think. A study that fails to replicate is no indication of malice or even incompetence. Some say she should've run self-replications, but how many years self-replication studies are you willing to run on $20k/yr (in fact, how many post-college years have you made 20k/yr for a full-time job)?

At some point you get the quality of science you can pay for, and throwing the grad student under the bus by denying them tenure a decade later is as shitty and spineless as Equifax throwing an IT guy under the bus for what was pretty clearly an organizational failure. IMO.

Re: TED talks, TED is not a scientific venue, and most of the things I hear in TED talks are a hell of a lot less scientific than even Cuddy's most flawed studies. Also, I don't think those sorts of things should weigh much in hiring and tenure cases either way (aside from e.g. a usually marginal "service/outreach" category).

If Harvard hired Cuddy because she gave a popular TED talk, then that was an extremely poor hiring decision by Harvard. But that's a separate issue from the one we're discussing.

> As I indicated up-thread, I'm mostly on your side of these politics.

I know, and I think we are mostly in agreement. I generally don't like seeing individuals dragged through the mud. It's also somewhat unfair to judge her actions pre-replication crisis by our standards post-replication crisis.

I also agree that a single study failing to replicate is not an instance of malice or incompetence, in fact I think all scientists should expect it to happen. But that also means that no career should be built on the back of a single study. It seems that she is still sticking to her guns even after 11 failed replications. That does cause me some concern.

> but how many years self-replication studies are you willing to run on $20k/yr? At some point you get the quality of science you can pay for...

Then maybe one should more hesitant about promoting those results?

> If Harvard hired Cuddy because she gave a popular TED talk, then that was an extremely poor hiring decision by Harvard. But that's a separate issue from the one we're discussing.

I think it makes me more sympathetic to her case. If Harvard had not hired her, or TED not promoted her, she would not have been subject to nearly the same scrutiny or ire as she was. Ironically, she might have had a better shot at a good long-term career. But who, at that point, would have turned down either of these prizes? I know I wouldn't have.

> Then maybe one should more hesitant about promoting those results?

We definitely agree on this. I think all the TED science stuff is silliness. Cuddy's mistake was both being a serious scientist and being a popular TED speaker. Popular TED speakers make BS science claims all the time, but they aren't scientists so it doesn't matter.

But I wouldn't advocate for firing someone because they disagree and think TED is a good place to popularize science (even if they happen to popularize science that later turns out to be bad science).

Cuddy wasn't fired, or even denied tenure, though it's probably not a coincidence that she's no longer (or not currently) on the tenure track at HBS.

> I think it makes me more sympathetic to her case. If Harvard had not hired her, or TED not promoted her, she would not have been subject to nearly the same scrutiny or ire as she was. Ironically, she might have had a better shot at a good long-term career. But who, at that point, would have turned down either of these prizes? I know I wouldn't have.

There is a concept in management called the Peter principle, which is that "managers rise to the level of their incompetence". I've always worried about it in myself - I work hard to advance my career, but is it possible I'm sabotaging my own long term success? What if I get the high-profile new responsibilities I'm striving towards... and then fail spectacularly?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

(note: Havard _Business_ School, not any of the Harvard schools of sciences)

good point. I missed that at first.

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