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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Maybe so, but Science featured it only once. I think it's reasonable to demand that the journal regularly note corrections to stuff that it's published. It's absolutely insane to demand (via a giant article on Slate, no less) that they publish every refutation of anything they ever ran.

The only reason this is generating clicks is the politics angle. This is boring science. The original study was probably bad (as, let's face it, most psychology studies are), but they ran it anyway (because clicks). Now the other side gets its clicks on the "censorship" angle.

The science? Still boring.

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> I think it's reasonable to demand that the journal regularly note corrections to stuff that it's published. It's absolutely insane to demand (via a giant article on Slate, no less) that they publish every refutation of anything they ever ran.

I don’t understand the distinction you are making here. Why would it be insane to publish refutations? In this case, they refused to even review the refutation.

> Why would it be insane to publish refutations?

It's not at all insane to publish refutations. A really good refutation of a long-accepted result is great science, and this kind of thing makes news and runs in major journals all the time.

It's insane to demand that Science publish a refutation of anything they happened to run in the past just because your results (or, let's be honest here, your personal politics) disagree. Most refutations, too, are bad science!

They expected to replicate the findings. They fail to do so. Just because this contradicts your personal politics isn't a reason to ignore or suppress the information. They promoted it, they need to set the record straight.

"The information" is literally plastered all over a giant article on Slate and we're yelling about it as we speak. That's not very effective suppression.

The demand seems to be that "If Science ran an article they're obligated to publish anyone's refutation of that article". And that's insane. It only seems sane to you because your political outrage glands demand justice for someone using the previous study as spin, but that's not Science's problem, and it shouldn't be. Go run the outrage pieces on Slate, that's what it's for.

I would say that if Science ran an article they are morally obligated to seriously consider a refutation of that article, and if no problems can be found, publish it.

I did not get the sense that the refutation was seriously considered, and my impression is that the original article has not been retracted in any way, correct? So Science's public stance could be seen as the original article is still the best truth they've published on the topic, which feels wrong.

Wiggle room may be appropriate if the article is already retracted or has already been refuted.

No, that's wrong. The purpose of Science is to publish new and interesting results. Some of those will be wrong. It happens. That's science. Sometimes the fact that existing consensus is wrong is notable, and if so, sure: publish the refutation.

But what is up with this "moral obligation" nonsense? Being wrong isn't "immoral", it's just a mistake.

You're trying to apply ideas of politics and rhetoric to argue that Science somehow "advocated" for a result that made democrats look good and republicans look bad, and that they're now "obligated" to make democrats look bad too. And that's wrong. Like I said if you want political argument fodder go to Slate (or, sadly, HN). That's not what Science does.

I don't actually care at all what the subject of the study is, so the Democrat/Republican thing is just a total nothing to me personally.

Being wrong is not immoral. Being wrong, telling bunches of people the wrong information, and then making no effort to fix your mistake once you have the chance is at least dubious on my personal moral spectrum.

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