Crowdfunding a defense for scientific research | Hacker News Reader

Crowdfunding a defense for scientific research

vox.com

79 pointssherilm47 comments

Things I would have liked this article to include:

* A link to the actual suit

* Some of the specific claims made in the suit: is Gino alleging inaccuracies, or something else?

* An explanation of what "Data Colada" is, and who is funding it. Relevant because their employer would often fund the defense if it comes from research they paid for, and in this case all I've seen is that they are funding "some" of it, with an indefinite amount of the (expected) remainder being requested via GoFundMe. If they're a small, poorly-funded project, that would explain it, but I do want the article to give me this kind of context.

* I guess just in general I would have liked to see a more neutral tone, and for the writer to have some sort of legal background. Enough to provide the readers some sort of context for what is happening, rather than just how they should feel about it, which is what it seems to be doing.

It's a bad sign that I don't see much in this article that couldn't have been taken from the GoFundMe project page text.

This is a developing story, their earlier article (linked at the top of this article), covers the backstory and has links to sources etc

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/8/9/23825966/frances...

Considering this is like the 4th part of an ongoing story, it'd be repetitive having to always explain the context. That's why the first paragraph links to the previous article where it links to the actual suit.

I don't think it would require a full reiteration of the original article. You can briefly summarize the relevant facts; newspapers have been handling ongoing stories this way for over a century, it's a well tested pattern.

I've also seen websites that provide an executive summary and links in a callout box at the top of the page, that's an option too. Just providing an uncharacterized link does not serve the reader very well.

You're a google search away from a significant amount of background context.

The suit filing was linked, albeit not very clearly, but the parenthetical mentioning Title IX as the reason it was filed in Federal court links to the suit. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.259...

Strengthening Massachusetts’s laws, or passing a federal anti-SLAPP law (Gino is suing in a federal district court, because there’s also a Title IX element to her complaint) could make it easier for defendants in the future to recover legal fees when they’re the target of a lawsuit that attacks their protected speech.

Schools like Harvard should also build in protections for whistleblowers, even those with no affiliation, in such cases where the university's own investigation confirms academic misconduct or fraud.

What's interesting is that her suit doesn't seem to counter the accusation of fraudulent data in her research, but rather that they can't prove it was her that actually did it. She seems to be expecting a former lab manager that worked for her to take the fall, even though she was the lead named author of the research.

I don't really know that her case against Harvard is that unreasonable. It's not like Harvard has never been caught prioritizing shielding its community over academic integrity, so why not this time?

But the leap to going after the independent researchers is just bizarre. Do we have an obligation to stop if an institution suddenly prioritizes integrity and we don't know why?

This academic is accused of data falsification and their most book is titled "Rebel talent : Why it pays to break the rules at work and in life"

and invited speaker at Google with publicity

https://youtu.be/GQywxCy-Dz8?si=Hu8X5jKnnjLmFQDy

Thank you, I'll enjoy watching this

Read the 5 most recent reviews on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Rebel-Talent-Pays-Break-Rules/dp/0062...

If you're a publisher, just the insurance for lawsuits like this can cost $10,000 to $20,000 at the low end, and even if there's little merit to the case the litigation costs can easily go into the hundreds of thousands of dollars if a few things don't break your way.

If your case gets the right publicity at the right time, there's a number of groups that might be a fit for pro bono assistance (I've personally benefitted from just that in at least three cases), but counting on that is a huge gamble and, even if the case is thrown out, then spikes your insurance costs down the road.

There are non-profits and foundations that help with supporting folks, but they have to be very selective — if one case can cost $250,000 in legal expenses, and those costs can go into the million+ range with appeals etc (let alone a loss), even very deep pockets can quickly run dry.

And to make matters worse, one person shared that a lot of lawyers that sue in this law actually look for folks that have insurance policies, and then just ask for whatever the max of the policy is, so the advice is don't bother with a $2 million policy vs. $1 million because they'll just double the ask.

Yes, in some cases you can try to recoup legal expenses, but that often involves more years of being tangled in litigation, more legal bills, and more uncertainty.

I shall play an etude on my smallest violin.

I wonder if there is a piccollo-sized version of violin. Like a violinio

Taking the devil's advocate side for a bit: this is what defamation law is for. If believed, these allegations basically end her career. It's good to have recourse in law against baseless accusations of this magnitude. I'm not even surprised that neither Harvard nor the three institutions the authors of the Data Colada blog are prepped / insured for this: this kind of lawsuit would mark the person levying it as dangerous to work with in general and probably mark the end of their academic career one way or the other. It's an exit gambit for someone who will not be working in academia in the future.

The breakdown in process is a failure to protect the defendants until the lawsuit is resolved. That issue is kind of endemic to how law is done in the US; the process is expensive, and the costs sit on the shoulders of the parties involved until the suit is resolved.

It'll be interesting to see how institutions react to this suit in the future. I imagine a pool of insurance money against spurious defamation claims would become standard, especially among the universities that gather more reputation from spot-checking other people's work than from producing trail-blazing research.

She was already investigated by her own university, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67659904/1/12/gino-v-ha... and they retracted her papers for apparent manipulation and irreproducibility.

I would hazard that the productive period of her academic career is likely over.

How should defamation be handled? It is good to have recourse against baseless accusations, but we also want to prevent chilling effects discouraging fact-checking. If handled privately, then the public may not even be aware of falsified information while the parties resolve the claims; and we wouldn't want decisions or further research to be based upon falsified data.

> With defamation lawsuits, White said, “The process is the punishment.” Even assuming that Gino’s claims are dismissed at trial, the suit will still have bullied researchers who pointed out problems with her work — and may make other researchers more reluctant to follow in their footsteps by speaking out when they notice signs of data manipulation.

> “However, it is not worth it for me to do this in the future, or to share my findings publicly,” Pallesen wrote. “This would give me a non-zero risk of financial ruin, and no real personal upside. Probably many researchers are making this same calculation at this moment.”

Precisely. This is why I'm interested to see how institutions will react to this threat vector. If defamation suits become a standard go-to for disgraced researchers, the knowledge that institutions will defend them without even batting an eye (via a pot of insurance-backed money) will likely de-fang that approach. "Sure, you could sue for defamation, but you know you're wrong; do you really want to burn years just to enrich a couple lawyers instead of accepting the inevitable here?"

The only way pulling the other researchers into this suit seems rational to me at all is if she had reason to believe they might roll over and settle instead of digging into their affirmative defense and further shredding her reputation.

What will this do for individuals not bound to institutions though? Will regular people just have to accept whatever is published as scientific research?

That's the current status quo. In general, if it's not published (with peer review) its reflection of reality is suspect from a scientific standpoint.

"... Anyone who says differently is selling something." ;)

>How should defamation be handled?

With a strong federal anti-SLAPP statute. We have the legal tools for this already, the problem is simply that they've been haphazardly adopted. Anti-SLAPP is a straight forward decent measure that doesn't stop valid defamation lawsuits, but merely makes sure the lawsuit has legs before it gets into the expensive (discovery) part, and has provisions to recover attorney fees. Former prosecutor, now defense lawyer Ken White did an excellent, fairly exhaustive 3 part series on Anti-SLAPP laws covering their rational, how they work, and what makes good or bad statutory implementations in "What Is An Anti-SLAPP, Anyway? A Lawsplainer Series" [0, 1, 2]. Well worth a read as it's a reasonably important issue and also something that doesn't fall along traditional politicization lines and can be quite doable for citizens to push their reps on.

----

0: https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-...

1: https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-...

2: https://popehat.substack.com/p/what-is-an-anti-slapp-anyway-...

But the claims aren't being questioned? How is this what the law is for? They specifically have a carve out for true statements being protected, don't they?

Her lawsuit doesn't claim the data is not flawed; it does claim that they have ascribed to her intent where there was none, and that's the "defamation" part. Pushes their statements over the edge from "She made mistakes" to "This pattern of mistakes suggests malfeasance;" one is something that sometimes happens in the pursuit of science, the other is career-ending.

(Even if she were just pushing back on the fact claims: unfortunately, truth is an affirmative defense in a defamation suit. They'll still have to show up to present it, and that'd cost them lawyer time. An insurance pool to keep that lawyer-time money on standby would allow researchers to have less concern over such challenges in the future).

I don't remember the original articles ascribing intent.

I grant that if their intent was to defame her, than I can see this being a somewhat expected use of defamation laws. That said, without questioning the truth of their claims, this seems to be an abuse of the system. As you are suing in when you know they have a valid and acceptable defense to the claims. As the article says, this is using the process as punishment.

Harvard should have their lawyers counter sue once this lawsuit is thrown out of court. Their reputation as a premier Ivy League university is permanently stained because of her actions.

Probably won’t happen but would be a satisfying end to this saga.

Also, I wonder why nobody is selling a liability insurance policy for journalists and researchers. Too expensive? Too niche?

Underwriters can find the litigations against certain orgs and individual journalists/researchers and determine risk and premiums.

As a researcher, have costs of premiums covered as part of grant or story. Much better to pay a couple thousand in premiums rather than $600K in legal fees.

Filing a Motion To Dismiss is always the first defense against a garbage suit like this. Unfortunately, the plaintiff also gets to argue, which means you need big legal fees just to file it.

There are legal foundations for all sorts of causes, and they're mostly 501(c)(3) organizations. So I don't know why there can't be one for scientific whistleblowers as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Gino

This is unfortunately the US legal system in a nut shell. You don't have to be right a lot of the time, you just have to have more money than the person you are suing or who are in a position to sue you.

You can just bleed them to the point they have to surrender. No such thing as a public defender when you are being sued. Plus the process itself is so complex, its pretty hard to figure out how to represent yourself especially while working a full time job.

600k to defend yourself from a defamation lawsuit brought by someone who's own employer has done the research and labeled them a fraud. So in the best case scenario all you win is poverty and debt.

Side note: arbitration solves this. It costs less than open litigation and resolves faster. If you can bind a wealthier counterparty to arbitration, in general, do it.

Some groups have led a terrific PR campaign against arbitration, and it’s led consumers to blindly give up a good tool. But anyone who has litigated or been sued will appreciate its value.

Will a personal umbrella policy cover arbitration costs similarly to traditional litigation? Obviously one should be familiar with their policy, just curious speaking in generalities.

> Will a personal umbrella policy cover arbitration costs similarly to traditional litigation?

It should. Would double check, nonetheless.

Signed up for umbrella coverage Friday. This came up and yes for my policy they were the same. Got it in writing today.

I'm personally acquainted with a person who went through arbitration with a major company. It took over two years. The deep pocketed party can still run up the costs.

Admittedly less than regular litigation, but not magic.

its an ugly way to frame it, not disagreeing.. but there is more nuance.. and that is, the naming of the offence, the context, MOTIVE and EVIDENCE are all malleable to the skilled barrister..

it is ironic that the English did pride themselves on the law as a basis of civilization, yet in modern times we see this

Wow this lady is gunning hard for Villain of the Year. She should be having shame and remorse - instead she doubles down and sues her accusers along with playing the sexism card. Seems even more like a grift.

Meta: The title makes it seem like she sued her employer Harvard and that Harvard turned to GoFundMe... Stunts like this is why I do not feel bad about using an adblocker.

Related. Others?

Is it defamation to point out scientific research fraud? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37152030 - Aug 2023 (13 comments)

Harvard professor Francesca Gino was accused of faking data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36968670 - Aug 2023 (146 comments)

Fabricated data in research about honesty - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36907829 - July 2023 (46 comments)

Fraudulent data raise questions about superstar honesty researcher (2021) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36726485 - July 2023 (33 comments)

UCLA professor refuses to cover for Dan Ariely in issue of data provenance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36684242 - July 2023 (131 comments)

Harvard ethics professor allegedly fabricated multiple studies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36665247 - July 2023 (215 comments)

Harvard dishonesty expert accused of dishonesty - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36424090 - June 2023 (201 comments)

Data Falsificada (Part 1): “Clusterfake” – Data Colada - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36374255 - June 2023 (7 comments)

Noted study in psychology fails to replicate, crumbles with evidence of fraud - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28264097 - Aug 2021 (102 comments)

A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out to Be Based on Fake Data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28257860 - Aug 2021 (90 comments)

Evidence of fraud in an influential field experiment about dishonesty - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28210642 - Aug 2021 (51 comments)

Would this fall under SLAPP or whatever where you're allowed to recover like 3x damages/costs?

My attorney friend has explained to me that SLAPP is very hard to get, even when it is obvious, but especially when experts are involved. It's the civil equivalent of malicious prosecution, which is also notoriously difficult to get. Judges have a lot of sympathy for the attorneys that are in their courts everyday.

>Facing that alarming state of affairs, defenders of Nelson, Simmons, and Simonsohn have put together a GoFundMe to help the researchers raise the conceivably hundreds of thousands of dollars that will be needed to defend themselves in court.

I do wonder why Harvard doesn't pay for their defense, as they commissioned the study and presumably would like the results to stand, and if those who conducted the study are facing a lawsuit like this, surely you could argue it would hurt Harvard in some way?

This is insane.

Is this unique to the US legal system?

SLAPP is common in the UK too unfortunately. Here's a particularly egregious example involving a Minister: https://archive.ph/dVard Another one involving the Wirecard fraud where Wirecard sued the FT: https://archive.ph/J05QO Another one involving Putin's cronies suing a writer: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/roman-abramovi... A bitcoin guy: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/09/12/who-can-say-who-i...

Not sure it is unique, but it is certainly a very real property of the system.

In many cases, the point isn't to ever get to trial, it is just to exhaust the finances, resources or time for the other party.

It has been manipulated over a long period of time to be particularly friendly to the people and corporations with the deepest pockets.

SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) can be an issue in any system of torts. Solutions vary from specific anti-SLAPP laws (which Massachusetts actually has, but apparently it's hard to prove), to making awarding attorney's fees to the winner a typical outcome.

The issue is always about balancing the two sides, since it's really difficult to increase the barriers to filing frivolous lawsuits without also increasing the barriers to filing legitimate lawsuits.

Harvard, Yale, and other Ivy League schools have absolutely nothing to do with academia. They are just training camps for elites. Personally I wouldn't trust anything that comes out of those institutions.

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