My Apology
jonahlehrer.com
jonahlehrer.com
Jonah Lehrer violated this trust. Big time. He has shown himself to be someone who lies and manipulates. And I think this is a cynical manipulation in an attempt to restore his career. (He should donate that $20k to some charity, btw.)
But he has forever lost my trust. There are too many other good writers and good books out there -- there will never be a reason for me to pick up a Jonah Lehrer book or pay attention to his words. Sorry.
Let's find some less well-known thinkers who deserve our attention and leave this guy out of the public conversation.
On the other hand, I'm less likely because he's a shameful liar, and I don't want to contribute to his livelihood as a liar. I mean, if he was a barrista I'd give him a tip, but it's hard to lie about a latte.
So I suppose when you add these two things together I'm more likely to finish my goddamn software project.
"On the other hand, I'm less likely [to believe Lehrer now] because he's a shameful liar, and I don't want to contribute to his livelihood as a liar. I mean, if he was a barrista I'd give him a tip, but it's hard to lie about a latte."
It strikes me that the part I have italicised is an entirely separate point, disconnected from the "two hands" you had established.
I point this out in such a pedantic way because I think this separate point about not wanting to contribute to the livelihood of a liar is a particularly interesting (moral) one which could be elaborated on. Also, I found your barista analogy entertaining!
I see this akin to Doping in upper echelon Bicycling - it's not the case that you found the guilty one, it's just the case that you paid close attention to one, and they are all (at the highest echelons) pretty much guilty of the same thing, so of course the one you paid attention to was guilty. Even the cleanest of the clean, Lance Armstrong, turns out to have been guilty.
The writers who never plagarize, never tweak their quotes, never make up a few memorable and interesting (and perhaps somewhat fictional) might be those you never read because it's by doing those things that a writer comes up with interesting material. (At least those who write a substantial volume - it might be easier to be a highly successful completely clean non-fiction writer who only generates a smallish volume)
Long ago I basically decided that everything written down is almost guaranteed to be completely false, so I look to it for entertainment, and I'm never disappointed when it turns out be fraudulent.
That's why I never understood the excitement over Daisey and his, Chinese Factory Monologues - of course they were fictional. All reporting is, to some degree, fiction.
The cleanest of the clean is Greg LeMond, not Lance Armstrong. Greg LeMond is now the only American cyclist to with the Tour de France. Greg LeMond has been a vocal proponent of clean riding and a vocal critic of Lance Armstrong.
During the height of Lance Armstrong's popularity, Lance used his control at Trek to shut down the LeMond line of bicycles to punish Greg for his continued public comments about doping.
No one intimately involved in bicycling was under any illusion that Lance wasn't cheating. It had been regularly coming out that his saved blood failed newer tests for doping and other irregularities.
Calling Lance the cleanest of the clean would be like calling baseball's Mark McGuire the cleanest of the clean. If you followed the sport (and saw his ridiculous head size), you knew he was not only cheating, but the best at it.
/end of pedantry
I am very grateful for the second chances I've received in life.
But I feel he's forfeited this opportunity [to be a high-profile science journalist]. At least as far as I'm concerned. Plenty of other great stuff to read.
But this was as thorough an apology as I can recall seeing from anyone about anything. I will be very surprised if he turns out not to have meant it.
It actually predisposes me to take a look at whatever he writes next. The process of confronting one's character flaws and addressing them deepens a person. I expect that whatever he has to say next will be edifying -- as indeed this piece was.
EDITED to add: it's certainly possible I'm being naive and accepting his apology too easily.
I thought that at first too, but then I wondered what was with that story about the Muslim lawyer who was erroneously picked up and jailed by the FBI and it turned out they had it wrong. Is he saying he's a victim?!?!? That's what it started to sound like to me. So I'm not sure I believe it's an apology.
I wish Lehrer luck in whatever career he chooses to switch to in the future.
Most people on this site consider themselves skeptics;
Most people on this site will read something that comes from a source and, if they are not experts in the field being discussed, will tend to accept it;
This is more likely should the argument be well put together;
This will happen despite us considering ourselves skeptics;
Because it is easier to accept a well written article on an issue we know little about rather than research it ourselves;
Many of us will subsequently argue a position based upon the information contained in said article or discussion, especially against other non-experts
It doesn't matter how skeptical you consider yourself it's simply too mentally expensive to look for backup on everything you read, and we are really bad at guessing what things are outright lies when those lies are presented in an intelligent and intelligible form
That goes double for what I learn on HN! Update your priors, but at a steady, slow rate.
THAT'S what I love about HN.
I think the problem with Lehrer and esp. his last book is that what he had to say was not very interesting, novel, or enlightening, EVEN with the help of fabricated quotes to backup his claims. That is, if the quotes/anecdotes had been true, it would not have been a better book.
There was a fantastic (very critical and negative) article about this book that came out before the scandal; the scandal obscured those issues. (Can't remember the author or website but will try to look it up later!)
This article pointed out that the whole thesis of Lehrer (and his many predecessors and followers in the self-help department) is circular: it simply tries to define success as, well, success.
What's more, I believe people who are outraged with Lehrer "lies" are a little delusional.
There isn't a world of difference between picking and choosing (true) anecdotes in support of a specific thesis, and outright making them up.
Actual honesty would be to report all facts (which may be impossible) and pay special attention to those who may contradict what you are trying to say (the scientific approach).
But in the land of Gladwell there are no liars.
Could you elaborate on that?
I'm not accusing Gladwell of ever "lying"; I have issues with "anecdotal evidence" which deserves its bad rep, and on which Gladwell (and many, many others) built their whole careers.
I think Lehrer is early.
Some time ago, lies and distortions that are routinely used today in fiction (TV, film, even novels) would have been considered unbecoming and simply unthinkable. But nowadays, what would be unthinkable in fiction "based on a true story", would be to stick to the facts.
But journalism is also fiction; the very act of reporting isn't neutral, it creates a new reality.
I do think it's possible to do actual journalism. If we keep the error and bias level below a certain threshold, it looks factual enough. I think this attitude that modern journalists have--that we're all equally biased, so just admit your bias up front and then we'll all figure it out on our own--is lazy and wasteful. It's lazy, because if they would simply make an effort at being unbiased they would find they can do it, and it's wasteful with my time, because now it's assumed that I'll go read a bunch of other biased sources and form my opinion. This means I need three times as much journalism, and I didn't want any to begin with. So I'd say, yes, it's a fact that reporting creates a new reality, but it doesn't have to do so with the kind of audacious intentionality that most modern news does. A small amount of unintentional change is a lot more manageable than flagrant, unnecessary meddling.
As for Gladwell, I really enjoy his essays. I have a lot of trouble expressing their content after reading them, though, which made me think of them more as a form of entertainment than reporting. As for his books, I agree with you completely, they're basically bullshit. But they're an interesting diversion.
(not a positive viewpoint)
For what it's worth, I think this whole thing is dumb. The main problem with Lehrer isn't that he plagiarized a few articles, but that his writing is mostly b-level propaganda to begin with.
Seriously, he's correct in many of the things he said, but he's probably the wrong person to be saying this. Perhaps in a couple of decades he might be the right person. Humans really are flawed creatures. We really do screw up all the time. It really isn't enough to be governed by a strong moral compass: that sense of morality must be assisted by the wisdom to avoid situations that will corrupt it. Strong habits, traditions, or even "standard operating procedures" assist the wise in this avoidance.
I still have sympathy for this guy. My suspicion is that those in the media who are really piling on, are doing so at least partially to avoid hearing what's being said. Lehrer is bad, so we can't admit that most of what he did, we do if only to a lesser degree. Otherwise we would be bad. This sort of binary morality is really primitive and pathetic, but many people don't have anything else available to them.
If's fine if you don't sympathize with Lehrer as I do, but I don't understand how people can complain that he brought up the FBI lab as an example. Why would they be above him? He didn't send any innocent people to jail! If you'd like proof that this is a serious problem, read up on the mess they have in Mississippi with bogus forensics. If Lehrer does anything to improve forensics in this country, all his plagiarism will have been worth it.
Frankly the state of US journalism is so weighed down by bias, the institution in general could probably use a dose of the Checklist Manifesto. And if this guy can come up with some SOPs that work for him, he should publish them and maybe they can help others who are willing.
I think a lot of the HN reaction to this is understandable. It's akin to a fall down drunk getting his 30 day chip, and announcing it to the world.
But Lehrer didn't sound like he was proud of his "30 day chip", just that he's starting to see what the road to wellness is going to take. It's the first step in his making amends.
People can take what he offers and accept it, disregard it, chew him up and spit him on the ground, or whatever. But at least he is offering something. That's his part. I'll be interested to see how he does and where he goes.
Yes. The technical psychoanalytic term is "projection".
There's lots of it out there if you look.
I don't think he was governed by a "strong moral compass" in the first place. "Don't plagiarize" is a pretty simple rule to follow; not being able to follow it does not indicate a strong moral compass with a lack of wisdom; it indicates a weak moral compass to begin with.
My suspicion is that those in the media who are really piling on, are doing so at least partially to avoid hearing what's being said.
This may well be true; I think many people in the media do the same things Lehrer did, they just haven't been caught yet. But that doesn't give me any more sympathy for Lehrer; it gives me less sympathy for the media in general.
I don't say this to excuse Lehrer's actions. All of us humans are the same flawed creatures as he, and we're all judged for our actions. I don't have to believe in the devil, but if I can imagine him, I can imagine a fiend who tempts all humanity, virtuous or not. Then I can make ready for his temptations even though I'm not a bad person like Lehrer.
This is basically doing a post-mortem. When I think about things I've done wrong, I go through this process. Then when I try to explain to people, I go through this process. However, when I do this, I fear that other people think I'm just trying to justify my mistakes.
As such, I don't often try to explain myself to others. I apologize, but I don't go into detail; and usually, people are willing to accept simply the apology and the high-level explanation. When I say go into detail, I mean a truly blow by blow account of every premise, piece of context, and minor decision that led to the big one. I think part of it is that a lot of people simply don't have the patience for such details.
To clarify what I'm talking about in terms of level of detail, I give the example of a time a girl asked me, "So do you prefer Vancouver food or Hong Kong food?". And I responded with a 5 minute dissection of the question to better understand what the question was asking, because the answer could vary depending on the question's true meaning and intent. Then she got exasperated and said, "Wow, I just asked you whether you prefer this food or that food!!! What's the big deal???")
So maybe I have two fears when I want to give the blow by blow account. The stupid fear is that people will think I'm crazy for going into such detail. The more scary fear is that people will think I'm trying to justify myself when I'm in fact not trying to do that at all. And this fear keeps me from sharing my thoughts with others.
I have no idea whether this guy is sincere or not, and so it's funny that the fear I have regarding other people being suspicious of my sincerity, I am casting similar suspicions (though not aggressively, as it's not a significant event to me whether or not this guy is sincere).
I used to do this shit all the time. Turns out I was missing the obvious part: people ask imprecise questions, not because they're being intellectually sloppy, but because they're looking for a conversation, not an answer.
And you can safely infer this, because the imprecise questions are almost always about things that simply do not matter.
No-one really cares if you like Vancouver food vs Hong Kong food. (If your opinion on the matter was of objective interest, the question would have been far more precise.)
As phrased, it's pretty close to a nonsense question. So when you find yourself thinking "what on earth could they mean by that?" just stop and have the conversation with them, not at them.
That is: stop at your first (appropriate) impression, phrase it as open or closed based on your desire to actually continue the conversation, and toss the ball back. And always keep in mind that the answers are irrelevant; what matters is how you pass the ball.
Expand your failure analysis... I suspect the root cause is she was trying to ask you out on a date, unless there were reasons to the contrary.
A similar scenario happened to me in high school, after I finally figured it out, my pattern matching improved.
It's a futile exercise, and counterproductive. Therapy falls apart when you get stuck in the loop of asking "why did I do this?"
The important part is not to do that, but that's not what we want, because that would involve real, actual change. And as we know, feeling bad about yourself > the pain of changing.
> a girl asked me, "So do you prefer Vancouver food or Hong Kong food?". And I responded with a 5 minute dissection of the question to better understand what the question was asking, because the answer could vary depending on the question's true meaning and intent.
Your answer should have been, "howcome?", or "X is my favorite, howcome?"
It definitely is something he needs to apologize for, too - probably in-person to everyone involved.
Link for the lazy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Lehrer
His work had so much promise and appeal. If anything, it would be a shame if we couldn't benefit from his ability to convey concepts in an interesting and engaging way.
Unfortunately, non-fiction writing is a system entirely built on trust. The system may be unfair, but Jonah Lehrer violated that trust, and now his career is rightfully over.
But I do think it's a bit disingenuous to compare the "mistakes" of scientists to fabrication and deceit. Would Niels Bohr have been referring to the manufacture of evidence when he spoke of "all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field?"
I personally wish we could forget about the whole thing. After this debacle, I'd trust Lehrer over almost any other science writer. If he ever writes Frontal Cortex again, I'm sure it will be the most thoroughly fact-checked journalism available.
People criticize Lehrer because they liked him and trusted him. Now everything they liked about him was cast into doubt, over something totally idiotic. It seriously calls his judgment and character into question. There was no compelling reason for him to fabricate what he fabricated. There was no enormous gain from that fabrication. It's a sign of either laziness, OR pathological lying.
Pathological liars are distinguished from the rest of us because they lie about pointless things, without a direct thing to gain from it.
We understand that politicians lie for gain… they are not, GENERALLY, pathological. Because they lie for gain, we can ferret out their lies because we can ask, "Gee, does xyz have something to gain here?" - and we understand them. That doesn't make it excusable, but that's probably part of why there's more uproar about Lehrer (we trusted him! WHY did he lie about THAT?!) than yet one more political lie.
> Designers refer to this sort of rule as a forcing function. These functions are everywhere and they keep us from doing all sorts of stupid things. Just think of your car. There is, for instance, the reverse lockout, which prevents us from throwing a moving car into reverse and accidentally ripping apart the transmission.
> whatever I write will be fact-checked and fully footnoted.
I was interested in learning more about this "reverse lockout." From the Wikipedia entry [1] which is the top Google result for "reverse lockout" (I typed it into Google without quotes):
> a forcing function or poka-yoke, is a technique used in error-tolerant design to prevent the user from making common errors or mistakes. One example is the reverse lockout on the transmission of a moving automobile.
I don't want to spend time researching this further, but it's interesting that he came up with the same name and example of the concept as the Wikipedia article (without attribution). Wikipedia articles are supposed to be secondary sources -- "original research" is an explicitly discouraged category of content. But none of the links cited by the Wikipedia article mention "forcing function."
So here's someone, writing a mea culpa about his past plagiarism, who uses a phrase and idea without proper footnoting of it (nebulously crediting "designers" with the idea); and a single Google search for the idea turns up a Wikipedia article which also mentions the idea without citing a source!
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-shaping_constraint
Bonus trivia: Lehrer was paid $20,000 to deliver this speech. Ridiculous and a mountainous source of embarrassment for the Knight Foundation.
Second, do you really want a world where errors -- even massive ones -- automatically disqualify you from being relevant again? Where there are no second acts in American life? I do think there are places where that makes sense, but they tend to be places where the supply is perceived to be abundant and commoditized. Ergo why we encourage failure amongst entrepreneurs.
Nobody automatically deserves forgiveness, but I do think Lehrer is a giften enough storyteller that we should not necessarily consign him to the dustbin.
Perhaps he will succeed, after some soul-searching and change. This article represents a step in the right direction: some people seem to already be on the cusp of forgiveness, while others would like (as is their right) some more assurance. Or maybe he'll fail in this: his sins may be too great, or he may prove to be incorrigible. Either way will be telling.
And this is as it should be. Forgiveness is earned, one way or another, and should be.
This speech had a very important message: It's not enough to acknowledge or apologize for mistakes. You need to give yourself (and others) a reason to trust that you won't make similar mistakes in the future. Jonah goes into more detail: you need a standard operating procedure which prevents sloppiness, so that the routine ensures you don't make mistakes.
If you've not read this, because you feel he deserves oblivion, you should read it and pretend it was written by someone else. Also ... if someone deserves "oblivion" for mistakes, even egregious ones, what's the point of rehabilitation?
In that light, it's almost performance art.
If the Knight Foundation does regularly pay speakers this much, then I agree with those who say that the bulk of this fee should go to some agreeable charity.
Thought I had something more insightful to say. Guess not.
Lehrer's point is that a lot of people try to soften apologies and remove some accountability, as if the apology is just part of a status quo, and he's worried people will think he's trying to do that; really, he's just trying to make a record of his actions.
But honestly, I think he's got it a bit wrong. People don't distrust verbose apologies because they're intended to be excuses, but because they are excuses by design.
If Lehrer said something to the effect of, "I fucked up. I'm sorry. I understand you may never trust me again and I'll have to deal with that." I would trust his apology much more than I do now.
But providing an explanation, however benign it is (especially in a highly media fueled instance like this where not much explanation isn't already known) garners sympathy from the audience and wraps the apology in something tolerable for the author.
I don't think it should be tolerable. But that's just my thought on it.
For reference, this is the original article that Michael Moynihan wrote: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jon...
Q/A with Michael Moynihan: http://observer.com/2012/07/michael-c-moynihan-jonah-lehrer-...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Journalistic_contro...