I'd like to point out a factual error at the beginning of this week's @verybadwizards podcast. The presenters, esp. @tamler, stated that @HPluckrose & @ConceptualJames have never voiced any serious critiques of pomo-influenced fields, only hoaxes. (Thread)
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I think my disagreement just boils down to whether hoaxing is necessary, or if it is effective to hoax, and whether hoaxing is the form of criticism that I’d want to receive (i wouldn’t, but we talked to James about the value of mockery and we just have different views).
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One point that would have been nice to hear brought up in relation to this is that the authors do argue against these ideas in ways that don't involve hoaxes rather often. This project is supplementary to that. Meant to address some common responses to that argument.
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But I think an ethical position against insincere scholarship intended to be revealed with an argument that there's a problem with knowledge production in that field can be consistently & coherently held whether you consider this hoaxing or not. I'd disagree with it.
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Because I think it can show the problem from start to finish with the process in a way that other forms of criticism cannot. It can show the research sources - the key texts already in the field - the review process & how authors are directed, the publication process etc
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Obviously other ethical problems arise in other fields. Someone asked us why we didn't go for a problem in medical publishing in relation to bad data enabling dead tracheas to be transplanted into patients endangering their lives.
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(Btw, I saw you asked about this earlier. When i referred to “controls” i simply meant trying the same exercise in another field, one you respect, and comparing the publication rates to see if they are less likely to accept these anthropological Trojans.)
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I think this is a common red herring response to the project. The project isn't explicitly claiming or hypothesizing that other fields are better. Other fields have problems too and I don't think this project is making any comment on that.
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No, absolutely not. If you mean why not write bad papers for fields with other problems with knowledge production, I don't even know how you'd go about comparing them even if we had the expertise necessary to produce exemplary papers in other fields.
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And I genuinely don’t think we were lobbing ad hominem attacks. If I was, I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry it came across that way. I just was wondering why choose that particular strategy (Paul thought it had some value, and I think it might make things worse).
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So that we could operate inside it and really see how it works.
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Sure, but you don’t really need to write fake articles to do that. But anyway, just wanted to clarify the disagreement and engage a bit. I appreciate the discussion, Helen.
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Probably true.
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