We already know that Francesca Gino, an award-winning professor at the Harvard Business School, was accused of publishing at least four studies with fake or doctored data; see here. We also know that a few weeks after her alleged research fraud was exposed to the public on a statistics blog called “Data Colada“, Professor Gino sued the authors of the blog for defamation on 2 August 2023. (She also sued Harvard for gender discrimination; see here.) I now have eight significant developments to report in the Francesca Gino case:
- For starters, on 18 August 2023, about two weeks after the Gino defamation complaint was filed in court, Larry Lessig, a liberal Harvard law professor who was one of the most vocal champions of “net neutrality” (perhaps the most inane and inconsequential idea of the early 21st century!), published a brief but vigorous defense of his fellow Harvard colleague. (See here.) Among other things, Professor Lessig’s 765-word blog post portrays the Data Colada bloggers as the proverbial “bad guys” and Professor Gino as the hapless but innocent victim of a social media-driven moral panic.
- Twelve days later (29 August 2023), Adam Mastroianni posted this scathing critique of experimental psychology’s “cognitive bias craze” on his “Experimental History” blog. What makes Mastroianni’s essay especially worth reading and relevant to the Gino case is that he not only mentions by name Francesca Gino as well as her co-author Dan Ariely, another prominent professor accused of data fraud; he also explains why their entire field (experimental psychology) is most likely worthless bullshit. (In what other field, Mastroianni asks, do six out of 10 studies fail to replicate, while the field’s core research paradigms remain blissfully intact?!)
- A few days later (1 September), the Data Colada bloggers posted the first of two updates about the Gino case on their blog (here), thanking the donors to their legal defense fund. (Remember, Professor Gino had sued them for defamation on 2 August.)
- Next (16 September), the Data Colada bloggers posted a second more substantive update, where they subject three of the exhibits in Professor Gino’s case to critical scrutiny.
- Then, after a brief lull, things start to move fast. For starters, this past Friday (29 September), Professor Gino herself, the embattled professor at the center of this scientific misconduct storm, launched her own website to proclaim her innocence: “I did not commit academic fraud. I did not manipulate data to produce a particular result. I did not falsify data to bolster any result. I did not commit the offense I am accused of. Period“.
- The very next day (Saturday, 30 September), The New Yorker published on its website this in-depth essay by Gideon Lewis-Kraus, who surveys the allegations of research fraud against Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino, both of whom are pictured below. (Update: The New Yorker piece also appears in print in its 9 October 2023 edition.)
- Also on 30 September, the “Gray Lady,” i.e. the serious and sober-minded New York Times, published a pro-Gino puff piece titled “The Harvard professor and the bloggers” on its website. (The Gino story was also published on the front page of the Business section of this week’s Sunday edition (1 October), under the headline “A dishonesty expert is labeled a liar.”)
- Last (for now), Matthew Lilley, a Harvard PhD in economics (i.e. not a mere journalist), dropped this atomic bomb of a blog post today (Wednesday, October 4) tearing apart the arguments put forth by Professor Gino in her defense.
Buckle up your metaphorical seat belts, y’all: it looks like this topsy-turvy ride through the world of pseudo-scientific research (see item #2 above) is going to be wild one!
prior probability 