I just started the audiobook myself, and in the part I’m up to the author mentioned that there was a study of deep canvassing that was very bad and got retracted, but then later, there was a different group of scientists who studied deep canvassing, more on which later in the book. (I haven’t gotten to the “later in the book” yet.)
“If a fraudulent paper says the sky is blue, that doesn’t mean it’s green” :)
UPDATE: Yeah, my current impression is that the first study was just fabricated data. It wasn’t that the data showed bad results so he massaged it, more like he never bothered to get data in the first place. The second study found impressive results (supposedly—I didn’t scrutinize the methodology or anything) and I don’t think the first study should cast doubt on the second study.
Thanks for the summary. Yes, David addresses this in the book. There was an unfortunately fraudulent paper published due to (IIRC) the actions of a grad student, but the professors involved retracted the original paper and later research reaffirmed the approach did work.
I just started the audiobook myself, and in the part I’m up to the author mentioned that there was a study of deep canvassing that was very bad and got retracted, but then later, there was a different group of scientists who studied deep canvassing, more on which later in the book. (I haven’t gotten to the “later in the book” yet.)
Wikipedia seems to support that story, saying that the first guy was just making up data (see more specifically “When contact changes minds” on wikipedia).
“If a fraudulent paper says the sky is blue, that doesn’t mean it’s green” :)
UPDATE: Yeah, my current impression is that the first study was just fabricated data. It wasn’t that the data showed bad results so he massaged it, more like he never bothered to get data in the first place. The second study found impressive results (supposedly—I didn’t scrutinize the methodology or anything) and I don’t think the first study should cast doubt on the second study.
Thanks for the summary. Yes, David addresses this in the book. There was an unfortunately fraudulent paper published due to (IIRC) the actions of a grad student, but the professors involved retracted the original paper and later research reaffirmed the approach did work.