And testing confirmation bias in this fashion is intrinsically deceptive, so I probably have damaged my online reputation as well.
It’s interesting that you mentioned that, because I spent several minutes after reading this being confused, and then I thought:
“It is at least hypothetically possible Gwern is testing confirmation bias with THIS post to Less Wrong.”
That was followed by “What evidence would I be looking for to confirm or disprove this hypothesis?”
Which was followed by “It would probably take to much reading to plausibly gather sufficient evidence to make any kind of judgement, and I don’t have that much time to assess this post. I’ll just put my assessment of this experiment on hold until more verification arrives either way on whether it is or is not a meta experiment.”
Was this the kind of reputation damage you were expecting?
Was this the kind of reputation damage you were expecting?
More ‘anything gwern says is a lie and his emails should be ignored and anyone reading his stuff be told he is a self-confessed liar’. (I don’t think this is a fair appraisal, since I just wrote the lie up in exhaustive detail, and I only falsified 1 out of 9 results for ~3 days while keeping it as low-key as possible. I could have sent the fake results to Roberts privately, but then his assent or dissent would not be as credible as compared to actually posting it or not.)
For what it’s worth, I actually had intended to post this as an Article and not a Discussion if Roberts did fail, but only as a Discussion if he passed. Then I realized this was a publication bias—giving higher billing to positive findings—which leads to confirmation bias, so I resolved to post it as a Discussion no matter the result.
Upon reading this, I categorized it with “Towards a progressive hermeneutics of quantum gravity” in the deception department (though not in the ‘should have been easily caught’ department) - the lie was temporary, used as a delicate test of someone else’s honesty, and has probably earned you an enemy and gotten a bunch of other people to trust you less.
Speaking of which, it would be best if you could avoid gratuitous deception (like, if you do something like the volunteer experiment, use the data in all cases but neglect to inform half the cohort).
It’s interesting that you mentioned that, because I spent several minutes after reading this being confused, and then I thought:
“It is at least hypothetically possible Gwern is testing confirmation bias with THIS post to Less Wrong.”
That was followed by “What evidence would I be looking for to confirm or disprove this hypothesis?”
Which was followed by “It would probably take to much reading to plausibly gather sufficient evidence to make any kind of judgement, and I don’t have that much time to assess this post. I’ll just put my assessment of this experiment on hold until more verification arrives either way on whether it is or is not a meta experiment.”
Was this the kind of reputation damage you were expecting?
More ‘anything gwern says is a lie and his emails should be ignored and anyone reading his stuff be told he is a self-confessed liar’. (I don’t think this is a fair appraisal, since I just wrote the lie up in exhaustive detail, and I only falsified 1 out of 9 results for ~3 days while keeping it as low-key as possible. I could have sent the fake results to Roberts privately, but then his assent or dissent would not be as credible as compared to actually posting it or not.)
For what it’s worth, I actually had intended to post this as an Article and not a Discussion if Roberts did fail, but only as a Discussion if he passed. Then I realized this was a publication bias—giving higher billing to positive findings—which leads to confirmation bias, so I resolved to post it as a Discussion no matter the result.
Upon reading this, I categorized it with “Towards a progressive hermeneutics of quantum gravity” in the deception department (though not in the ‘should have been easily caught’ department) - the lie was temporary, used as a delicate test of someone else’s honesty, and has probably earned you an enemy and gotten a bunch of other people to trust you less.
Speaking of which, it would be best if you could avoid gratuitous deception (like, if you do something like the volunteer experiment, use the data in all cases but neglect to inform half the cohort).