When wonks burn politicians - Salon.com

[Fred Weizmann]

Although this article is explicity about journalism and economic policy
and not the history of behavioral science (albeit one of the subjects of
the article, Kenneth Rogoff, has recently written a historical analysis
of financial crises and how governments deal with them), it also deals
with an issue that is at the heart of the critical history of science;
the relationship of ideology and power to research, evidence and
objectivity. Cheiron, in particular, is a home to some research on this
topic (I am thinking here of Mark Solovey's work on the relationship
between social science and government, and there is some other work
along this line), but we are particularly lacking when it comes to
economics, even though this is the social science discipline which would
seem to be at the nexus of these relationships. I understand some of the
reasons why we don't have more economists interested in history in our
ranks--economics is not an easy discipline for most non-economist
scholars interested in the history of social science to penetrate;
there are are also several societies devoted to the history of economics
but my impression is that they operate pretty much in isolation from the
historians of other social science disciplines. (Incidentally, there is
a major archive for the History of Economic Thought at McMaster
University in Hamilton, Ontario). I wish there was a way we could
initiate more interchanges with economic historians and incoporate more
history of economics in our work.

Fred Weizmann

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/20/when_policy_wonks_burn_politicians_partner/

[Sokal, Michael M.]

For what it's worth:

The last time I served on the Cheiron Book Prize Committee we considered an excellent book -- submitted by the book's publisher, if I remember correctly -- in the history of economics. I think we-all thought most highly of it; I know I did. But we-all thought the eventual prizewinner was a better book.

I think Mark's suggestion makes much sense, though it would require real outreach efforts on the part of many of us. But I hope that the Book Prize Committee could always publicize the competition to History of Economics Society (Do I have its name right?) and on whatever history of economics list serves exist.

Mike Sokal

-----Original Message-----
From: List for the Society for the History of Psychology [mailto:s...@hermes.hood.edu] On Behalf Of Mark Solovey
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2013 5:49 PM
To: List for the Society for the History of Psychology
Subject: Re: When wonks burn politicians - Salon.com

There are a small number of historians of economics who engage actively with wider issues in the history of the social sciences and science, including, of those who publish regularly in English, Philip Mirowski, Margaret Schabas, Thomas Stapleford, Michael Bernstein, Theresa Rangill, Philippe Fontaine, Roger Backhouse, Mary Morgan, Tiago Mata, and perhaps another 10 to 30 depending on how inclusive you want to be.

Then there are many more historians from other traditions, such as intellectual history, public policy history, and military history, who sometimes deal extensively with the history of economic thought, economic policy, the economics profession, and particular economists in their own work. Good examples are Howard Brick, Daniel Rogers, David Engerman, Hunter Heyck, and David Milne (but this is only a very partial list based on those who come immediately to my mind).

It would indeed be great to get some of these folks to participate in Cheiron. I think this could be done, but I don't think it will happen by itself, without a concerted effort, probably starting with regular Cheiron participants inviting particular individuals to contribute to sessions and/or organize their own sessions.


Quoting Christopher Green <chr...@yorku.ca>:

> When I was editing JHBS it became obvious that history of economics
> is quite distinct from the history of other soc/beh sciences. This
> is partly because of their quantification and technical vocabulary,
> but it also has a very different "vibe."
>
> One place, however, that I have thought historians of psych might
> enter into history of economics is with the work of William Stanley
> Jevons, who published an article in an early volume of the journal
> Mind on the "span of apprehension" (how many things you can see in a
> "blink" of time).
>
> Chris
> -----
> Christopher D. Green
> Department of Psychology
> York University
> Toronto, ON M6C 1G4
> Canada
>
> chr...@yorku.ca

>> -----------------------------------------------------------
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> Farreras (farr...@hood.edu). Users are asked to be civil and
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This is an open, unmoderated discussion forum for members of the Society for the History of Psychology. The Society's web site can be found at http://www.historyofpsych.org. Both are managed by Ingrid Farreras (farr...@hood.edu). Users are asked to be civil and judicious in their remarks. However, neither the SHP, the American Psychological Association, Hood College, nor Ingrid Farreras assume any liability for the opinions expressed here.

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[Elizabeth S.]

I certainly second Mike's suggestion to "reach out" and encourage Cheiron participation from a broader range of the social sciences!

 

In past years, perhaps long ago, the local host was encouraged to send notices of the meeting and invitation for program submissions to SS departments in nearby colleges and universities.  That practice got lost somewhere along the way--given the heavy responsibilities of hosts and program chairs, who must experience great relief once the annual meeting is concluded, it's probably difficult to transfer to successors notes and ideas that worked or didn't work.

 

But might well be worth the effort?

 

Elizabeth Scarborough

>
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[David Devonis]

Hi all What's the best fit for this fellow in a history of psychology? DaveD

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html


David Devonis
Dept Psychology
Graceland University
Lamoni, IA 50140 USA
dev...@graceland.edu<mailto:dev...@graceland.edu>
Treasurer, Cheiron
https://www.uakron.edu/cheiron/

[Whit]

I'd read about Diederik Stapels and a colleague at NMU sent me the link to
the NYT write-up; here's what I wrote to him.

It's a very interesting story. Once you really understand a research area,
if you can write well you can 'create' a publishable research paper that
will pass review at just about any journal. The original research papers
that discovered the contrary effects of amphetamines in children, leading to
giving Ritalin to hyperactive kids, were fabricated. The famous twin studies
by an English psychologist whose name I disremember, studies that set the
criteria for nature/nurture research, were fabricated; the perpetrator was
knighted! It is even easier to creatively 'modify' the results of studies
one is actually doing, as in the recent Mark Hauser (Harvard) case. Jean
Baptiste Bouillaud wrote a landmark paper in the history of neuroscience,
published in 1825, that laid out the data for demonstrating that expressive
language functions resided in the frontal lobes; he fabricated some of the
data just like Hauser. On the other side, any journal editor worth her or
his salt can send just about any paper out for objective, independent
review, knowing in advance whether the reviews will accept or reject the
paper. I know; I edited two major journals in cognitive neuroscience for
several decades. It is truly astonishing how much we rely upon the honesty
of scientists, and the fact that it's impossible to check everything.

[Elizabeth S.]

Oh, dear!  Hope the climate change/global warming deniers don't get ahold of this  But then Staples was working in "social" science, not Science, as my former son-in-law (a physicist) would say--

 

Elizabeth Scarborough

-----Original Message-----
From: David Devonis <dev...@graceland.edu>
To: cheiron-forum <cheiro...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Apr 29, 2013 9:55 am
Subject: [Cheiron-Forum:1238] Grist for the historical mill

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[Blowers]

I think the story on Diederick Stapels came to light at last year's Cheiron when one of our Dutch colleagues gave a paper on him.

The English psychologist who fabricated his results on twins was Cyril Burt.

Geoffrey Blowers
Professor/Director of Graduate Studies
Shue Yan University
Hong Kong

[Katharine Milar]

Ruud Abma spoke about this in Montreal last summer.

---

From: "Elizabeth S." <elzbt...@aol.com>
To: cheiro...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 10:41:02 AM
Subject: Re: [Cheiron-Forum:1240] Grist for the historical mill

[Sokal, Michael M.]

See Richard S. Westfall, "Newton and the Fudge Factor," Science 179 (23 February 1973) 751-758.

 

http://web.centre.edu/muzyka/articles/Westfall1973.pdf

[Roger K Thomas]

Despite my better judgment, I cannot stay out of this. I feel sure Whitaker knew it was Cyril Burt. I don't think Burt was accused of fabricating data but of misuse of data (e,g., using the same data in more than one publication, for example, by adding old data to newly discovered data to publish a new article; that practice also explained most of his improbable correlations. Burt was accused of fabricating two co-authors but they were later shown to have existed and to have likely been associated with Burt's research. Contemporary researchers have confirmed Burt's most important corelations. I care little for Burt or the whole nature-nurture controversy but try to assess things with as open mind as I can. The moral of the present ongoing Cheiron-list story is that zealots on both sides do a lot of misrepresenting, unintentional in most cases I suspect...just passing on old stories without criticical examination.

Roger K, Thomas, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Psychology
University of Georgia
http://rkthomas.myweb.uga.edu/

________________________________________
From: cheiro...@googlegroups.com [cheiro...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Blowers [blo...@hku.hk]
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 11:15 AM
To: cheiro...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Cheiron-Forum:1241] Grist for the historical mill

[Christopher Green]

> On 29 Apr, 2013, at 21:57, Whit <hwhi...@nmu.edu> wrote:
>
>> It is truly astonishing how much we rely upon the honesty
>> of scientists, and the fact that it's impossible to check everything.
>>

We could go back to the early days of the Royal Society, where everyone gathered together in a theater (or, rather, a theatre) in order to observe as the experimenter enacted his complete procedure. Granted, that would be rather dull in the case of verbal memory experiments (not to mention a trifle unnerving for the "participants").

Chris
---

Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University

Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada

chr...@yorku.ca
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
=========================

[Whit]

Roger,
Thanks for being polite; I tossed off my note without reviewing the old
literature on Burt (whose name would probably have risen past the T-O-T
block had I given it time). I thought I remembered some serious questions
raised about some of Burt's data that no one could find nor corroborate, but
no matter, your gentle admonishment is well taken.
Whit

[Fred Weizmann]

More recently, there is still debate about whether Mendel's data "were too good to be true"; and then there is the Nobel Prize winner Robert Milliken's  work on establishing the "fundamental unit electircal  charge,. There is the Wakefield  paper, linking autism to vaccination, which has done immense harm, Broad and Nicholas Wade examined a number of scientific frauds in their 1982 book, "Betrayers of the Truth." Of course, it turns out there is a grey area between fraud and experimenters making decisions about interpreting or collecting data. . There is also interesting blog, Retraction Watch <http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/> that tracks cases where articles have been retracted or where watchdog agencies have detected fraud or called into question highly suspicious scientific results or claims.

Incidentally, Mike have you forgotten the great "Sokal Hoax," committed by one of your namesakes (albeit in the name of a higher scientific truth)?

Fred

[John Carson]

Dear all

Not to add too much fuel to the fire, but the controversy about Cyril Burt definitely involves the claim the he probably fabricated some (or all) of his twin studies data. Leon Kamin and Leslie Hearnshaw are among those scholars who have pushed this claim. Others have tried to defend Burt, with varying degrees of success. Unless some new archival source were to suddenly appear, the dispute will probably never be settled.

All best,
John

[Sokal, Michael M.]

As Fred notes, we could go on almost forever. Remember the case of the patchwork mouse, in which an experimenter used a magic marker to darken the fur on successive generations of mice?

 

And as to the case of Alan Sokal and his hoax: First, despite speculations to the contrary, he and I are not related and we have never met. We have now and then been in touch via e-mail, usually when I'm accused of perpetrating the hoax myself. (Once, most amusingly, I was asked most heatedly, "Aren't you ashamed of what you wrote?," to which I replied, "I'm ashamed of a lot of what I've written. What do you have in mind?") Second, his hoax really differs significantly (as Fred suggests) from those that have so far been cited. He wasn't making a scientific claim or trying to defend his previous work. He "simply" wanted to debunk a whole genre of "scientific" literature. I don't know if it had any lasting impact on this genre. Could anybody comment on this point?

 

Mike Sokal

[Roger K Thomas]

Sorry... Cannot resist again... Sir Ronald Fisher of analysis of variance fame was among the first, if not the first, to question Mendel's data on the grounds that their consistency defied probability.  I am home and reference is in office, but I suspect this was in the 1920's if not earlier.  Someone, I forget who, possibly Fisher himself, offered the charitable explanation that Mendel's gardeners who did the actual counting knew the results he hoped to see and gave them a little push.

Sent from my iPad

[Roger K Thomas]

Kamin had a blinding bias, and Hearnshaw's credibility has been brought into serious question. I agree this will remain a topic that won't go away. It is and will long remain one that begs for misrepresentation.

Sent from my iPad

[David Devonis]

Hi all Thanks for helping me clarify my original question. I'm trying to
decide, in the context of a general history of psychology circa 1925 to the
present, where to include something like this story (about the researcher
in the Netherlands) which has drawn a wide range of interesting commentary. I see the choices as

1) Include a story like this in a separate 'rogues' gallery' where the researcher's
actions, termed 'bad actions by a good person' by one of his ex-graduate students,
are included among many other examples of shifty science but kept separate
from ethically conducted research;

2) Take seriously the allegation on the part of the researcher that his behavior
is a symptom of larger economic pressures on researchers to produce at
any cost (I call this the 'cosi fan tutte' excuse on the researcher's part, but
still, it might lead us to conceive of our history in a wider economic and
political contexts) ;

3) Defer on this and other recent similar controversies and let someone figure out
after, say, 2040 where to place this into the historical record, by which time the researcher
in question will be long forgotten;

--I'm confident that there are other options but these are the three that occur to me at present.
So far, from the commentary, I haven't decided. I am pretty certain, though, that whatever
the phenomenon represents, it's not specific to the social sciences.

Best DaveD

________________________________________
From: cheiro...@googlegroups.com [cheiro...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roger K Thomas [rkth...@uga.edu]
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 1:17 PM
To: <cheiro...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Cheiron-Forum:1251] Grist for the historical mill

[Fred Weizmann]

The later confirmation of the existence of one of Burt's missing
co-authors rests on the recollection of one of Burt's students who
stated that he remembered at least one of Burt's two co-authors,
Margaret Howard (the other was Jane Conway). However, neither
co-author has ever come forward, nor have they ever been located.
Also.as John Carson has noted, Burt was indeed accused of making up
data. Anyone wanting to know more about the accusations against Burt
should go to Dan Dorfman's summary article published in Science:
<http://web.centre.edu/muzyka/articles/Dorfman1978.pdf>.

Apart from the question of his data, Burt did engage in other
questionable practices. For example, he used his position as the editor
of a journal to write multiple rejoinders to a critic of his work and
then publish them in his journal under false names.

Fred Weizmann

accused of falsifying his data (see the attached reference), not merely
misinterpreting it.

[Fred Weizmann]

I have been doing some work on Fisher, and you are right about his being the first to comment on Mendel. He actually did not publish his article until 1936, but he did make some comments on Mendel's data being too good as early as 1911, when he was still an undergraduate. At that point, he thought  it might be due to unconscious bias on Mendel's part.  Fisher's article was largely ignored until 1964, when it was discussed in a book celebrating the centenary of Mendel's article.

Fred W.

[Sam Parkovnick]

For students, you might want to use Betrayers of the Truth by William Broad and Nicholas Wade which was published in 1982,

---

From: cheiro...@googlegroups.com [cheiro...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Fred Weizmann [weiz...@yorku.ca]
Sent: April 29, 2013 4:20 PM
To: cheiro...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Cheiron-Forum:1255] Grist for the historical mill

[Christopher Green]

I think, Roger, that many people were not as persuaded by Joynson and Fletcher as you were. Even Jensen was reduced, more or less, to "even if he lied, he was essentially correct." Burt still goes in my "fraud" category. There weren't enough twins separated at birth in all of England to have plausibly supplied the data he claimed to have collected.

Chris
.......
Christopher D Green

Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M6C 1G4

chr...@yorku.ca
http://www.yorku.ca/christo

[Roger K Thomas]

Chris,

I never read Fletcher, although I have his book. I did read Joynson's book and spent several hours with him at one time. I believe him when he said that he had no bias when he began to investigate "The Burt Affair" and that he followed where sources and data led him. I also think that what is probably Joynson's seminal paper on the subject is worth reading, as he delved into what he hypothesized are motives at work on both sides of the issue.

Joynson, R. B. (2003). Selective interest and psychological practice: A new interpretation of the Burt affair. British Journal of Psychology, v. 904, pp. 409-426.

I should never have expressed myself on this. I am not an expert. I have read many anti-Burt articles and I have learned that the reliability of what some experts report is questionable.

Roger

Roger K, Thomas, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Psychology
University of Georgia
http://rkthomas.myweb.uga.edu/

________________________________________

From: cheiro...@googlegroups.com [cheiro...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Christopher Green [chr...@yorku.ca]
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 5:51 PM
To: cheiro...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Cheiron-Forum:1257] Grist for the historical mill

[Nicole Barenbaum]

Bill Tucker published this article on Burt in JHBS, comparing Burt's 

sample with those of other well-documented studies:

Tucker, W. H. (1997). Re-reconsidering Burt: Beyond a 

reasonable doubt. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 

33(2), 145-162.

Cheers,

Nicole

[Roger K Thomas]

I have it, I have read it, and I have many passages highlighted.

Sent from my iPad

[Fred Weizmann]

For anyone who is interested in the Joynson and Fletcher books, both
essentially defenses of Burt, Ray Fancher wrote a review of Joynson's
book (Fixing it for Heredity) for the London Review of books in 1989,
and I reviewed Fletcher's book in PsycCritiques (Cyril Burt, Still
Lively After All These Years) in 1992. There is a story about Burt that
I think is really amusing. I read a letter (I think it was reprinted in
a book by the historian of medicine Greta Jones, but I cannot find the
reference) that Burt wrote during World War II. In the letter Burt, who
was one of the leaders of the British eugenics movement, expressed shock
that the Russians had beaten Hitler's supposedly invincible armies and
were driving them out of Russia. Stalin had purged most of the Russian
leadership, including the top generals, and Burt believed that in so
doing, he had destroyed the genetic cream of Russian society. When I
told this story to Kurt Danziger, he said that this belief had been a
common one in Britain and elsewhere and that Burt was not the only one
who was surprised by the USSR's military success.

Burt was also one of the chief influences on the design and
implementation of the 11 Plus exam after World War II. This was an exam
given to school children in the UK when they were 11, and determined
whether they would be streamed educationally into an an academic,
technical or general stream. My understanding is that although the
system was dismantled on a national basis, it still survives in some
places. Maybe some of those on the list from the UK can clarify its
status. Burt has also been credited with inspiring the creation of
Mensa, an organization of which he was later to become president.
However, this account has been disputed by some of Mensa's founders and
Burt's role in the founding of Mensa seems to be a matter of some
controversy, which, like the accusations of fraud, albeit on a less
serious level, shows no signs of ending.

Fred

[Adrian C. Brock]

I am taking up Fred Weizman's point about whether the eleven plus exam
still exists. He is right in saying that it has been dismantled on a
national basis but it still exists on a regional basis (see for example
http://www.elevenplusadvice.co.uk/elevenPlus-Areas.aspx). Because of its
regional nature, there is now enormous variation in the test and the
conditions under which it is taken.

One point that may be of interest is that the name of the exam refers to
the age at which children transferred from primary to secondary school,
not the age at which they took the exam. The exam was taken halfway
through the final year of primary school and the children in that year
were those who had their 11th birthday during the course of the year.
Thus around a half of the children who took the exam were 10. There was
no developmental logic behind the choice of age. It was simply the age
at which children transferred from primary to secondary school.

There is a more interesting question about whether the current system of
assigning children to schools is any better. Defenders of the eleven
plus point out that it enabled a minority of children from poor
backgrounds to go to middle-class schools. That is certainly true. Under
the current system, children are usually assigned to their local school
and the existence of a "good school" will lead to an increase in
property prices in that area. There are even cases of families buying a
small apartment in those areas so that they can give it as their main
address. This has led to some schools carrying out checks on whether the
applicants for places are actually living in their catchment area. This
applies only to state schools. There are still elite private schools for
those who can afford them and they provide the majority of entrants to
Oxford and Cambridge and a disproportionate number of people in public
life. For example, the current prime minister and the mayor of London,
as well as princes William and Harry, are all graduates of Eton. The
deputy prime-minister and the chancellor of the exchequer went to
similar private schools.

Adrian

[Roger K Thomas]

Is there any way to get a copy of Ray Fancher's review? I am unlikely to read Fletcher but I would like to read your review...it may prompt me to read Fletcher. Thank you.

Roger Thomas

Sent from my iPad

[Christopher Green]

On 2013-04-30, at 5:55 AM, Adrian C. Brock wrote:

Under the current system, children are usually assigned to their local school and the existence of a "good school" will lead to an increase in property prices in that area. There are even cases of families buying a small apartment in those areas so that they can give it as their main address. This has led to some schools carrying out checks on whether the applicants for places are actually living in their catchment area.

This has been known to happen in Toronto as well. (And I bet in a lot of other cities with overcrowded schools systems where moving out of catchment to allegedly "better" schools is difficult to do. 

Chris

---

Christopher D. Green

Department of Psychology
York University

Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada

chr...@yorku.ca
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/

=========================

[Fred Weizmann]

Incidentally, although I think most people who are aware of the Burt controversy think that the late Leon Kamin accused  Burt of fraud, Kamin never actually makes that charge. His criticisms focused on the problems with Burt's data.  Moreover he only became involved with  the issue of the inheritance of IQ, by accident. In 1972.there was a successful protest at Princeton, where Kamin was then Chair of the Psychology,  against having Richard Herrnstein speak on campus. Kamin was bothered by the incident. He then began reading on the IQ issue and was led to Burt's work, of which he was sharply critical.  It was Oliver Gillie who several years later brought up and popularized Kamin's criticisms, and it was Gillie who made the accusations of fraud. However, much of the criticism from psychologists and defenders of Burt focussed on Kamin, and I think Kamin's work was conflated with Gillie's accusations. Before Gillie's article, I don't think Kamin's critique aroused that much excitement.  I think one reason for the focus on Kamin was because Kamin  had been a Marxist (whether he had actually been a member of the Communist Part I do not know) and was blacklisted during the McCarthy era,  He taught in Canada for many years before returning to the US and Princeton. Kamin's leftist politics made him an easy target for those who wanted to argue that the opposition to hereditarian arguments was rooted mainly in leftist ideology.  

Fred 

[Adrian C. Brock]

I was interested in the reference to "the late Leon Kamin" below. I have a personal interest since he regularly winters in Cape Town and I shared an office there with him in 2006. I have just done an internet search for him and I can find no evidence to suggest that he is "late". - Adrian

On 30/04/2013 21:19, Fred Weizmann wrote:

[Fred Weizmann]

A major "Ooops". I had been told by one of his former students he had died. Obviously I should have checked it out further. My apologies.

Fred