Episode 263: Free Yoel

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] Yeah, but the data...the data... That's true. The Great Enmas has spoken! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! And with no more brains than you have. Pay no attention to that man! Anybody can have a brain! You're a very bad man!

[00:01:04] I'm a very good man! Just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston. Dave, first they came for Charles Murray, and you said nothing. Then, they came for Sushi at Oberlin, and you said nothing.

[00:01:23] But now they've come from one of our own. For years you've dismissed all the claims about wokeness encroaching on freedom of expression. Do you still think cancel culture isn't real? Once it happens to one of my own, now I'm convinced.

[00:01:39] Now this is the worst thing to happen since...I don't know, the submarine thing? Well, there's a lot of controversy about how bad that was. But yes, we are going to be talking about Yoel Inbar's adventure applying to UCLA.

[00:02:01] Scoop! It's a scoop! This is a BBW journalistic scoop! Are the people at fire right now just being like, God damn it! Throwing down their headphones? I turned down the New York Times for you guys. I just want you to know I appreciate that. Is that really true?

[00:02:16] Yeah, that's actually true. Well, he talked to the New York Times. This is awesome. This is breaking, and it is a really interesting story that raises a lot of questions in arenas that we've talked about

[00:02:30] and maybe not been quite as...we didn't take them quite as seriously as some of our listeners would like us to, for sure. Right. I mean, your masterful deflection in asking me the question is really what everybody's asking about you.

[00:02:44] And I'm getting DMs like, is Tamler going to change his mind? Because you don't have DMs open. That's right out of my playbook, Trump's playbook. You just immediately accuse the other person. Anyway, yeah, but first, this is a real...psychology is going to take a hit.

[00:03:02] Psychology on a couple different fronts is going to take a hit this episode. In the first segment, we're going to talk about another fraud case coming out of big psychology.

[00:03:14] This time, Francesca Gino, and ironically, and people have noted the irony, fraud was discovered in a bunch of her studies on honesty. It's too good. We should introduce Yoel first. Yes, Yoel Enbar. Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. It's been a while. Hey, thanks for having me back.

[00:03:36] Don't think that I haven't noticed you doing all these movie episodes without me. I've been keeping score. I've been taking names. I'm not happy. All right, so what's the deal with this one? Who are these gumshoes at Data Collado just working tirelessly to preserve scientific integrity?

[00:03:54] Who do all this sleuthing to uncover this stuff? This is three guys, Uri Simonson, Joe Simmons, and Leif Nelson. And they do their own research as well, but kind of a sideline is doing methods in psychology.

[00:04:12] So I think the most cited paper in psych science ever is their 2012 paper about p-hacking, in which they, I believe, actually coined that term.

[00:04:22] So they showed in that paper that if you follow the reporting practices that were prevalent at the time, which meant that there's a lot of stuff that didn't go into the write-up, you could basically present anything at all as statistically significant.

[00:04:35] So they presented a study showing that listening to songs made you either older or younger, depending on the song. It was a big deal and a cool paper and had a big impact.

[00:04:45] And they have a blog, Data Collado, where they talk about, I think broadly stuff around data, quantitative methods, research trustworthiness. And they have a little bit of a sideline in talking about fraud cases.

[00:04:59] And the first one I think that they really blew up, that they looked at, was this paper that Dan Ariely, a friend of this show, was a co-author on, that ultimately ended up being retracted.

[00:05:11] So this was a paper in PNAS, a very high-profile journal, that purported to show that people are more honest when they sign before they make some declaration than afterwards. And it turns out that the field study in that paper was fabricated.

[00:05:24] And it's still not quite clear by whom. Dan worked with an insurance company. They may have done it. On the other hand, you know, he may have done it. He denies it, obviously. This paper was three studies.

[00:05:34] That field study, which was the basis of the retraction, that was the third. There were two other studies in that paper, both run by Francesca Gino. Those were lab studies, so with I think undergraduates, the both of them.

[00:05:45] And it turns out that independently those studies also were falsified. So this paper about honesty independently had three fabricated studies in it. You would be like such a hack if you tried to write this up. To write the script? Yeah, it's way too on the nose, right?

[00:06:04] Yeah, yeah. So I should be clear, you know, people sometimes distinguish between fabrication and falsification. So like fabrication might be you just completely make up the numbers, whereas falsifying might be altering data, right?

[00:06:16] And that's I think what's alleged to have happened in these first two studies is that the data were altered. Do you see an ethical difference between those two? No. Fraud is fraud, I think.

[00:06:28] I mean we were talking literally like five minutes before we started recording about the difference between p-hacking, even sloppily p-hacking and fraud. And I think there's a moral difference there.

[00:06:40] But fraud, whether you do what was accused – Francesca is being accused up here of like dragging and dropping numbers from one column to the other. Like it doesn't make any difference whether or not that was typed in.

[00:06:51] And fabrication is like more work because you actually have to just come up with plausible sounding numbers, whereas you already get those and then you can just manipulate them a little bit. Right.

[00:07:01] Yeah, I mean although if you alter you do have to run the study, right? So that's more work. That's true, yeah. That's right, because Stoppel was just sitting there with a glass of wine typing numbers into Excel. I don't think I knew that.

[00:07:11] He just never even ran the studies. No, no. He never did. That's the fuck. And this is something that people are accusing Gino of as well, of being like, hey, I'll run that study for you.

[00:07:22] Which is pretty unusual for a senior person to just be like, oh, I'll collect those data, right? And that's what he would do. He would collect data for his students, which, you know, I mean, yeah, if you've ever – this just seems completely ridiculous.

[00:07:34] Like the students collect data for us. That's how it works. Right. And in fact, for listeners who may not know or remember, Yoel was a key figure in bringing Stoppel to justice at the University of Tilburg.

[00:07:49] Yeah, so that was two grad students who were there at the time. Yeah. So Yoel is very familiar with this kind of sleuthing as well as being friends with the guys from Data Colada.

[00:07:58] Remind us what you did, like just the three key bullet points and what you did for Stoppel. So we looked for internal inconsistencies. So if you're just fabricating, you're just inventing data, it's actually hard to make them consistent in the way that they're supposed to be.

[00:08:16] So it might be a scale, for example, has four items in it. And what you want to do is you want the average value to be higher here or lower there.

[00:08:23] If you're just generating by hand without using an algorithm or anything, it's hard to make the items correlate the way that they should. So, for example, that would be one thing, like scales that showed a really strong effect with respect to the manipulation.

[00:08:32] But there it's called reliability, just how well did those items correlate with each other was basically at zero. So how does that happen? Yeah, you're just sitting there like typing in numbers, trying to make the average equal something higher here or something over there.

[00:08:44] The other stuff that he would do, which is odd because he was just inventing, is he would sometimes like duplicate rows. So you'd literally see entire rows that were repeated throughout the data set. He started phoning it in. He couldn't be bothered to do all that typing.

[00:08:57] It's like if a Danny McBride character was doing a psychology. It was not the most competent data faking. And it just speaks to how there was no oversight, there was no auditing.

[00:09:10] You really didn't need to worry that somebody was going to be looking through your data files, trying to find implausibilities. It's just like nobody was thinking to do such a thing. Here's one egregious example of the lengths to which he was going.

[00:09:26] So you all just said that he was claiming to collect the data, but to keep the pretense going, he would fill up a box with questionnaires.

[00:09:35] Say he's going to a local elementary school to collect the data and actually print them out, copy them and take whatever, you know, we give like candy in exchange for completing whatever, pencils, whatever.

[00:09:48] Be like logo, load up his trunk while everybody's looking at him like, oh, I'm going to go collect the data for this study and then just go home, have a glass of wine and type numbers into Excel. I think we talked about that.

[00:09:56] I have a very like image in my mind if this was film of him kind of dancing around the room with all these questionnaires and like a dash here, a dash here, a check mark there and there, you know, like to classical music.

[00:10:11] I picture more like Tom Cruise with the sunglasses sliding across the wooden floor. Yeah, so that's not what's alleged to have happened here. In the Geno case, it looks like somebody really did collect the data. They're from real people, but then that the data were tampered with.

[00:10:28] And the data collada folks a year ago went to Harvard with this evidence about four papers that they suspected had their data altered. That convinced Harvard to launch an investigation internally. At this point, the investigation is done.

[00:10:45] They've written a 1200-page report, which nobody outside of Harvard has seen as far as I know. And Geno is on leave and they're requesting the retraction of these papers. So what I take from all that is that these allegations are correct, right? That these data actually were untrustworthy.

[00:11:03] And I think important to know, many of these data were collected using Qualtrics, which is like a survey hosting platform. You have your surveys hosted on your institutional Qualtrics. So Harvard pays for Qualtrics account for its researchers. They can see all your surveys and results, right?

[00:11:19] So it would be trivial for Harvard to take the surveys that correspond to those published studies and to just compare, right? Does the raw data deviate from the data that were shared as the data underlying the studies, right? It's actually very easy if you have that.

[00:11:36] So the fact that Harvard seems to have decided, yeah, this is legit makes me think that these things that they're talking about in the blog as being potential indicators of fraud did end up actually being indicators of fraud.

[00:11:49] So evaluate this not just based on what they put out on the blog, but on the fact that Harvard having all of these resources and this ability to really check the results has decided that these papers need to go.

[00:12:00] Which is an important thing to say in this case because already there have been some people who accused the data collateral guys of jumping the gun, right? From the work that they've shown, I think they dot every I and cross every T.

[00:12:18] I don't think they would do that. The fact that they handed over to Harvard and Harvard reached this conclusion with that big report matters because it just corroborates that whatever analysis these guys did turns out to be right.

[00:12:31] And I don't even think you need the Harvard analysis from what I saw, but I'm pretty much a novice when it comes to that stuff. And so, but let me play devil's advocate you all that these are your boys. Who died and made them cops?

[00:12:48] Well, the thing is that we're all the cops. That is our job as scientists, right? We tell the public, you should trust us because we check each other's work. That is our pitch to them.

[00:12:59] That's why we say you ought to believe the scientific consensus rather than I don't know what RFK Jr. is telling you. And so it turns out that in this case, when it comes to data fraud, there are no police. There's no formal way of looking for this stuff.

[00:13:13] There's no formal body to whom you can report it. And so it's on the people who work in this field to keep an eye out for this stuff and to follow up on stuff that seems bad. Not everybody's going to be good at that.

[00:13:26] Not everybody's going to have the skills or the inclination for it because honestly, it's not something that I would recommend an early career person do because people do get mad at you. And there aren't really formal rewards for it.

[00:13:37] But I say if people are motivated to volunteer to do this stuff, God bless them. We need that. Clearly you need it. Like this stuff has been going on for so long and it's probably just a drop in the ocean, right?

[00:13:51] Like when your question like devil, I know is devil's advocate, but I don't even understand the reasoning behind the question. It's like somebody who has expressed disdain for snitches. I think you can see where the question comes from.

[00:14:07] Well, so if that's the idea, if the idea is don't snatch, the idea is keep it in house, take it up to take it upon yourself. Like there's not even pressure being put. You're not getting years shaved off your sentence.

[00:14:19] You're like volunteering your time to ruin people's careers. So so to speak. But people who have fabricated, like who are just committing like purportedly. That's the whole point, though. Like you don't know until you find it. They've started.

[00:14:34] Obviously they volunteered to find it before they know that it's true. Well, true. That's right. But then Yoel says if there's if there's no institutional body that's doing it, it seems like you have to do it as internally as a field.

[00:14:49] And it's going to have to be from people just trying to maintain the integrity of the field as a whole. Yeah.

[00:14:57] You know where I kind of agree with this line of thought is I do think you could say it might be in some cases irresponsible to publicize these sorts of allegations if you're not confident enough. Right.

[00:15:08] And David, you and I have been involved in a case where we I am personally 100 percent convinced that data were fabricated and we couldn't prove it to the point where we were comfortable going public with it or even going to the institution with it. So we dropped it.

[00:15:23] We alerted that we alerted. We alerted coauthors. But that was it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to be fair, like I don't obviously I don't believe what I say. Like I think the data guys are doing the Lord's work in this.

[00:15:34] And I do like Francesca is a friend of mine, although I haven't talked to her in a long time. And like it it actually pains me.

[00:15:40] Like it actually I'm kind of I was telling you all like I'm kind of like just like upset about the situation because I didn't think and this is the problem with this shit.

[00:15:51] You just never think that people are capable of because the whole endeavor depends on people signing up to do this because there have some level of honesty about what it is they're doing.

[00:16:02] And it blows my mind that anybody is going to be like, here's how I'm going to make myself famous. I'm going to like choose like a career in this like field that already has like very questionable impact on the world and research papers and research practice.

[00:16:19] I'm going to publish papers about things that like might not even matter if they're true and fake them. Except that it's not that hard to understand. She was getting 50 to 100 thousand dollars for speaking gigs. You don't get that? Yeah, I mean look the incentives are there right there.

[00:16:40] There's real money at the high end. And even if you're like okay I'm not going to fake that dramatically and I'm going to settle for a comfortable job at a state school. That's a pretty damn good job.

[00:16:50] Like this is a pretty easy job if you don't actually have to do the research. And so yeah, why aren't we being overrun by people who are drawn to this and are like wow it's so easy to fake. Nobody checks up on you.

[00:17:04] Can I give my conspiracy theory which is in part an answer to this question? Yes. But it goes deeper than that. I don't think you guys will love this but I think- We're losing you as a rational human being. Wait I want to hear this. This is sad.

[00:17:18] I want to hear this. I think Francesca Gino is taking one for the team here. I think like whoever is in charge, the Illuminati psychology people, big psychology, whatever.

[00:17:31] They set it up so every few years there's a big fraud case that raises eyebrows about research and psychology and all of that. In order to distract from the deeper methodological problems in the field.

[00:17:45] So it's like Weebay at the end of season one of The Wire just copping to like every murder he could think of to protect the Barksdale family.

[00:17:53] It's actually pretty admirable because you think like oh my god, there are these famous detectives, you know, like these guys at Data Collada and they are on the case. So besides these fraud cases and the replication crisis, this is where it takes it to another level.

[00:18:09] Everything is fine. Nothing going on. The replication crisis similarly is allowed to come to light by these people, the Order. Again, in order to distract from the potentially fatal methodological flaws that are at the edifice of the whole field.

[00:18:28] That's I think if you want to stay friends with Francesca Gino like there is something kind of honorable about what she's doing. Only because like there's like below 50% of your mind believes what you just said.

[00:18:43] But like a way higher number that I want to be true believes what you just said. Can I just say 10% of my mind. You've probably spent more time watching The Wire than you have spent reading the blog that showed that Francesca was faking her data.

[00:18:56] To the very measurement problem. That's not like there were five seasons of The Wire. How closely did you expect me to read the blog post?

[00:19:07] To the whole like the only reason you even think that there are methodological and measurement problems is because psychologists themselves have bothered to point it out. And like the data collada guys bothered to do the p-hacking thing that like surely convinced you that there are problems. Right.

[00:19:23] So it's like we're doing all the work here. You're just like following along somehow. I didn't say that I was like an important part of this. No, no, no. But psychologists themselves are the ones who are undermining the very thing that you think that we're protecting. Sure.

[00:19:40] Like, you know, that's always the case when a big conspiracy is exposed. It's the people internally that bring it to light. I kind of wish that were true.

[00:19:51] I mean, like I wish that this like theory, which basically requires that like by focusing people on this, you're making them in some ways like the field more than they would otherwise or ignore other problems more than they would otherwise. I wish that were true.

[00:20:05] I really don't think it is. I think now people think, oh, there are a bunch of p-hackers and also some people make up their data and those people don't get caught for decades. And it just like it really it looks terrible. I thought there were four things wrong.

[00:20:16] Yeah, exactly. Now there's an extra indictment, right? I mean, it sucks. It sucks mostly for students and collaborators, but it also sucks for all of us who are trying to do things honestly and now who are tainted by association with these kinds of large scale frauds.

[00:20:31] You know what? Like the analogy almost beat for beat is like performance enhancing drugs in like cycling or something like that. You have this group of people like at the top of their profession and all of a sudden like, you know, there's all this downward pressure.

[00:20:45] Well, if we're going to be a little loose about our practices, then we all have to do it just to keep up. So there's built in like rationalizations already. And it's probably in the same thing when you're looking at the motivation of those people.

[00:20:57] It's like these little incentives can just get you gradually a step away from actually doing it honestly. Yeah. And there's no reason to think that that's true only in psychology, right? There's these incentives to do fraud or to p-hack. They're present in lots of disciplines.

[00:21:20] So and, you know, people have found fraud in biology, in medicine, in other fields as well. Medicine is a huge problem in medicine. Yeah. And at least look, at least we're just giving people bullshit advice based on our fraudulent research, right?

[00:21:34] Like we're not, we're probably not killing anybody. You're not like bombarding them with chemicals. Right. Exactly. I mean, we'd try. Yeah, nobody would. The IRB always funds that. That's a study you want to run. Right. No, but I think Tamler, what you said is exactly right.

[00:21:50] And like push the analogy even further that there really is a sense that I can tell palpably in my, even my students who are by and large super into rigor. Like in trying their best to be transparent and stuff.

[00:22:04] You take a look at the people who are publishing like 10 million things a year. And you're just like, you're just like the up-and-comer who sees Lance Armstrong winning everything. And you know, like you just know in your heart of hearts that he's not doing it barely.

[00:22:18] So you're just like, okay, do I run the risk of never having a real career in this field, in this sport, in this discipline? And keep doing what I'm doing honestly? And maybe wait for those guys to like get taken down?

[00:22:34] Or do I just start p-hacking myself, you know? You know, because otherwise you can't, you can't survive in it. Like there was a time in cycling where if you weren't doing drugs, there was just no way you could be successful as a professional at it.

[00:22:50] And what people like Francesca are accused of doing is even in my mind worse. It would be like Lance Armstrong, you know, sneak, starting the race and then sneaking in a car, taking a shortcut and finishing the race. Like in the Boston Marathon.

[00:23:05] The woman who took the subway. I love that. She took the green line. And it's Allison's analogy because the thought that this, that woman might have had in the Boston Marathon is like, no one's really looking. Like there are tons of people running the marathon.

[00:23:21] And that has to be what's going on with the fraud, which is there were errors that if correct are such rookie mistakes. The thought must be no one's ever going to bother looking because once they bother looking, like house of cards, dude.

[00:23:34] Like it's so, it's so easy to spot if you know where to look now. I will say once you know where to look, like having spent some time at like actually looking, it's a lot of work. And I can see why people aren't usually motivated to do this.

[00:23:50] It's just like people have better ways to spend their time. And I get that. Tamler, I'm curious, Tamler, from your perspective, what the rate of fraud is in, I mean take psychology, but like, I don't know. What percentage of researchers do you think have engaged in outright fraud?

[00:24:08] Like what Francesca Gino's accuses. Yeah, that level. Yeah. I wouldn't think it was that high actually.

[00:24:17] Like I do think there are a lot of cheaters in life, but you know, I would think that the more alarming percentages were more at the level of using the methods flexibility to get a more desired result. But I wouldn't think, yeah, I don't know.

[00:24:38] But I wouldn't think that that's the biggest problem. Like I said, I think that's a more surface problem with not, and it's not just psychology. I think a lot of the social sciences, but then also like medicine. What do you guys think?

[00:24:50] Well, so my guess would be low single digits of researchers percentage have ever altered or fabricated data. Outright fraud. The Leslie John and Drajan Prelik and George Lorenstein paper where they're estimating the prevalence of different undesirable research practices in psychology.

[00:25:11] And they have a fancy mathematical method by which they say they can get around the fact that you're not likely to say, hey, I did fraud. Right? So their estimate based on that method is like between one and 2%.

[00:25:22] So I'd say like in that order of magnitude would be my guess. That seems plausible. Yeah. Because like also you don't want to overly like you don't give the people the impression that really everybody's doing it right?

[00:25:32] Like I mean, like David was saying, but maybe really people do think like, well, fuck it. You know, if everybody else is doing it, YOLO. Yeah. And plus they probably believe that their hypothesis is true. You know, like. That was clearly Mark Hauser's motivation. Right.

[00:25:49] When he got caught, it was like that was actually in retrospect a fairly tame version of fraud where he just like altered a couple numbers because of the. Coding. It wasn't quite significant and yeah.

[00:25:59] And because he was like, wow, like this has to be true right from everything I know about. Right. Yeah. So if you think that and they know that if they like ran it again, maybe it would be significant. You know, I could see it.

[00:26:16] You know, what's kind of crazy to me is that these authors like themselves posted the data on whatever open science and the authors were involved in an attempt to replicate their own findings and reported that they failed to replicate them.

[00:26:37] So so either this was being driven by the good co-authors, quote unquote, or it's just all like a fucking smokescreens. Like, yeah, like misdirection in keeping with my conspiracy theory. No, no. Very different. These are the same people trying to keep. Has she released any statement?

[00:27:02] Not that I've seen. No, I would guess that she's under legal instruction to not say anything at this point. If I had to guess. Yeah. What's going to suck is like when either you or I get caught. Yeah. For all we talked. I will. For me especially.

[00:27:20] You know, because I believe that you two would never do this, that you have like a real. It just seems to me like it's so not worth it. And I think maybe I like I'm not under the pressures of a career like somebody like Francesca. I just can't.

[00:27:35] I don't think I could be bothered like if I'm not. You know, we have shitty weak findings that I'm fine with. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you said, this is a good job. Like, you know, like without, you know. Right.

[00:27:51] You know, you get the financial incentives for somebody like Gino to fabricate. For somebody like us, it's just I don't feel it would be worth it, to be honest. And it sort of contradicts what I said earlier.

[00:28:02] But like for me personally, it's just the reason that I do this and like deal with all the annoyance of the research and publication process is like we're supposed to be doing something real. And if you're like just making it up, it just seems like what's the point?

[00:28:12] It's like doing the cheat code where you get like invincibility or infinite lives or whatever. Like the game's not fun. Yeah. Yeah. It's like playing Soma on safe mode. I've been still dying. Still dying. And the stress of it.

[00:28:26] Like, you know, like because I'm sure there's a good four or five months where you know this, you just have this like sort of Damocles hanging over your head at any time. Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't Staple like relieved? So he said, I don't know.

[00:28:41] This is all like how much do you trust a self-report of a serial fabricator? But. Why? It's like a trustworthy guy. It must be incredibly stressful, particularly once you feel them closing in. Dostoevsky wrote a whole novel. Right.

[00:28:57] Like if these are true, how often do you think she's done this? The data collada people say possibly dozens of papers. Wow. Yeah. It's going to be just for like I really feel for the coauthors. It's going to be a huge fucking mess.

[00:29:13] Like cleaning all of this up, like anything that she touched is going to be suspect. How do you tell whether the data from a study that she ran are reliable or not?

[00:29:22] Like I don't think there's it's going to be very tough to say that they are right to assure yourself like to be the amount of confident that you would need to be that those data haven't been altered.

[00:29:33] And then it might be that you end up retracting a paper where like she contributed one study that's now suspect that might not even have been falsified. Right? It's such a cluster. Now the burden of proof is more on. Right?

[00:29:46] I mean maybe there's things you can do by going back to our Qualtrics and like Harvard presumably did and comparing, you know, the raw data from Qualtrics but it's older. We're just not set up for this. We're not.

[00:29:55] Like it would become like a completely it's not scalable right now like to mistrust most work that's put out there. You know? But like the amount of work that it would take and there could be structural solutions.

[00:30:11] I was talking about this and just saw I think you're tweeting about it. You know, I think it would be ideal if Qualtrics if you could like once you collected data Qualtrics could verify that you haven't touched it in that gets automatically published.

[00:30:26] There are ways in which you could try to combat this but all of this is like assuming that problem than it is and it would take a ton of resources and time and probably altruism that people aren't willing to put in it.

[00:30:39] So, so it's like a you know, it's like any game theory where a population of cheaters can be can be stable right? Like where you just have a stable population of cheaters. It does seem like you could take some steps though as a field.

[00:30:55] I mean, maybe we could just inquire we could even inquisit. We could call it a grand inquisition of sorts. I mean, like to give a little bit more of a pitch for this. So if you imagine something like we want to archive data at the earliest possible stage.

[00:31:11] So that might be like it's on Qualtrics servers, you know, the way it's come in from the participants or maybe the output from inquisit or whatever other like experiment software that you're running locally and that needs to be archived for any paper that's published. Right?

[00:31:24] And ideally that would be through like the Qualtrics API so that they can vouch for hey, this hasn't been tampered with at all. But then it's not just fraud that you might detect by having that sort of a system.

[00:31:35] It also I think much more common than fraud is just innocent mistakes. You know, you accidentally delete some observations and forget about it or something like that. Like there's a lot of manual data cleaning that still happens right?

[00:31:46] Like what we were talking about with the genomics where Excel switched numbers because it automatically converted what they thought was a string value to like a date. Right, right, right, right. Excel wants to call everything a date, right?

[00:31:58] There's all sorts of like mistakes that you can make that are totally innocent that happen between when the data are collected and the data file that you would probably post on like the OSF or something like that.

[00:32:08] And having that be auditable and checkable I think would be valuable even if we're not worried about fraud per se. I think we should do all of those things. I guess what I'm saying though is that even in an instance where you have all of those

[00:32:21] checks in place so that if you do express concern about any given thing you can go look at it, it's still like you have to make the choice to look at it. So like let's use pre-registration as an example.

[00:32:32] Thousands of studies have been pre-registered now and so that's all available. You can go and look at someone's pre-registration. How many people have gone and looked at pre-registrations? It's low because the work is still there to be done.

[00:32:44] Even if the information is there, like let's say this, even if the data is there, the information isn't. Right? Yeah. Right. And all of this is just more stuff that would need to be checked by somebody. And like we talked about right now who is somebody?

[00:32:57] It's whoever decides to volunteer their time outside of all the stuff that they're already doing. There is the Dutch problem I'll call it. Yeah. Like they're assholes. Yeah.

[00:33:09] There are people that make this all harder for lots of people because they're very disagreeable people who either don't know how to communicate their concerns without being like needlessly callous or accusatory, or they're people who get off on the schadenfreude of pointing out other people's errors.

[00:33:35] And I think none of the Data Cloud guys are like this at all. But there has to be a little bit of policing of the police too, right? That's not the problem. Yeah. No, no. It's just an additional problem.

[00:33:48] I think that you can differentiate between people who have bad tone and who are jerks, which I do think that's not savvy and that they should stop. And people who just make a lot of wild accusations, those people exist too for sure.

[00:33:58] And I think those people very quickly get ignored. Like about conspiracy theories? Yeah, exactly. Oh, it's on this conspiracy theory thing again. I don't know, just quietly roll our eyes. Sweep it under the rug. Distract the listeners from what's really going on. Anyway. It's working.

[00:34:16] My point was Dutch people in general. I wasn't singling out any Dutch people in psychology. Dutch people in general are assholes. Yeah, yeah. They're very like bad willed people. No, and there's where I agree with the distinction that you all made.

[00:34:32] Like there are people who do a good job and who don't know how to communicate it well. The reason that it's top of mind to me right now is because I personally like I'm fine with fairly disagreeable people. That's why I'm friends with you all in Tamblr.

[00:34:44] But there is a very vocal contingent of people who believe that the whole enterprise is undermined because of the behavior of some of the most vocal accusers. And I think you're right Tamblr, you should separate the two. You should be able to separate. If it's wrong, it's wrong.

[00:35:05] Like it doesn't matter. But there is a subtle PR aspect to the whole endeavor. And the Data Colada guys are actually very, I think, savvy about the PR aspect of it. At least in the way that they're careful about what they say.

[00:35:19] Yeah, I get that sense too just from reading them and not at the expense of giving the facts and telling it straight. All right.

[00:35:28] When we come back, we are going to give you an exclusive report about practices of a more political nature that occurred to our own Yoel Embar. Tragedy upon tragedy. A real downer of an episode. Yeah. Go into philosophy students. Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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[00:41:24] Thank you so much. We are so appreciative. We're so grateful for everything that you do. Now let's get back to the episode. Okay, now let's talk about what we brought Yoel on here to talk about. Not just fraud, but an experience that he recently went through.

[00:41:39] And I have to say, I was disheartened when he first told me the story. So the story is in a nutshell, and we'll let Yoel tell it. The experience of applying to a job at the UC system.

[00:41:54] And we, Tamler and I, have been wanting to have you on for quite some time to talk about it. Let's just let you dive into the story. So to just give you the context, my girlfriend and I have been together for a while,

[00:42:08] and we're in separate cities, and she's also an academic psychologist. So we're about a five, six hour drive apart right now. And she interviewed for and got a job at UCLA. So they made her an offer. She's actually pre-tenure.

[00:42:23] Actually a really good offer with tenure in UCLA Psych. And they were extremely excited about her. And so as the negotiations around that continued, she said, Hey, I have a partner. Would you consider him for a partner hire? And the chair said, send over the materials.

[00:42:41] So I sent my research statement and CV and that stuff over. And based on that, they seemed very enthusiastic. So they were like, he should definitely fly out. And they said to her, my girlfriend, in fact, you might want to come with him

[00:42:54] so that you can both start looking for a place here together. That's how enthusiastic they were. And it happened not to work for her schedule, so she didn't. But that was on the table and something that they were encouraging us to do.

[00:43:06] So really to kind of think of this as something where we ought to be strongly considering this as an option for us both. So I went out there in early, well, actually, yeah, late January. So beginning of this year.

[00:43:23] And I did a two-day visit, so I had a bunch of meetings. I gave a research talk. I thought that all went quite well. And sometimes there's meetings where people are really kind of interrogating you

[00:43:35] or you can tell that they're skeptical and they might want to try and test you in some way. And these were not those sorts of meetings. It was more like, here's why it's great to live in LA. Here's why this is a great department. Recruiting. Yeah, right.

[00:43:48] I think it's fair to say it's a recruiting visit. The talk itself, I felt like went quite well. Full room, good questions. Nobody was especially critical or anything like that. And then I flew back after the two-day visit.

[00:44:05] And I really honestly, I felt like I had nailed it. Like the meetings all went well. The talk went well. There was one, well, two strange things that happened during the visit. The first is that UCLA, I believe starting this year,

[00:44:18] has a mandatory interview with two representatives of their diversity committee. Those are both faculty members. And they asked me kind of a standard set of questions. So, you know, how do you think about teaching diverse populations? How do you think about mentorship?

[00:44:32] Do you think your research has to do with diversity and so on? All fine. And then at the end, one of them said, look, it's been brought to our attention that on an episode of your podcast, you say some things that are critical of diversity statements.

[00:44:46] And I wonder whether you're prepared to defend that here in front of us. And to be honest, I wasn't because this episode is like four and a half years old. But I said, you know, well, here's what I think about diversity statements now,

[00:44:58] which the very short version is, I think that the goals are good, but I don't know if the diversity statements necessarily accomplish the goals. So I'm skeptical. Can you really quickly, can you remind me in that episode four or whatever, four and a half years ago,

[00:45:11] was that brought on because the UC system was starting to? Yes, and it was specifically UCLA. So we did in that episode, we talked about UCLA starting to require it. So I gave them my answer and they seemed satisfied with that.

[00:45:22] And then one of them said kind of almost apologetically, well, you know, we have some very passionate graduate students here, which is great, but what would you say to them if they were upset about this?

[00:45:33] And I was like, I mean, I don't know, I guess what I just told you, I don't really know what else I would say except for like, here are my actual views. So that was like a little bit odd.

[00:45:43] And it was especially weird because this episode came out, yeah, four and a half years ago now. And the second kind of weird thing is in the meeting with graduate students, which is something that they do, that's quite standard. Mostly I thought it was fine, it was normal.

[00:46:00] They asked me some questions, I asked them some questions. There was one grad student, talked kind of extensively about how bad the department was, how much racism there was, how there were abusive professors, how the administration was letting all that slide,

[00:46:12] which is in a recruitment visit is strange, right? So I kind of walked out of that being like, I'm not sure what was going on there. And it seems like there's more context here that I'm not aware of, but didn't think that much more of it.

[00:46:25] Maybe mentioned it to a couple of the faculty that I had dinner with, like, wow, that turned into sort of an intense conversation. I'm not quite sure what that was. And they said essentially, well, this strike is really the UC grad students had all been on strike.

[00:46:38] And they were like, yeah, the strike really, you know, caused some really hard feelings. It's been tough in the department and, you know, things are still getting back to normal. Can you give brief background about the strike? Yes. So UCY, the graduate students struck for higher wages.

[00:46:53] And they won. They got substantial raises. It was a grade strike. Is that right? Yeah, they weren't doing any work, right? Including grading. And apparently this is all secondhand, but at UCLA particularly got really contentious.

[00:47:04] And like to the point where there was like bad blood between some of the faculty and some of the students. Faculty, like get pissed if they have to grade. They do not enjoy grading. Right. Yeah. As a rule, they're not fans.

[00:47:18] And anyway, so I flew home at the end of that two-day visit thinking things had gone really well. I swapped some positive emails with people there, including the chair of the search committee. And it all felt like, you know, this is locked in, right?

[00:47:30] So that was a Tuesday. Wednesday, I didn't hear anything. Thursday, somebody from UCLA who I hadn't met, who I didn't know, emailed me and was like, you really should see this. And he sent me an open letter that was written, I believe spearheaded by the graduate student

[00:47:49] who had been in the meeting and who had sort of stood out on the basis of their behavior, but then signed on to by quite a number of other UCLA psychology graduate students, so I think 60 plus in the end.

[00:48:02] And this letter said, and I guess we'll get into the contents, basically that I was unhirable there because of stuff that I had said on my podcast, specifically questioning diversity statements in a different episode in which I argued that SPSP, our professional organization,

[00:48:22] shouldn't take political stands around abortion. So I said, I'm personally pro-choice, but I don't think it's the job of our professional organization to take such a stand, a pro-choice stand. And on the basis of that, the letter said, and this is a direct quote from it,

[00:48:38] that I would threaten ongoing efforts to protect and uplift individuals of marginalized backgrounds. Can I read the letter, the beginning part? Yeah, please. Say the first half of the letter? Yeah. Okay. Dear doctors, the committee, we, the undersigned students, write to strongly recommend

[00:48:53] against the hiring of Dr. Yoel Imbar as a tenured faculty in the psychology department. We feel that serious consideration of Dr. Imbar directly conflicts with the values and standards we uphold as an institution and department committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

[00:49:06] We believe that Dr. Imbar would not enter the social area as a member committed to creating a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment, and that his hiring would threaten ongoing efforts to protect and uplift individuals of marginalized backgrounds. Our concerns were initially raised by Dr. Imbar's podcast,

[00:49:21] Two Psychologists, Four Beers. Link in the description. In each of the episodes, he discusses various topics relating to current events in academia, including but not limited to diversity statements, anti-racism in psychological organizations, sexism and racism on college campuses, freedom of speech, polarization, and conservatism in psychology.

[00:49:39] As he has 101 episodes, we do not intend this to be a comprehensive overview of his podcast content. Rather, critical episodes we would like to draw your attention to towards are episode 15, just when you think you're out, and episode 92, should SPSP stay out of it.

[00:49:53] Most concerning to us as students is Dr. Imbar's opposition to institutions endorsing positions on sociopolitical issues he has deemed, quote, contentious or, quote, controversial. In particular, he takes a strong stance against promoting DEI initiatives through the use of diversity statements and DEI criterion to evaluate research.

[00:50:09] He also takes a firm position against the use of diversity statements as a tool in the hiring process and specifically criticizes their use in the University of California system's faculty application process. In episode 15, he remarks that his, quote, skepticism about these diversity statements is they sort of

[00:50:25] seem like administrator value signaling. Which is undeniable. Trivially true at this point. By the way, Joel submitted one, right? Oh yeah, absolutely. You actually submitted one for the talk, right? Yeah, you gotta do it. Yeah, gotta do it. You gotta do it.

[00:50:38] It is not clear what good they do, this is still quoting, it is not clear what good they do, how they're going to be used. He continues, to lots of people on the left, diversity is such an obviously positive thing.

[00:50:48] And says that the left fails to acknowledge that these statements, quote, signal an allegiance to a certain set of beliefs, end quote. These comments frame diversity statements as a threat to ideological diversity and reflect a lack of prioritization of the needs and experience of historically marginalized

[00:51:03] individuals across the lines of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. In contrast, our institution's position on this issue is unequivocal. Page one of the UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion FAQ proclaims equity, diversity, and inclusion are integral to how the University of California conceives of merit.

[00:51:20] So before we get onto the second part, do you want to talk at all about? Yeah, I mean, I would encourage people to go back and listen to the episode, first of all. I mean, this is over an hour of us talking and,

[00:51:31] you know, you can pull out selective quotes that make me sound like I'm a rabid anti-diversity statement person, which I'm really not. But I do think, you know, we were on that episode questioning, do they do what they're purported to do?

[00:51:45] And I think that I had those concerns then, and I still have them now. And kind of briefly, what those concerns are is what you want is somebody who's going to be able to teach and to mentor people from diverse backgrounds.

[00:52:00] But what you get is somebody writing about what they believe and perhaps what they've done to demonstrate that. And we know that that is coachable, and that people who read diversity statements, and in the UC this is kind of explicit in their coding,

[00:52:17] they read them expecting people to have a background understanding of a set of norms that not everybody does. Right? So if you're talking about international students or people who come from backgrounds where you don't get the background knowledge of this stuff, including working class backgrounds,

[00:52:37] in spite of their like protection of class. Exactly. Right. So the question is, like, is the signal that you get from a diversity statement a good signal or not? Like I am, I do think it's really important to be able to teach to people of diverse backgrounds.

[00:52:54] It's really important to be able to be a good mentor to people of diverse backgrounds. And that does require thinking and sensitivity. I'm not convinced still that diversity statements are a good way to actually measure whether somebody has been doing that or can do that.

[00:53:08] So is there actually signal in there, or is it more noise and bias? And I think that asking whether this thing works, whether this furthers the goal that we have, is super important. I agree with you that it is administration signaling. It is performative to the highest degree.

[00:53:29] I guess if I was defending them, I don't have really strong feelings about whether we should do them or not. If I was defending them, I would say, look, you're getting somebody to say something about what they can bring diversity-wise.

[00:53:42] And of course people are going to make stuff up and they're going to try to game it or they'll be coached, but they're doing that for personal statements. They're doing that for like a large percentage of their application anyway. Doing it for another thing is not necessarily

[00:53:57] the worst thing in the world. And sometimes you might get some good information, but that's my view on that. Your position, which I totally also sympathize with, the idea that that would be something that made it clear that you're not committed to making marginalized people

[00:54:18] feel welcome, it actually is part of the problem. It's like when you put all your attention on this stuff that at best is on the periphery of the actual problem, then you're not focusing on the real issue, which is can EOL actually teach people

[00:54:38] from these backgrounds in a way that will make them feel welcome? So that's what's to me so wrong about what happened. It's like saying the replication badge is not a good indicator of whether you promote the values of open science and then getting really mad

[00:54:56] at you for not promoting the values of open science. For the record, EOL would never say this, and I don't think I've heard him say it since this, but I know for a fact that EOL has mentored exactly these students from exactly these backgrounds

[00:55:10] and done a good job of it. At Toronto, right? One of the most diverse universities in the entire world. Yes, that's all true. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't like to call people out as exiles. No, yeah, because you're right. That's why I'm saying it.

[00:55:22] Because that's almost giving in to the bullshit. That's right? Like your behavior, I think, is fine. If you bother to look at the students that you've mentored, then you might find this out. Ironically, presumably your diversity statement isn't what sussed you out as a suspicious character here. Right.

[00:55:42] You were able to make it through, presumably not raising any red flags because the diversity statement you wrote they probably don't believe is indicative of your actual position on diversity, which is just kind of making the point. Yeah, that his diversity statement, if he hadn't done the podcast

[00:55:59] and all those conversations had just taken place in private, like everything would have been fine with EOL diversity-wise, maybe even have been a plus. Yeah, right, yeah. And so I don't know if it's too early to talk about this, but like Tamler, I've been, to be honest,

[00:56:15] you know, I know you guys argue about this a lot, but I'm more on your side of, well, people should speak up. You know, like, and particularly, you know, if you're tenured or close to it, it's just like, what have you got to lose? Like there's this fear

[00:56:28] that's just disproportionate to the consequences. And this has changed my mind about that a bit, right? So it's not like my partner and I necessarily would have taken this offer. Like I love Toronto. It would have entailed moving my lab. That would have been hard.

[00:56:40] But like this is a real, it's always better to have the offer than not, right? So this is a real opportunity that like we didn't get and we would like to be together. And I don't want people to like cry over this for me.

[00:56:49] I have a great job that I love. I'm very fortunate, right? I'm not, I don't want to play the victim here, but- Right, you're not canceled. Exactly, I'm not canceled. I still have my job. Like you're having me on this podcast. I'm still publishing.

[00:57:01] I still have my lab and my students and everything. But if you're like, hey, is there a cost to opening your mouth about this stuff? Absolutely there is. Would I advise a junior person to take any sort of heterodox position on this publicly? Absolutely not.

[00:57:14] Because you only need to piss off a few people, right? Like it just takes one or two to sink you. Just stay out of it. I see, I don't agree with you on that. I feel like the benefits still outweigh the costs just in terms of your soul.

[00:57:29] And like, I think also people will appreciate that you're somebody who will speak your mind. And if it costs you an opportunity here, it could get you an opportunity somewhere else. You know, I obviously like in my behavior agree with this.

[00:57:44] And for me, like the risk of first thing to do now would be don't talk about it, right? And I'm here talking to you because I, exactly. How many other jobs is this gonna apply? Exactly, right? Good thing I like U of T.

[00:57:58] But yeah, I think to be clear, you just have to be very clear eyed about what it might cost you, right? If you're a junior person without a job or you're pre-tenure, then maybe you really do need to think, yeah, this could cost me opportunities

[00:58:11] or this could prejudice letter writers against me. And I do think there's an asymmetry, particularly in hiring, such that somebody's negative opinion weighs really heavily, much more heavily than somebody's positive opinion. Basically, even if you like your ratio of who likes you

[00:58:27] versus dislikes you as a result of this is favorable, it doesn't matter because the one disliker basically gets a veto. Like, I think that's kind of the norm. You're not gonna hire somebody over the strong objection of, even maybe just one of your colleagues,

[00:58:40] but certainly a group of them. It's just no go. It's not worth it. It's like with this other person you might like almost as much. And so I'll just go with that one and not start a huge fight. Yeah. But like to push on what you said, Tamler,

[00:58:54] like a junior person who very possibly and likely if they get any job offers, it might be one and loses that job offer because they said something on a podcast. Like that's a huge risk. I'm not denying that it's a risk. Like I think it's a risk.

[00:59:12] I said the benefits outweigh the costs. But how could the benefit outweigh the cost if you essentially just never get a job? Well, in that case, it wouldn't. But in what I'm thinking, you are going to be a more attractive person in general

[00:59:28] if you're not watching your words like all the time and worried about like who I might offend or what I'm going to do. That will permeate your personality and it will affect in that way how people see you. That is something in general that people appreciate.

[00:59:44] And then there's just the intrinsic value of not being somebody who constantly strategizing and worried about things politically. Now, I want to be clear. Like if I was Yoel, I might not have this opinion right now. I might think like I just got burned by this fire.

[01:00:00] Don't stick your hand in the fire again. But I feel like I have benefited and I know other people who have benefited from just people thinking, oh, this is who that person is. When it comes to things that they take seriously

[01:00:15] and really believe in and are committed to, what you see is what you get. Like I do think people appreciate that. Yeah, I guess I don't think that it's a case where you either become a disingenuous person or you say all of your opinions about politics.

[01:00:31] It's not that you're a disingenuous person. You're doing a different signaling. But whatever it is that you think people are picking up. Like I think that if you are the kind of person who generally speaks their mind, you still might as a junior person,

[01:00:45] the costs might outweigh the benefits of speaking your mind about a certain small class of specific things that might sink you because one graduate student got mad. And I don't know that I would, obviously I'm like you, in our position,

[01:00:59] I think there's no way I want to live a life where I'm concerned about saying this stuff. But in thinking pragmatically about what to tell one of my students who's on the job market, I think I might tell them don't. But isn't that a little paternalistic?

[01:01:14] You weren't like that. But times were so different though. It's not, I mean, paternalistic if you wanna call it that because a lot of the advice that we give our students, like wear a tie and all that. No, no, yeah, that's not the right word.

[01:01:28] Almost like you can't swing it like I did. But I get what you guys are saying. It's a different era maybe in that way. And that's where it was like a bit of a, it still came as a bit of a shock to me.

[01:01:41] And honestly, I was pissed off. Like damn, you know, you all know. It was like this pissed me off so much. The email is so infuriating. Because it would be one thing, which I still think would be wrong if you all were the kind of person

[01:01:55] who actually was like a little bit actually like pissed off at minorities for getting jobs. But you all isn't like that. So like- We know people who are. We know people who are, yeah. Like we get a few drinks in there and they're like taking our jobs.

[01:02:12] So that's what makes it extra like, and I think what makes it feel even riskier to me where like you would think, because Tamu, you and I say this all the time. Like I think that people can sense where our hearts are about this stuff. That's right.

[01:02:25] But people could take our words, like the way that they spliced Yoel's words in that is like- It's like tar. Yeah, they edited it with like multiple angles. I mean, look, Yoel has IDW adjacent views. And so do we. And so do we. Yeah, it's true.

[01:02:44] But we're not applying out apparently. Clearly not anytime soon. I want to just defend, yes, yes, you're actually taking a risk. And maybe like there is a slight chance that this was your one chance at a job and you blew it because you said this thing

[01:03:04] about like how old somebody should be before they get hormone treatments. Yeah, don't say that. Yeah, and actually don't. Leave that issue alone, actually. Really don't touch that. But there is a chance that that will happen. But there's also all these benefits, which I think are fairly profound.

[01:03:24] And I wouldn't ever want to give them up of not always worrying about what you're going to say. And if you are a good person, and I agree, this is a huge counter example, what happened to Yoel. But if you're a good person,

[01:03:36] just trust that if it doesn't work out here, it's going to work out better there. Yeah, so I think it's right that there's a value to being able to live your life authentically. And there's a reason that I felt like I wanted to talk about this stuff,

[01:03:52] even though I knew that there was some risk to it. I kind of can't help myself. I think separate from that, you can say, does it raise or lower your probability of getting a job to talk about it publicly? And there I think very clearly lowers.

[01:04:06] But then I feel like what you're saying is, well, there's other things that are important too. Do you really want to live your life that way? I am compelled by the point that Yoel was making that one negative voice has the power to derail a job

[01:04:18] more than a positive voice has to promote the job. And because of that, I do think objectively, look, it will depend on what you value. Do you value speaking your mind about a small set of politically charged topics that you don't think you would be being yourself

[01:04:34] if you didn't say it? Do you value that over the chance of getting a job? Maybe, and maybe you should. Like on one reading of what you're saying, Tamler, is maybe you should. Maybe this is not the job for you. I do believe that too.

[01:04:45] That's also separate from just the, like, will this help you or hurt you job? You know, the rogue student who can convince a bunch of students that they're on the right side of history if they have them sign this letter,

[01:04:57] which is, I think, a lot of what happened in Yoel's case, that they have the power to do that, I think disproportionately means, I think it's sage advice to tell one of my students, just think twice about like who you're saying what to.

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[01:07:52] for sponsoring this episode of Very Bad Wizards. So, we went on this long tangent but just to wrap up the story, so I didn't get the job. Oh yeah, then they made me an offer. But still, it was really hard. But that sucked, you know?

[01:08:10] It was very awkward. It was a damn good deal. It was like two weeks where you weren't sure you were going to get the offer. It's really a lot of uncertainty. Yeah, no, so I got the notice from the chair of the department

[01:08:22] that they were not going to go forward with the job that I hired the same day that I got this letter emailed to me. And it was done in sort of an unusual way. So, normally they would send this to a department-wide vote.

[01:08:33] But there is a smaller committee of three people who generally their job is just, as I understand it, write up some notes and send it to the larger department for a vote. I think I understand that in some cases, you know, the case is just hopeless.

[01:08:48] Everybody agreed that this person sucked. And so, this committee can officially give the thumbs down that they don't have to waste everybody's time for a vote. In this case, I know that many people in the department wanted a vote. But the committee, the small committee,

[01:09:01] as is their right, said, no, we're not going to proceed. And the chair chose not to overrule them. So, that's how it was spiked relatively quickly. And I don't know what happened in that room. I don't know what the discussion was. It's possible that, you know,

[01:09:13] some people really hated my job talk and did not ask questions, but like quietly hated it maybe, you know? But probably not. Probably not. You all give a really good job talk. So, it seems likely that this email caused the committee to say,

[01:09:29] this is just too much headache for us. Why borrow trouble? Right? We can always hire somebody else. It might be pertinent that the chair of the committee that said no is the supervisor of the grad student who wrote the letter.

[01:09:41] I don't know how much all of that played in. This is all just speculation from the outside. But, you know, honestly, if I were in this position, I might say the same thing of, we just don't have it in us

[01:09:52] to have another nasty fight with the grad students. The grad students. And it probably appeared to them as though like many, many grad students really had strong objections. I've also heard that this got sent out to the grad students for a signature with like basically two hours notice.

[01:10:05] So, basically sign on to this in the next two hours and we're sending it out. And if you don't sign on... You're a racist. Exactly. Well, we know, and we, you know this for a fact because of a letter that in support of UL

[01:10:19] that got sent out saying... Which we should, I do really want to highlight that too that there was a smaller group of students who I think very bravely wrote a letter saying, you know, no, we don't agree with this. Right.

[01:10:31] Like we don't agree with everything this guy says, but we think that the way he approaches these issues is good. We think that having a respectful conversation about these questions is useful. And this is the kind of teaching that we need here, actually.

[01:10:43] Not very many students, I'll say. But like that makes it even more impressive that the ones that did sign on did that. Right? Like you are really... You're risking a really tense relationship with your peers there. And I'm super impressed with them. And I think that's awesome.

[01:10:57] And yet you've... If they were your students, you would tell them not to do that. Yeah. I mean, I think I agree with you that there is value to like... To not letting things pass when you think that they're unjust. Yeah. And not to distract anymore from this,

[01:11:16] just to be clear what the impact of this is, you wouldn't necessarily have taken it. Maybe you wouldn't have gotten in at the end. But still, this was a place for you and your partner to go. You're living in different cities now.

[01:11:29] You would be living in the same city at a very prestigious place. Like that's a lot to lose for fairly anodyne statements that you made on your podcast. Yeah. Yeah. There was a real cost. And statements that... Yeah. And misinterpretation. Like there's part of this that bothers me

[01:11:48] is the like going to the podcast for, you know, like there's probably... Yeah. Like I could... We should be bothered by that. Yeah, correctly. I will admit that part of what... Maybe this is just how empathy works, but the thought of what would happen to us

[01:12:10] if people really wanted to paint a nasty picture of us did like... We need to like go back through them and just put like big sensor beeps for... Just the entire episode. One long beep. For most of the episodes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Faculty also, some faculty also wrote...

[01:12:29] Absolutely. ...this decision and it caused some friction, I'm sure. I'm sure that was awkward. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not like everybody there was unanimous in thinking that this was disqualifying, that, you know, you can't hire somebody who has these views. Probably most people...

[01:12:45] I mean, from what I heard individually from people there, I think many people were like, I don't see anything wrong with this and I think that this is really unjust. But... Yeah, that's the worst thing. It's like they just... Why start this fight?

[01:12:58] And what's crazy to me is that, again, like it's not... It may be the case that some statements that people make are diagnostic of actual poor fit with the values of an institution like the UC system,

[01:13:11] but I don't think that that's the case here with you at all. It's also true, I think, I don't have data on this, but that most professors that I've ever talked to who are willing to talk in private about what they think about this kind of thing

[01:13:25] express very similar concerns. Just nobody says it in a group meeting. Yeah. Yeah, because why borrow trouble? I think it's probably what most people believe about. Right, right. And that's the way in which... I have complicated feelings about this,

[01:13:38] but that's the way in which IDW people are right. They're not good at coming up with like actual numbers as to how many people are being discriminated against because of wokeness or whatever, but that little just encroachment, that narrowing of people

[01:13:56] feeling like they can say what they believe, that definitely has costs. I also think they contribute to people being terrified about this stuff by constantly writing articles about it and New York Times and The Atlantic or whatever constantly publishing stuff about this. That contributes too to the problem,

[01:14:16] but as this case with Yoel shows, it's not real what's happening. So it's a very complicated situation in that way. Yeah, and beyond just questions of fairness, I think as a social science for us, we want to be trusted by people who don't agree with us politically.

[01:14:35] And if it's like I'm well to the left of the median Democrat, so if I'm a no-go, we're supposed to be speaking to people like the vast majority of the country who's to my right. And I think if we keep doing this sort of stuff,

[01:14:47] people will catch on and we will have no credibility on top of all our other credibility problems. Yeah, right. Like you say. Like if it's any consolation, we didn't trust you anyway. Yeah, exactly. This is just piling on and not really that important. Yeah, yeah.

[01:15:03] I think that's probably correct. Did you know that holding a warm cup makes you actually feel warmer? Yeah, but yeah, I mean, in theory, we're supposed to be generating trustworthy science that people, regardless of their political orientation, can use to make better decisions, right?

[01:15:19] Whether that's personally or in policy. And I think that we will lose even more credibility in the eyes of the public if we keep going in this direction of saying, you know, we're going to exclude almost everybody because their politics aren't sufficiently pure for us.

[01:15:36] I think really people would be right not to trust us. Actually, there's a preprint from Azeem Sharif, Corey Clark, and possibly some other people that shows that when you perceive scientific institutions to be politically biased, even if it's in the direction that you like,

[01:15:52] so I'm a Democrat and I see these institutions as having a pro-left bias, you trust them less, right? So basically you lose the trust of everybody. Like people don't trust institutions that they think are biased, and they probably shouldn't. People shouldn't trust institutions, period. Yes, we're coming back.

[01:16:11] For a lot of reasons. So how do you feel about RFK Jr.? Huge fan. Huge fan, early daughter. He's a— No, but he's asking a good question. Let me read this second paragraph, which is shorter than the first. This is where I have— where they're totally justified

[01:16:31] in not wanting to hire you. So the letter continues, In episode 92, Dr. Embar discusses SPSB's implementation of DEI criteria. SPSB is the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. We're both members. We go to the yearly conference. Implementation of DEI criteria is an additional method of evaluating submissions.

[01:16:52] Dr. Embar highlights that the Society's membership relative to the U.S. population under-represents white people and Hispanic and Black, implicitly undermining and distilling down the complexities of access, structural inequality, and representation in spaces that are historically dominated both in proportion of people and ideological power

[01:17:14] by dominant group members, e.g., white, cisgendered, heterosexual, higher socioeconomic class, etc. He goes on to share his support for quote-unquote affirmative action but states that, quote, there's this other stuff about using certain methodologies and if it's based on critical theory and at that point I'm like,

[01:17:30] come on, I don't think it's the job of the organization to be promoting certain subdisciplines that to me— that to me goes under the scientific quality of the work and that these criteria, quote, give reviewers license to apply their existing political biases. End quote. This misunderstanding

[01:17:46] and or mischaracterization of the function of DEI criteria tells us that Dr. Imbar does not understand nor value the need for an inclusive culture of academia, either interpersonally or intellectually, as a means of broadening and elevating the rigor of our science.

[01:18:02] What was the first part of that, Yoel, that they were saying? Like what was like if you wanted to get in their heads what they're objecting to? I honestly don't understand the criticism. If it's talking about kind of disparities between population prevalence of racial or ethnic groups

[01:18:20] and their representation within the organization, that made them mad and I don't understand why. Yeah, so one of the things that Yoel was— one of the points he was trying to make was and I think it might be related to this was that the policy of saying, well,

[01:18:37] Georgia has these strict anti-abortion laws, we have the conference in Atlanta, we shouldn't have it in Atlanta anymore because of this. And Yoel was saying, well, look, if you want to promote the diversity of SPSB's membership, shouldn't you take into account the fact that actually Hispanics and Blacks

[01:18:59] probably disproportionately— I should say, let me— you got to erase this— Hispanic people and Black people usually actually have historically views that are more conservative on abortion than white people. So aren't you doing a disservice to our very people? And if you think that we should be

[01:19:19] concerned about the proportion of our membership, isn't it concerning that, say, Asians are way overrepresented compared to Hispanics and Blacks in general, right? I guess those are two separate points. They took offense to this. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm super worried about Asian overrepresentation, per se.

[01:19:40] I think— I do think that we underrepresent some groups and that that's bad. And when they said, you know, he voiced his support for affirmative action, like what I was saying was if in the selection criteria we want to say there's these underrepresented groups

[01:19:56] that we want to give a boost to, I think that's 100% defensible. What this whole controversy was about was the organization adding on another layer of you have to write an extra diversity statement and that kind of nebulously can include the subject population of your studies, the researcher identity,

[01:20:14] the kind of methods that you use, and then in some unclear way they give it a diversity score that reflects— that is then used to decide whether to accept the thing or not. So they just recently came out with a report that basically showed that these diversity scores

[01:20:26] actually weren't related to likelihood of acceptance at all. So then you might ask, what's the whole point of the exercise? Right? Which some people took it as like a win. How is that good? You people who were worried about these like actually being problematic for whatever,

[01:20:40] you white cisgendered people. I mean, this is the thing. It added just bullshit bureaucracy that doesn't address the actual problem to them isn't a cost. It's like a virtue. And so it's like, yeah, it didn't actually make it more diverse, but at least people—

[01:21:01] But it demonstrates the values and it makes people think. Yeah, that's literally what people say. And I just— I just get allergic to that. I just get allergic to that stuff. And rightly so. This is like, you know, this is one of the most frustrating things

[01:21:15] about privileged people coming into this space and trying to figure out how to make more work for everybody and not care about like the actual problem and just care about like what we can do to show that we care about the actual problem.

[01:21:32] And like I felt like this stuff was fading. I felt like this stuff is getting exposed for like the Robin DiAngelo bullshit, all this stuff. Like I thought this happening to you in 2020 wouldn't have surprised me as much as it happening now because I thought people were starting

[01:21:52] to like already get a little skeptical as to like what this added bureaucracy and all these new committees and all these new ways of trying to evaluate diversity, like what it was actually accomplishing and realizing, oh wait, this is just a way

[01:22:08] for like managers to make people work more for their image. But like I guess not. I mean, I guess it depends where you look. Yeah. So the other kind of separate part of this is the abortion stuff where just to be clear, I'm personally very pro-choice

[01:22:25] but I just don't think it's the organization's job to be... You just don't think women should... I think it's up to the men who need to make this decision. But yeah, I just don't think that our professional organizations should be taking a public stand on stuff where there's...

[01:22:42] I mean, I think it's one thing if it's the kind of bigotry that we kind of as a society agree is just unacceptable. But if it's a live debated moral issue where there is for example conservative legal scholars or philosophers, not necessarily conservative even who I really respect

[01:23:00] who make pro-life arguments that I think are... They don't ultimately convince me but I don't think they're invalid. So to say taking a pro-life position is just beyond the pale, that strikes me as too far. For the record and to all search committees

[01:23:16] that I may apply to one day, I totally agree. I think it's completely inappropriate on this issue as much as I am appalled by the Dobbs decision. On this issue for a professional organization to say that this is our official position I think it's inappropriate.

[01:23:37] This is, I think, a live moral issue. I always am... Like I don't love when people say it's the conservatives who are really oppressed and they're marginalized. But in this case the small group of pro-life conservative academics... For the record I actually disagree with both of you

[01:23:57] and I had this argument with Yoel. I think that a society that decides to... The crucial issue here was not a statement of belief in political principle. It was like every year we pick a state and we give this state thousands and thousands of our dollars.

[01:24:14] We bring our whole society over, we pay a lot of money, they get something out of it. If we're going to pick states let's pick states that represent something we believe morally because I believe what you believe morally should matter in where you're going to pick. Now,

[01:24:30] in an ideal world I think they should just put that shit up to a vote. If the society overwhelmingly believes that we shouldn't be in Georgia then don't be in Georgia. Who else is going to decide? I think that's perfectly appropriate. They didn't do that.

[01:24:43] They just assume everybody agrees with that. But the membership should decide that. And honestly being a member of SPSP doesn't make or break whether or not I can do social science. So if they do something that pisses me off, if they decided to become a pro-life institution

[01:25:02] and say only support states that were pro-life I would just quit. I would say, fuck you. I obviously don't belong in this society. That's fair enough. I actually think that's a very plausible position. Yeah, right. I think professional organizations can decide to do business

[01:25:19] with some states or entities and not others and that's fine. Which is all fucking beside the point because the fact that you said that is fine. It's a very productive discussion that we just are having right now. The thing is, the position that you shouldn't be allowed

[01:25:35] to have the discussion to me seems fucking crazy. Yeah, yeah. I also, and I take your point also that if you're one of these principled pro-life conservatives that happens to be in psychology you can just quit and be principled about it and that's fine and everybody probably already

[01:25:54] knows you're pro-life anyway. I also disagree with Yoel that I think this makes people trust. That part of it. I do think people are going to trust or not trust psychology independently of what this is stuff that people don't know about that much. Yeah, no, I'm not saying

[01:26:18] this one specific decision. I'm just saying as a general norm we want to stay out of taking ideological stands because it's bad for our credibility. That's one that we should be applying broadly. I'm a little opposed because I don't disagree with anything David said

[01:26:34] but I'm a little opposed to the idea of taking a stand on an issue. I mean, I get it though because I would have been more opposed to it before the Dobbs decision, I guess. After the Dobbs decision it's like maybe this is the time

[01:26:52] to start taking a stand and sending signals and this is something a huge psychology organization like legislators you know, just like saying who are already probably conflicted if reluctant to go along with the party line on this because it's unpopular. Maybe it's a good thing

[01:27:16] to just pile on the things just to give them more incentive to pass some law that will allow women to have abortions in the states. So I guess it's complicated especially after Dobbs because it's an issue. I guess you're right, Yoel. It could exclude some parts

[01:27:36] of your audience who are just like okay, they're just politically they're ideological and so I don't trust what they're saying. I just talked myself out of what I started saying. Great. I mean, I think if you I don't think there's anything about it being a live debate

[01:27:57] that speaks to whether or not like it being a live debate is like it's true that immigration is a live debate. It's true that accepting refugees is a live debate. These are all things that I have no problem taking a firm moral stance on

[01:28:10] whether or not people agree or disagree. Again, it's all yeah, it's all sort of like again beside the point because I don't think that this it's an offensive enough position that it would A, ought to keep you out of being considered for position and B, whether it actually

[01:28:28] reflects anything nefarious racist wrong about Yoel's political beliefs which I just wish they would take in the time to sit and ask him about and not and I feel like a heads up to you that and an opportunity to say like I think you had the

[01:28:44] possibility maybe not a good one but a real possibility of saying like hey, I know you guys might disagree with what I said like I want to at least make clear what it is I believe and what is I don't believe like in this lunch with you

[01:28:56] and then you can decide right like just it's decency to give a heads up about that. Yeah, I mean, I would have really welcomed the opportunity to have a serious conversation about this stuff and yeah, I just feel like it's a missed opportunity and a really

[01:29:16] it's sad kind of the idea of we can't talk to people that we disagree with about what are basically details right? Like we really are in like for all we were disagreeing about like oh what should scientific societies do or not? It's like we're all pro-choice

[01:29:31] right? Like so we really are just talking about details and pro-diversity. It's really pro-diversity. Like do you think this is bureaucratic bullshit or not? It's like that's the question. It really is. Like is this an effective way to promote the goals that we both want?

[01:29:48] And I know that there are some people that don't want it but that's not this like that really isn't. Yeah. Hey, can I ask Yoel and maybe we can sort of end with a discussion of this. Do you have so obviously the UC system is

[01:30:04] a state school and the laws about freedom of speech are pretty strict when it comes to state schools. Do you have any idea whether this runs afoul of law? So I'm obviously I'm not a lawyer. My understanding is that there is a relevant precedent that's about loyalties.

[01:30:21] So in the 50s or 60s the UCs tried to make professors sign a declaration that they weren't communists. And there was a lawsuit about that and the Supreme Court said essentially the government can't require you to espouse a set of political beliefs as a condition for being hired

[01:30:42] or retaining your job. What they can do, of course, is to ask about stuff that's relevant to your ability to do the job. So I would say, you know, given how diverse the undergrad population of the UC is, it's totally relevant to say, is this

[01:30:55] somebody we think is going to be effective at teaching people of different backgrounds? Right. And likewise, is there somebody who's going to be effective at mentoring grad students who come from different backgrounds? Totally relevant. Totally legit, I think, as part of a job application. If you say when

[01:31:10] you write your diversity statement, you have to take X perspective on the right way to do that. You have to adopt the right kind of theoretical ideological orientation. You could say, well, maybe that's compelled speech in the same way that a loyalty oath is. And there's somebody actually

[01:31:24] currently suing UC Santa Cruz on those grounds. Right. I don't know how far that's going to get. I don't know the legal details, but it seems to me as a lay person that once you cross a line into prescribing the way in which people are supposed to

[01:31:36] talk about this, which some of the UCs do seem to have done, then you might be on shaky ground legally. It's fire. I know you're in contact with fire. Like, are they taking this case up in any way? I don't know what you would want to have.

[01:31:51] I mean, I don't know what happened, but like, what's their involvement in this? They were helping me try to access some documents around this. I have no interest in suing anybody. And I think honestly, I'm going to drop the documents thing. I'm done with this.

[01:32:07] And I, you know, I wanted to talk about it publicly, but I don't want this to dominate my life. I don't want to go on a years long crusade against UCLA. I don't particularly resent most of the people there. I think they were trying to do

[01:32:19] the best that they could under kind of a difficult set of pressures. I do think that this is bad for the field. I think we need to have a conversation about, like, is this what we want to be? And that's why I wanted to talk about it publicly.

[01:32:32] But as far as like trying to get something out of UCLA, no, I have zero interest in that. All right. Well, Gen Z, you suck. Cut off our line. I mean, the thing is that the students who wrote the good letter, they're the same generation. They're the same

[01:32:47] background, right? It's not. I've been told that many of the graduate students signed on to that letter without having listened to the podcast, without like really deeply knowing what they were signing on to. And there's a lot of social pressure. The way it was phrased

[01:33:02] put an image that probably you could get in your mind of one of these. This is Jordan Peterson V2. Yeah, exactly. You could get that and then you're both from, you know, it's like I'm not going to go listen to it. That's the problem with the

[01:33:15] podcast. It's like, you're not going to listen. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. Well, I'm incensed and outraged and I'm glad you came on to talk to us. Well, thanks so much for having me on. And I know it's been a long road

[01:33:30] to get here and I wasn't ready to talk about it immediately. So I appreciate your guys' patience and really appreciate you having me on as a especially because Tamler is taking such a strong public stance that now is like totally undermined by this experience.

[01:33:45] It's really big of you. Well, it's just because like I'm a reporter that worked on this story for so long and then to finally see it come to fruition. Like, yes, my all my whole worldview is shattered. But like... Worth it though. Totally worth it.

[01:33:59] Yeah. I appreciate you coming on and talking about it in spite of what you say you'll tell your students like what you're doing right now. Like probably can't help you. I definitely do not take my own advice. That is true. Yeah. Thanks for having me on.

[01:34:13] And I hope to be back soon. Thanks man. Join us next time on Very Bad Wizards.