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The "popular press" section is silly. How is it relevant what SE Cupp's opinion is on this? The section is also misleading: The views referenced do not appear representative or typical of the "popular press" response to the incident.
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On May 29, 2015, LaCour uploaded a response to the criticisms<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.dropbox.com/s/zqfcmlkzjuqe807/LaCour_Response_05-29-2015.pdf?dl=0 | title=Journal retracts response to irregularities in LaCour and Green (2014) | date=29 May 2015 | accessdate=30 May 2015 | author=LaCour, Michael}}</ref> in which he admitted to making false claims about the study's method, including falsely claiming funding support for the study and offering of monetary incentives to participants, but denied intentionally fabricating data.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/science/michael-lacour-gay-marriage-science-study-retraction.html | title=Study using gay canvassers erred in methods, not results, author says |work=The New York Times| date=29 May 2015 | accessdate=31 May 2015 | author=Carey, Benedict}}</ref> A subsequent article published by ''Science'' indicated that LaCour's response was lacking, failing to address a number of issues while raising new questions about his conduct.<ref>{{cite web |url=
On May 29, 2015, LaCour uploaded a response to the criticisms<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.dropbox.com/s/zqfcmlkzjuqe807/LaCour_Response_05-29-2015.pdf?dl=0 | title=Journal retracts response to irregularities in LaCour and Green (2014) | date=29 May 2015 | accessdate=30 May 2015 | author=LaCour, Michael}}</ref> in which he admitted to making false claims about the study's method, including falsely claiming funding support for the study and offering of monetary incentives to participants, but denied intentionally fabricating data.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/science/michael-lacour-gay-marriage-science-study-retraction.html | title=Study using gay canvassers erred in methods, not results, author says |work=The New York Times| date=29 May 2015 | accessdate=31 May 2015 | author=Carey, Benedict}}</ref> A subsequent article published by ''Science'' indicated that LaCour's response was lacking, failing to address a number of issues while raising new questions about his conduct.<ref>{{cite web |url=
http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/05/gay-marriage-study-author-lacour-issues-defense-critics-arent-budging |title=Gay marriage study author LaCour issues defense, but critics aren't budging |last1=Malakoff |first1=David |date=May 30, 2015 |website=http://news.sciencemag.org/ |publisher=Science |access-date=June 9, 2015 |quote="LaCour’s response does not, however, directly answer a number of other questions surrounding the study—and it raises new issues."}}</ref> A blog post published by ''Discover'' stated that LaCour's rebuttal arguments were "very weak" and failed to refute a central criticism of the Brockman paper.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/06/01/problem-michael-lacours-rebuttal/ |title=The Problem With Michael LaCour’s Rebuttal |last1=Neuroskeptic |date=June 1, 2015 |website=blogs.discovermagazine.com |publisher=Discover |access-date=June 9, 2015}}</ref>
http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/05/gay-marriage-study-author-lacour-issues-defense-critics-arent-budging |title=Gay marriage study author LaCour issues defense, but critics aren't budging |last1=Malakoff |first1=David |date=May 30, 2015 |website=http://news.sciencemag.org/ |publisher=Science |access-date=June 9, 2015 |quote="LaCour’s response does not, however, directly answer a number of other questions surrounding the study—and it raises new issues."}}</ref> A blog post published by ''Discover'' stated that LaCour's rebuttal arguments were "very weak" and failed to refute a central criticism of the Brockman paper.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/06/01/problem-michael-lacours-rebuttal/ |title=The Problem With Michael LaCour’s Rebuttal |last1=Neuroskeptic |date=June 1, 2015 |website=blogs.discovermagazine.com |publisher=Discover |access-date=June 9, 2015}}</ref>

==Popular press==
Various opinions and theories have been advanced in the [[News media in the United States|news media]] as to why ''Science'' published the flawed article by LaCour and Green, why LaCour falsified the data, and how such conduct is publicly perceived.<ref name=NYM1 /><ref name=WSJ /><ref name=Guardian /><ref name=NYM2 /><ref name=Seattle /> The conservative editorial page of ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' hypothesized that LaCour's argument originally gained acceptance in the scientific community because it "flattered the ideological sensibilities of liberals".<ref name=WSJ>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff editorial writer(s); no by-line.--> |title="Scientific Fraud and Politics" |url=http://www.wsj.com/articles/scientific-fraud-and-politics-1433544688 |newspaper=Wall Street Journal |location=New York, NY |date=June 6, 2015}}</ref> Gelman, in his ''Washington Post'' article, said that the journal ''Science'' is sometimes called a tabloid "because of its pattern of publishing dramatic but fishy claims (at least in social science)".<ref name="WapoGelman" /> However, a piece in ''[[New York (magazine)|New York Magazine]]'' accused the ''Wall Street Journal'' writers of "general silliness" and ignorance of the case; they stated that there is no evidence that ''Science'' has any liberal bias, and "LaCour and Green’s study was clearly published simply because it ran counter to so much prior research showing that it's really difficult to change people's political views (and it didn't hurt that Green's name was on it, given how respected he is in the field)."<ref name=NYM1>Singal, Jesse. [http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/06/social-science-a-giant-liberal-conspiracy.html "Is Social Science a Giant Liberal Conspiracy?"], [[New York Magazine]] (June 8, 2015).</ref>

As to what motivated LaCour's dishonesty in the first place, his co-author, Donald Green, has expressed bafflement about ''any'' instance of scientific fraud.<ref name=Guardian>Gambino, Lauren and Devlin, Hannah. [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/20/same-sex-marriage-attitudes-study-retracted-fake-data "Study of attitudes to same-sex marriage retracted over 'fake data'"], [[The Guardian]] (May 20, 2015).</ref> However, another piece in ''New York Magazine'' points to the pressure that social scientists are under to publish scholarly articles, although "profound pressure to publish certainly can’t explain LaCour’s deception on its own".<ref name=NYM2>Foster, Drew. [http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/06/will-academia-waste-the-michael-lacour-scandal.html "Will Academia Waste the Michael LaCour Scandal?"], [[New York Magazine]] (June 5, 2015).</ref> Pro-gay-marriage columnist [[S.E. Cupp]] writes that, "The doctored study will only encourage the perception that advocates are going too far."<ref name=Seattle>Cupp, S.E. [http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/key-to-changing-hearts-and-minds-on-gay-marriage-dont-lie-or-bully/ "Key to changing hearts and minds on gay marriage: Don’t lie or bully]", [[Seattle Times]] (May 25, 2014).</ref>


==Other issues==
==Other issues==

Revision as of 19:30, 14 June 2015

"When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality" is an article by former UCLA political science graduate student Michael LaCour and Columbia University political science professor Donald Green that was published in the academic journal Science in December 2014 and retracted in May 2015. The article purported to demonstrate that it is possible to change people's minds on socially divisive issues such as gay marriage, via direct contact from affected parties. However, Science later retracted the article after allegations arose that LaCour fabricated the data and results.

Study

According to the information described in the original paper, U.S. voters were door-to-door canvassed by people who were LGBT and who used social scripts to discuss either gay marriage or recycling. LaCour claimed that the study participants also completed a series of online surveys (baseline and follow-ups) which included a "gay feeling thermometer". Results not only showed notable changes towards pro-gay marriage but also found a spill-over effect, such that other people in the household also became more pro-gay marriage.[1]

The study's findings made international headlines and received wide media attention including in The New York Times,[2] The Washington Post,[3] The Wall Street Journal,[4] The Economist, The Los Angeles Times, and This American Life.[5] The study attracted widespread attention, in part, because it seemed to challenge the conventional wisdom and scholarship about social persuasion that suggests that people tend to maintain their points of view, sometimes regardless of what they read or hear to the contrary.[6]

Critique

The When contact changes minds study was subsequently discredited after a critique by David Broockman, Joshua Kalla, and Peter Aronow on May 19, 2015, titled "Irregularities in LaCour (2014)",[7] questioned the study's academic integrity.[8] Broockman et al. alleged that the baseline survey results were in fact taken from an earlier dataset called the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project (CCAP), and that the later sets of data were fabricated from the first using statistical methods to shift the results and add normally distributed noise.[7] In addition, they noted that canvasser identifiers were missing from the results, making it impossible to verify whether different canvassers produced different results as the original study claimed.[7]

LaCour's coauthor, Donald Green, subsequently requested that the paper be retracted because of irregularities in the paper's data and the failure of LaCour to give him the primary data on which the paper was based.[9] In his letter to the journal, Green wrote: "I am deeply embarrassed by this turn of events and apologize to the editors, reviewers, and readers of Science."[10] Andrew Gelman, a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University, wrote in the Washington Post that Donald Green had accepted LaCour's data "on faith".[11] On May 28, 2015, the study was retracted by Science,[12] on the basis that incentives to participate in the survey on which the study was based had been misrepresented, that sponsors had been falsely identified, and that the authors could not produce the original data, necessary to resolve questions about the work.[13]

On May 29, 2015, LaCour uploaded a response to the criticisms[14] in which he admitted to making false claims about the study's method, including falsely claiming funding support for the study and offering of monetary incentives to participants, but denied intentionally fabricating data.[15] A subsequent article published by Science indicated that LaCour's response was lacking, failing to address a number of issues while raising new questions about his conduct.[16] A blog post published by Discover stated that LaCour's rebuttal arguments were "very weak" and failed to refute a central criticism of the Brockman paper.[17]

Other issues

On May 29, 2015, Gregory Martin, a political scientist at Emory University, released a report outlining several concerns about another LaCour-authored research study, titled "The echo chambers are empty: Direct evidence of balanced, not biased, exposure to mass media".[18][19]

Following the revelation that the Contact study had been fabricated, LaCour removed a notice from his website stating that he would be an Assistant Professor at Princeton as of July 2015; responding to a request for comment by Retraction Watch, a Princeton spokesman stated that "at this time the individual is not a Princeton University employee" and that the university would review "all available information and determine next steps".[20] He was not listed in press release announcing new appointments to Princeton faculty. [21]

Some outlets reported that there were indications LaCour had exaggerated and partially fabricated his credentials. New York Magazine reported that it had caught LaCour trying to scrub his C.V. of a teaching award that did not appear to exist, while the Chronicle of Higher Education stated that LaCour had previously claimed to have graduated magna cum laude from U.T. Austin, but removed that honor from his C.V. and did not respond to emails seeking an explanation for the change.[19]

References

Notes
  1. ^ LaCour, Michael J. & Green, Donald P. (2014). When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality[1]. Science 346(6215): 1366.
  2. ^ Carey, Benedict (11 December 2014). "Gay advocates can shift same-sex marriage views". New York Times. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  3. ^ Somashekhar, Sandhya (11 December 2014). "One conversation can change minds on same-sex marriage, study finds". Post Nation. The Washington Post. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  4. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (25 February 2015). "Gay marriage: How to change minds". Mind and Matter. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  5. ^ "The incredible rarity of changing your mind". This American Life. 25 April 2015. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  6. ^ Barbash, Fred (20 May 2015). "Co-author disavows highly publicized study on public opinion and same-sex marriage". Morning Mix. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
  7. ^ a b c Broockman, David, Kalla, Joshua, and Aronow, Peter (19 May 2015). "Irregularities in LaCour (2014)" (PDF). Retrieved 30 May 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Singal, Jesse (May 29, 2015), "The case of the amazing gay-marriage data: How a graduate student reluctantly uncovered a huge scientific fraud", Science of Us, New York Magazine
  9. ^ Barbash, Fred (May 20, 2015), "Co-author disavows highly publicized study on public opinion and same-sex marriage", Morning Mix, Washington Post
  10. ^ Schupak, Amanda (May 29, 2015). "Journal retracts controversial gay marriage study". cbsnews.com. CBS News. Retrieved June 7, 2015. But after two researchers raised serious questions about a lack of data and funding details outlined in the study, Green wrote to Science asking that it be retracted. "Michael LaCour's failure to produce the raw data coupled with the other concerns noted above undermines the credibility of the findings," he wrote. "I am deeply embarrassed by this turn of events and apologize to the editors, reviewers, and readers of Science.
  11. ^ Gelman, Andrew (May 20, 2015). "Fake study on changing attitudes: Sometimes a claim that is too good to be true, isn't". www.washingtonpost.com. The Washington Post. Retrieved June 7, 2015. Not to spoil the suspense or anything, but what really happened was that the data were faked by first author LaCour. Co-author Green (my colleague at Columbia) had taken his collaborator's data on faith; once he found out, he firmly retracted the article. Details at Retraction Watch.
  12. ^ Carey, Benedict (28 May 2015). "Journal retracts study on changing attitudes on same-sex marriage". New York Times. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  13. ^ McNutt, M. (28 May 2015). "Editorial retraction". Science. 348 (6239): 1100. doi:10.1126/science.aac6638.
  14. ^ LaCour, Michael (29 May 2015). "Journal retracts response to irregularities in LaCour and Green (2014)" (PDF). Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  15. ^ Carey, Benedict (29 May 2015). "Study using gay canvassers erred in methods, not results, author says". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  16. ^ Malakoff, David (May 30, 2015). "Gay marriage study author LaCour issues defense, but critics aren't budging". http://news.sciencemag.org/. Science. Retrieved June 9, 2015. LaCour's response does not, however, directly answer a number of other questions surrounding the study—and it raises new issues. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
  17. ^ Neuroskeptic (June 1, 2015). "The Problem With Michael LaCour's Rebuttal". blogs.discovermagazine.com. Discover. Retrieved June 9, 2015.
  18. ^ Martin, Gregory (29 May 2015). "Comment on LaCour (2014), "The Echo Chambers are Empty"" (PDF). Retrieved 30 May 2015.
  19. ^ a b Bartlett, Tom (28 May 2015). "New Question Is Raised About Michael LaCour: What Else Did He Make Up?". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  20. ^ "Author retracts study of changing minds on same-sex marriage after colleague admits data were faked". www.retractionwatch.com. Retraction Watch. May 28, 2015. Retrieved June 7, 2015. We also heard from Princeton. A spokesperson tells us: As you've correctly noted, at this time the individual is not a Princeton University employee. We will review all available information and determine next steps.
  21. ^ "Board approves 17 appointments to Princeton faculty". June 12, 2015.
Bibliography

External links

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