This affair is particularly disappointing because the APS prides itself on being the more academic and scientific cousin to the much older APA (American Psychological Association), which can include as members your neighborhood therapist.
I have read the first 9 pages out of 21 pages of Lee Jussim's paper. He excellently articulates why Roberts' paper is a non-science (my words). The article was fun for a time. I stopped reading because it was just too depressing that this critique of Roberts was even necessary. Roberts and others like him are stupid and amoral and they will dominate this discussion.
What is honestly sad is most of the people reading this don't even realize yet that we are far past words.
The entire point this whole time was to make us 'the enemy' for simply being good people.
Words like 'racist' being used against us, regardless of our opinions of any race.
If you ever wonder why Gen Z is mad at the Baby Boomer generation, this is why.
You have left them with a wrecked market and economy, inflation to the point where they bring home about 1/3 what their grandparents did and 1/2 of what their parents did, not including the cost of living, a system of politics which is corrupt beyond repair despite what hope you have, and a educational and professional system which will ruin your life if you don't openly recite mandated words or dogma.
Frankly, Boomers, you can go F yourselves.
Your 'best intentions' allowed the darkest forces to corrode our once great nation.
There is now little difference between our and any other nation, because we have no one enforcing our freedoms, and every political madman stripping them away for power.
And now we are left with you still 'talking things through' as if that is going to help,
Has it helped?
From what I see, using our words has been what has slowly dragged us into this mess.
Until an actual revolution happens in the western world. All is lost.
How sad that the biggest hope we have at the moment is a billionaire that had to forcefully take over a company to expose their extreme bias against half of the western world.
Oh, but they were fine with videos of child porn and muslim beheadings.
"the biggest hope we have at the moment is a billionaire that had to forcefully take over a company to expose their extreme bias against half of the western world." - wut?
Yeah, so, today for instance it was just leaked that the Pentagon spent millions of dollars during the 2020 election to suppress news.
Not, 'conspiracy theory', actual data showing that Twitter received $$$ from the Federal government to censor US citizens on only one side of the aisle.
The fact that the major news outlets have remained silent? Merely part of the Patriot act, which was renamed and repassed as "USA FREEDOM Act" by the Obama administration. Which is what allows the Fed to surveil, detain, and prosecute US citizens without any evidence. "terrorism" being the original reasoning.
It also allows them to suppress or report news as they wish. In fact, any time a fed story is to be run? They are required to run it through the Fed channel to see if it is acceptable for national air.
After the 'war on terror' subsided, Barrack Obama chose to renew this legislation, but renamed it, to fool ignorant people.
The man that pushed the "Patriot act" through?
Jim Baker.
The same man Elon personally escorted off his premises when trying to withhold some of these documents from the independent media that they were sent to.
Let that sink in for a second. The same man who literally pushed for US citizens to be lied to, surveilled, and detained (which violates our constitutional rights, I.E. Unconstitutional), was found in Twitter coordinating to suppress information about this.
Yeah he 'left the FBI" alright. Sure.
Even if you are a liberal, which i suspect by your usage of 'wut?' you are, you should realize that the bill of rights is the only reason that the States are unified.
Without the constitution we are no longer the United States. In fact, I personally am willing to take arms at this point, and I know many people are.
I won't have a Fed using my own tax money to suppress my voice and vote. I would rather my State separate. I'm sure that is how most red States are starting to feel at this point.
This is helpful, thanks for posting. But do you think it was a good idea for the editor to ask Hommel to do the final "quality control" on the exchange (as per the posted emails), given that the main focus of the exchange was a dispute between him and Roberts?
5. What was the reason for requesting a “quality check” on Roberts’ reply from Hommel, but no similar check on any of the other commentaries?
Fiedler's Reply:
Although all comments were (conditionally) accepted, it is of course my responsibility to make sure that there are no formal or factual inconsistencies. In Roberts manuscript, several details seemed to be incompatible with the other comments, and I was overwhelmed by the length of the manuscript and the amount of information. So I asked Hommel to help me checking the manuscript for consistency. As you may know, I told Robert that this was no review but simply a quality check. So, Roberts was not urged to respond to every point raised by Hommel. I merely wanted to help the authors avoiding embarrassing contradictions. Again, all this can be read in the confidential information that Roberts chose to append to his uploaded article.
The timeline is somewhat convoluted but it wasn't clear to me that a full-blown dispute between Hommel & Roberts had already emerged at this juncture. Fiedler was trying to assess whether there were discrepancies between the 3 reviewers & Robert's papers for Robert's benefit. Lee can probably clarify.
Agree w/Lee that is wasn’t optimal. OTOH, any of the 3 reviewers would have been good choices IF the goal was ONLY to find discrepancies w/THEIR papers. This is very different than examining truth.
Without going into all the details, I think Fiedler made a number of suboptimal decisions. I usually play by the "no harm, no foul" rule, so that, even if your implication that it was not a good idea, with which I agree, it seems to have had no effect on Fiedler's ultimate decison to accept Roberts' reply. I also think other suboptimal decisions, in a sane world, could have easily been repaired and improved behind the scenes (e.g., inviting some commentaries from people likely to be supportive of Roberts' position). The Sane Road was, in this case, The Road Not Taken, leaving bare the current nature of academic psychology and probably academia more generally. I am planning a post thematically on (and maybe titled) How Psychology Could Have "Done Better" that lays out this alternative, sane path.
I read all the papers in full and can only say that what happened was both wrong and inevitable. Roberts paper is exactly what you would expect post 2020 and the mobbing and capitulation are a kabuki dance enacted over and over in the post Floyd era. You never stood a chance. That being said, you knew that going in and I commend your honesty. These days, telling the truth is a revolutionary act and I like to think you took a shot of whiskey, said "to hell with it" and hit send anyway. Good for you. Now the key is to wear your punk rock anti authoritarian truth telling with pride and do not give an inch. The Mob will not yield, they cannot be appeased, they can only be defied and mocked. Read your Alinsky and stay strong.
In related news, in my actual paper, I pointed out that Fiedler was taking a huge political risk by publishing Hommel's critique and, by extension because I mostly supported it, my paper. At that point, I didn't know about the other papers. But, sure, I knew the risks. Hell, exposing these risks as a sort of inside informant has been a substantial vein of my scholarship! Gonna post a recently submitted chapter on The Radicalization of the American Academy as a paid subscriber post (imagine a major scale up of my very first Substack essay).
Within academic psychology? No, I do not think so, because there are, as far as I can tell, only incentives, not costs, to denouncing almost anything as racist. There are political risks, though, the main being that this sort of nonsense is rapidly eroding public support for psychology and academia, and in the process of evoking a wicked backlash that may be far more destructive than this entire incident put together. See, e.g., the Florida state govt's recent passage of legislation that dramatically reduced tenure protections at its state universities. I suspect that is just the beginning. So, in that sense, yes, there are indeed political risks that most in academia are blind to.,
1. I presented DeSantis's policies as evidence of political risk. That was an answer to your question about political risks. I did not present DeSantis's policies as reasons for Roberts to do anything.
2. Even if I had presented it as a reason for Roberts to have done anything at all, "reprehensible"? H
This is a Diversity Statement I use when I engage in difficult conversations on controversial topics. Please apply it here.
Everyone here should be focused on determining truths in a civil way that relies on facts and data. Speculation and moral claims are acceptable but you should make every attempt to recognize and acknowledge the difference between speculation, morality, facts, and evidence. Sectarian/narrow political views are allowed, even welcome, so we can make use of conflict in ways that help us all, but we have to prioritize truth telling above more narrow interests ultimately. Demonization or bullying for people’s opinions, beliefs, politics, values or culture is not acceptable. This has to be a space that is safe for truth telling for everyone.
One goal is to support and strengthen articulate expression of diversity of opinion, and to do our part to encourage respect for each other’s ability to engage in open inquiry and expression.
Liz, I read the law review article. It basically says that civility is being used as an excuse to allow structural or institutional racism instead of confronting those issues and being accused of incivility. I have heard that argument in many forms. It used to be called respectability politics. I don't think it makes sense and we can talk about why if you would.like. However the issue was tne Robert's paper and the claims at makes as well as the way in which the process was handled. It was poorly managed in my view, but the underlying issues remain. Was.Lee right? If not, why not?
And in a related topic, was the pile on justified? I say no and view it as social signaling by those who signed. That partially adresses the question of whether Roberts paid a price. He now has over a thousand signed.on supporters who are invested in him.
I find this to be a constant problem with progressives (not liberals). They make an assertion as though it was written indisputable and then when someone says, "you know, I disagree with you and I think that what you said is incorrect", they resort to snark, name calling, appeals to authority or personal attacks. The art of debate seems to have been lost. I think it is a reflection of unexamined beliefs and an unwillingness to 1) examine the evidence that supports what you say (do transgender kids really attempt suicide at high rates because of social rejection of transgenderism or because they have multiple other behavioral health issues? Let's see..) or 2) total unwillingness to listen to the arguments and evidence that may challenge your worldview (do you listen to Joy Reid and Tucker Carleson or no?). It's hard to listen and try to have an open mind and many on the left have made it easier for themselves by either arguing that they always have the moral high ground and therefore there is no need engage or by taking the other side seriously, they are providing a "platform" for harmful ideas and don't want to do that for obvious (to them) reasons, which is really the same thing. It's actually moral cowardice sugar coated for easier ingestion. It's not easy to admit you are wrong and to allow your views to evolve, but it is a requirement if you want to be a serious person and not a rube.
This affair is particularly disappointing because the APS prides itself on being the more academic and scientific cousin to the much older APA (American Psychological Association), which can include as members your neighborhood therapist.
I have read the first 9 pages out of 21 pages of Lee Jussim's paper. He excellently articulates why Roberts' paper is a non-science (my words). The article was fun for a time. I stopped reading because it was just too depressing that this critique of Roberts was even necessary. Roberts and others like him are stupid and amoral and they will dominate this discussion.
What is honestly sad is most of the people reading this don't even realize yet that we are far past words.
The entire point this whole time was to make us 'the enemy' for simply being good people.
Words like 'racist' being used against us, regardless of our opinions of any race.
If you ever wonder why Gen Z is mad at the Baby Boomer generation, this is why.
You have left them with a wrecked market and economy, inflation to the point where they bring home about 1/3 what their grandparents did and 1/2 of what their parents did, not including the cost of living, a system of politics which is corrupt beyond repair despite what hope you have, and a educational and professional system which will ruin your life if you don't openly recite mandated words or dogma.
Frankly, Boomers, you can go F yourselves.
Your 'best intentions' allowed the darkest forces to corrode our once great nation.
There is now little difference between our and any other nation, because we have no one enforcing our freedoms, and every political madman stripping them away for power.
And now we are left with you still 'talking things through' as if that is going to help,
Has it helped?
From what I see, using our words has been what has slowly dragged us into this mess.
Until an actual revolution happens in the western world. All is lost.
How sad that the biggest hope we have at the moment is a billionaire that had to forcefully take over a company to expose their extreme bias against half of the western world.
Oh, but they were fine with videos of child porn and muslim beheadings.
How balanced.
"the biggest hope we have at the moment is a billionaire that had to forcefully take over a company to expose their extreme bias against half of the western world." - wut?
Yeah, so, today for instance it was just leaked that the Pentagon spent millions of dollars during the 2020 election to suppress news.
Not, 'conspiracy theory', actual data showing that Twitter received $$$ from the Federal government to censor US citizens on only one side of the aisle.
The fact that the major news outlets have remained silent? Merely part of the Patriot act, which was renamed and repassed as "USA FREEDOM Act" by the Obama administration. Which is what allows the Fed to surveil, detain, and prosecute US citizens without any evidence. "terrorism" being the original reasoning.
It also allows them to suppress or report news as they wish. In fact, any time a fed story is to be run? They are required to run it through the Fed channel to see if it is acceptable for national air.
After the 'war on terror' subsided, Barrack Obama chose to renew this legislation, but renamed it, to fool ignorant people.
The man that pushed the "Patriot act" through?
Jim Baker.
The same man Elon personally escorted off his premises when trying to withhold some of these documents from the independent media that they were sent to.
Let that sink in for a second. The same man who literally pushed for US citizens to be lied to, surveilled, and detained (which violates our constitutional rights, I.E. Unconstitutional), was found in Twitter coordinating to suppress information about this.
Yeah he 'left the FBI" alright. Sure.
Even if you are a liberal, which i suspect by your usage of 'wut?' you are, you should realize that the bill of rights is the only reason that the States are unified.
Without the constitution we are no longer the United States. In fact, I personally am willing to take arms at this point, and I know many people are.
I won't have a Fed using my own tax money to suppress my voice and vote. I would rather my State separate. I'm sure that is how most red States are starting to feel at this point.
That is 'wut' kid.
These assholes are playing with our lives.
This is helpful, thanks for posting. But do you think it was a good idea for the editor to ask Hommel to do the final "quality control" on the exchange (as per the posted emails), given that the main focus of the exchange was a dispute between him and Roberts?
5. What was the reason for requesting a “quality check” on Roberts’ reply from Hommel, but no similar check on any of the other commentaries?
Fiedler's Reply:
Although all comments were (conditionally) accepted, it is of course my responsibility to make sure that there are no formal or factual inconsistencies. In Roberts manuscript, several details seemed to be incompatible with the other comments, and I was overwhelmed by the length of the manuscript and the amount of information. So I asked Hommel to help me checking the manuscript for consistency. As you may know, I told Robert that this was no review but simply a quality check. So, Roberts was not urged to respond to every point raised by Hommel. I merely wanted to help the authors avoiding embarrassing contradictions. Again, all this can be read in the confidential information that Roberts chose to append to his uploaded article.
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-aps-questions-and-klaus-fiedlers
*************************************************************************************
Me
The timeline is somewhat convoluted but it wasn't clear to me that a full-blown dispute between Hommel & Roberts had already emerged at this juncture. Fiedler was trying to assess whether there were discrepancies between the 3 reviewers & Robert's papers for Robert's benefit. Lee can probably clarify.
Agree w/Lee that is wasn’t optimal. OTOH, any of the 3 reviewers would have been good choices IF the goal was ONLY to find discrepancies w/THEIR papers. This is very different than examining truth.
Without going into the details here, these issues are now pretty fully addressed in my two most recent posts:
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-aps-questions-and-klaus-fiedlers
and
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/deconstructing-apss-inadequate-explanations
Yes, I actually cited Fiedler's response from this link in my reply to Enzo.
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-aps-questions-and-klaus-fiedlers
The rest of my comment was directed at this part Of Enzo's Q:
"the main focus of the exchange was a dispute between him and Roberts"
My view was a tad different. Will read your new piece.
Without going into all the details, I think Fiedler made a number of suboptimal decisions. I usually play by the "no harm, no foul" rule, so that, even if your implication that it was not a good idea, with which I agree, it seems to have had no effect on Fiedler's ultimate decison to accept Roberts' reply. I also think other suboptimal decisions, in a sane world, could have easily been repaired and improved behind the scenes (e.g., inviting some commentaries from people likely to be supportive of Roberts' position). The Sane Road was, in this case, The Road Not Taken, leaving bare the current nature of academic psychology and probably academia more generally. I am planning a post thematically on (and maybe titled) How Psychology Could Have "Done Better" that lays out this alternative, sane path.
Lee,
I read all the papers in full and can only say that what happened was both wrong and inevitable. Roberts paper is exactly what you would expect post 2020 and the mobbing and capitulation are a kabuki dance enacted over and over in the post Floyd era. You never stood a chance. That being said, you knew that going in and I commend your honesty. These days, telling the truth is a revolutionary act and I like to think you took a shot of whiskey, said "to hell with it" and hit send anyway. Good for you. Now the key is to wear your punk rock anti authoritarian truth telling with pride and do not give an inch. The Mob will not yield, they cannot be appeased, they can only be defied and mocked. Read your Alinsky and stay strong.
More weight.
In related news, in my actual paper, I pointed out that Fiedler was taking a huge political risk by publishing Hommel's critique and, by extension because I mostly supported it, my paper. At that point, I didn't know about the other papers. But, sure, I knew the risks. Hell, exposing these risks as a sort of inside informant has been a substantial vein of my scholarship! Gonna post a recently submitted chapter on The Radicalization of the American Academy as a paid subscriber post (imagine a major scale up of my very first Substack essay).
Are we all having fun yet?
Within academic psychology? No, I do not think so, because there are, as far as I can tell, only incentives, not costs, to denouncing almost anything as racist. There are political risks, though, the main being that this sort of nonsense is rapidly eroding public support for psychology and academia, and in the process of evoking a wicked backlash that may be far more destructive than this entire incident put together. See, e.g., the Florida state govt's recent passage of legislation that dramatically reduced tenure protections at its state universities. I suspect that is just the beginning. So, in that sense, yes, there are indeed political risks that most in academia are blind to.,
1. I presented DeSantis's policies as evidence of political risk. That was an answer to your question about political risks. I did not present DeSantis's policies as reasons for Roberts to do anything.
2. Even if I had presented it as a reason for Roberts to have done anything at all, "reprehensible"? H
This is a Diversity Statement I use when I engage in difficult conversations on controversial topics. Please apply it here.
Everyone here should be focused on determining truths in a civil way that relies on facts and data. Speculation and moral claims are acceptable but you should make every attempt to recognize and acknowledge the difference between speculation, morality, facts, and evidence. Sectarian/narrow political views are allowed, even welcome, so we can make use of conflict in ways that help us all, but we have to prioritize truth telling above more narrow interests ultimately. Demonization or bullying for people’s opinions, beliefs, politics, values or culture is not acceptable. This has to be a space that is safe for truth telling for everyone.
One goal is to support and strengthen articulate expression of diversity of opinion, and to do our part to encourage respect for each other’s ability to engage in open inquiry and expression.
I love you.
Tonight you won a subscriber.
Give me a break
Elizabeth,
Please explain what you mean. Get away with what? Let's have a civil and respectful debate.
Liz, I read the law review article. It basically says that civility is being used as an excuse to allow structural or institutional racism instead of confronting those issues and being accused of incivility. I have heard that argument in many forms. It used to be called respectability politics. I don't think it makes sense and we can talk about why if you would.like. However the issue was tne Robert's paper and the claims at makes as well as the way in which the process was handled. It was poorly managed in my view, but the underlying issues remain. Was.Lee right? If not, why not?
And in a related topic, was the pile on justified? I say no and view it as social signaling by those who signed. That partially adresses the question of whether Roberts paid a price. He now has over a thousand signed.on supporters who are invested in him.
I find this to be a constant problem with progressives (not liberals). They make an assertion as though it was written indisputable and then when someone says, "you know, I disagree with you and I think that what you said is incorrect", they resort to snark, name calling, appeals to authority or personal attacks. The art of debate seems to have been lost. I think it is a reflection of unexamined beliefs and an unwillingness to 1) examine the evidence that supports what you say (do transgender kids really attempt suicide at high rates because of social rejection of transgenderism or because they have multiple other behavioral health issues? Let's see..) or 2) total unwillingness to listen to the arguments and evidence that may challenge your worldview (do you listen to Joy Reid and Tucker Carleson or no?). It's hard to listen and try to have an open mind and many on the left have made it easier for themselves by either arguing that they always have the moral high ground and therefore there is no need engage or by taking the other side seriously, they are providing a "platform" for harmful ideas and don't want to do that for obvious (to them) reasons, which is really the same thing. It's actually moral cowardice sugar coated for easier ingestion. It's not easy to admit you are wrong and to allow your views to evolve, but it is a requirement if you want to be a serious person and not a rube.