When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy
Andrew Gelman (of NYU), who is featured in the story and is criticized by Cuddy as being unfair and trollish, wrote a response:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;andrewgelman.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;10&#x2F;18&#x2F;beyond-power-pose-using-replication-failures-better-understanding-data-collection-analysis-better-science&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;andrewgelman.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;10&#x2F;18&#x2F;beyond-power-pose-using-r...</a><p>I thought that Gelman wasn&#x27;t presented in the best of light, especially his awkward quotes about not wanting to engage in &quot;interpersonal conflict&quot;. But he called the piece &quot;excellent and fair to all sides&quot; and was pretty gracious in response to Cuddy&#x27;s criticisms and how the NYT portrayed him. I honestly wasn&#x27;t a huge fan of the article but re-reading it after a bit of sleep, and knowing that Gelman thought it was strong, I appreciated the issues it brought up. Certainly has to be one of the longest stories about p-hacking&#x2F;p-curves in mainstream media.<p>I sympathize with Cuddy and have no doubt that among the legit attention that Gelman and other critics have directed toward her, she&#x27;s faced hatemail sparked by dumb sexism, which makes it easier to tar the legitimate criticism as being sexist.<p>I do think Cuddy needs to face legitimate criticism. She may not have been a malicious fraudster, but ignoring criticism after a long time is not much different than actively being deceptive. I also can believe that she faces hostile criticism that isn&#x27;t equally distributed among all the other researchers who used weak, but previously acceptable standards. And I don&#x27;t think sexism can be dismissed outright, if people find it safer to talk shit to a woman compared to a man.<p>What I wish the story had more of was how scientific criticism is done outside of Gelman&#x27;s blog. Gelman is the main scientist&#x2F;research I follow on the topic. Apparently some see his snarky critique as toxic, and Gelman says he is intending to reevaluate the way he writes about things so that his point doesn&#x27;t get lost in cheap jokes. How do other blogs do it? I&#x27;m somewhat sympathetic to Gelman because I perceive that there is significant institutional resistance (and few incentives) to re-examine and correct a peer review study, and being harsh&#x2F;edgy&#x2F;rude and beating the drum over time might be the only way to get scientists to care? But that doesn&#x27;t mean his critique can&#x27;t be refined for the benefit of his mission.