[bsimpson]

And a third time: reputation

Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino were two of the most well-known behavioral economists. Hell, Ariely even published a a board game about it (as well as a bunch of popular books). They've both been accused of data manipulation this year.

My friends in the field are worried that the whole field will be tainted. It grew out of a controversial idea - that despite what past models demand, people don't consistently behave in a rational way. If the two biggest practitioners of a new discipline are outed as frauds, what does that do the the reputation of the discipline as a whole? Will people be skeptical of any behavioral hypothesis that bucks tradition because Ariely was accused of fraud?

[hilux]

Ariely and Gino have been very credibly accused.

And they are far from the only ones: Diederik Stapel, Brian Wansink, the list goes on and on. (I'm not listing the many names, also at R1 universities, whose verdicts are still "in process.")

What NPR liked to call "replication crisis" was a combination of junk science and blatant fraud.

The whole field (slightly more broadly, of social psychology) is badly damaged for at least a generation.

Pete Judo has some consumer-friendly youtube videos on the topic.