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by Steuard 4217 days ago
I continue to be amazed at the degree to which "no actual harassment happened" is the strong default belief for so many people here, despite the fact that a thorough investigation has already happened and decided otherwise. A group of smart people (led by MIT physics professors who are friends of the accused, for goodness sake) looked at the evidence and concluded that serious harassment occurred. Doesn't that merit at least a bit of a Bayesian update?

I'm similarly amazed that the existence of examples of false accusations is taken as a more salient fact than the overwhelming weight and history of cultural indifference toward sexual harassment (or even approval). False accusations are the "man bites dog" story: they get attention because they're so far from the norm.
2 comments
anatoly 4217 days ago
Consider that these people updated, you just don't share their conditional probabilities. In particular, they might think that P(response by MIT as given|harassment nonexistent or relatively trivial) is fairly high, given their understanding of or experience with the academic climate in the recent years, internal politics in academia, standards of institutional ass-covering etc. It's also notable (given that sexual harassment is a crime) that no involvement by authorities is described or even hinted at.

You do make a good point. "no harassment happened" shouldn't be the strong default belief (I'm not sure it actually is for many people here). But based on the statement and what is known about the relevant politics in academia, "serious harassment definitely occurred" shouldn't be one either.

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wavegeek 4215 days ago
> amazed ... "no actual harassment happened"

When you put something in quotes you are saying that someone actually said that. As you can see from my post, I did not say that. I simply said we don't know much about the situation. So please stop misleading people.

I certainly do not exclude that he did sexually harass someone or more than one person. I have personally seen many cases of people in a position of power who abuse that power in many ways.

Even the court system with public hearings and a very high standard of proof (beyond reasonable doubt) regularly produces miscarriages of justice. Google the "innocence project" for many such cases.

The recent fiasco at Rolling Stone magazine (they specifically and repeatedly emphasized how they had verified the claims made in painstaking detail) reinforces retaining an open mind.

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