May's professional development

The professional travel opportunities upon which I normally count on for professional development fell through due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That's understandable. Any international travel would have been impossible, due to multiple travel bans. I was slated to go to Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada in June. In addition to the travel ban between the US and Canada that was on-going, as I recall, there was also the matter of my university system banning professional travel through the end of the fiscal year. The pandemic-caused recession (possibly a depression) would have decimated travel funds at my university in any case this fiscal year, and likely will for the upcoming fiscal year. That's another story for another time.

While in Victoria, just prior to the start of SIPS, one of the activities on my docket was to attend a repliCATS workshop to assess the probability that research claims would replicate. It's the same workshop format from last year, and I found it to be quite valuable an experience. Thankfully, the sponsors of the workshop flipped the format, and allowed us to participate asynchronously earlier this month instead. The experience was a bit different. I don't think there was quite the opportunity to interact with other team members while assessing claims as there might have been in person, but I still had the benefit of viewing claims not only through my particular frames, but through the eyes of my team members. As was the case last year, I found myself reassessing my assumptions and much more often than not revising my probability estimates. To make up for some of the lack of in person socialization, we were also set up on Slack, with multiple channels, including a miscellaneous one where we shared photos of our cats (and dogs), as well as a contest each day with a claim in which we guessed whether or not it replicated. The wisdom of the crowd seemed to prevail. Overall, this was well-run, and I learned a thing or two once more. As we get used to working remotely, I suspect that we will get better at working and communicating in-depth asynchronously. The opening and closing Zoom sessions were informative, and were also enjoyable.I have no idea when face-to-face travel and meetings will be doable for many of us, but I am quite optimistic that we can adapt as needed.

Staying informed and in my lane

As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, it strikes me as very obvious that we stay informed and that we exercise caution until an adequate treatment or preferably a vaccine can be made available to the public. Like many nations affected by this virus, the various states in the US imposed some form of social distancing starting in march. Some states have been more lenient than others, which is not necessarily a good thing. One of my main concerns is that testing is ramped up so that we can get a better handle on how many people are actually infected, as well as adequate testing to see who might have been infected but missed. Adequate testing and what medical experts call a system of track and trace is critical to allowing us to return to at least some of the activities we have taken for granted.

I would also exercise caution when it comes to consuming research into potential treatments. I am aware that there are many preprints and peer review articles circulating in which results of research on potential treatments have been made available. One treatment Trump was pushing over the past weeks was based on an arguably poorly conducted study, that is now being investigated by the study's publisher. There is even research suggesting that the lethality of COVID-19 is far less than we might have initially feared, although that work too is seriously flawed.

Note, I am saying this as simply a concerned citizen who happens to have a social science background. I am not an epidemiologist nor a medical expert of any sort. I am relying on those who do have expertise, and I will make that my recommendation for anyone else. I am perfectly happy to pass along information that is based on sound science, in the hopes that doing so saves lives and allows us to safely go about our lives as best we can. In the meantime, I now work strictly from home, and will do so at least through the summer sessions at my university. I would love to be in my office again - far fewer distractions - but right now doing so is a really awful idea, and the leadership in my university system agrees. There are circumstances that would lead to a return to work as I normally understand it, but those circumstances would require a significant ramp-up in testing, which regrettably did not happen during the last month. We seem to have plateaued at around 140,000 tests per day. Apparently we need to be closer to 800,000 tests per day to keep up with the pace of testing per capita that South Korea (which has been very successful in minimizing infected patients and deaths) has managed. In theory, whatever social distancing restrictions were applied across the US would have bought time for a coordinated Federal Government effort to supply states with the tests they need. That did not happen. Efforts to re-open various businesses, parks, etc., will carry far greater risk as a result. The last thing any of us want is for a new upsurge in cases. In the meantime, stay safe.

Keeping yourself informed about COVID-19

Instead of the usual social science data sleuthing, etc. that has normally been my focus, I want to give you all something a bit more informative in hopes that it at least adds to some straight talk and keeps things in perspective as we come to grips with what is potentially a serious pandemic: Coronavirus COVID-19. First, I want you all to bookmark this map hosted by Johns Hopkins. It appears to be about the most up-to-date map of the number of cases per country, and also keeps record of deaths and recoveries. I also recommended last time this link from the Axios website - Coronavirus: The Big Picture. Axios is useful for its brief capsule summaries for those of us who may be on the go. The Axios global map is okay, but seems to be a little behind the other map. Finally, if you go to the Guardian, you will find daily live blogs of the progress of COVID-19 that provide a global perspective (including what is happening in the US). There is also a COVID-19 Tracker specific to the US that is quite accurate and will give you data about how close you are to the nearest confirmed case or cases. As of today, I am about 30 miles from the nearest confirmed case. Yesterday, I was almost 90 miles away.

At the end of the day, I think we need a balance between what has been a largely dismissive response to what is clearly a global health crisis and the sort of unhinged panic that has led to people doing things that are enormously idiotic, like buying a year's supply of toilet paper. The reality is a bit more complex, and we are in a sense blinded by the fact that we have so far been very far behind when it comes to testing. I've been reading that we should be testing 70,000 to 100,000 people per day in order to have some reasonable idea of the number of active COVID-19 cases, and where those cases are most concentrated. That would help considerably when it comes to flattening the curve, given the patchwork healthcare system that we deal with in the US. There are simply not enough ventilators for a worst case scenario, although we might be able to just make do under a much better case scenario.

Other than that just be sensible. If you can stay home, do so. Not all of us have that luxury. I still have to do most of the grocery shopping, and at least this week am required to report to work. I doubt that will be an issue the rest of the semester, though. Also remember that washing your hands, and absent that keeping hand sanitizer available will help a ton. It's so simple that it seems silly to have to state on a blog devoted to academic topics. And yet here we are.

We are in this together. The next few weeks and months will be difficult, and there is no way around it. Let's consider each other. If you're shopping and are in line with a lot of items and see someone with maybe only a few items behind you, let them go ahead. They'll be grateful. Tip drivers who are delivering food from restaurants that have had to limit their services to delivery and pick-up only. Etc. We as a society will be severely tested. In the meantime, hang in there and stay safe.

"Less than lethal weapons effect" - a quick thought

Last year, an article by Ariel et al. (2019) landed on my radar. It's of interest to me simply because it does have some relevance to weapons effect research. In summary, police officers are randomly assigned to patrol with or with tasers present. Most of their analyses concentrated on the behavior of the officers. For my purposes, what was interesting was the analysis in which the behavior of suspects was examined - more specifically if there was a difference in propensity for suspects to attack police officers who had tasers than those who did not. The authors found that suspects were significantly more likely to attack an officer carrying a taser than an officer who was not. It's counter-intuitive, for sure. Strikes me as a great way to end up feeling the effects of a taser, as well as face additional charges. Then again, we humans are not necessarily rational animals. So there's that. Thing is that the raw numbers are really not much to write home about. Almost no one in the sample attacked officers in either condition. So the raw numbers were small. The proportions per thousand strike me as underwhelming. So just for kicks, I did a quick and dirty effect size calculation. I had a raw B weight and I had the SE and sample size, so estimating SD was fairly straightforward (SE * sqrtN). I divided the raw B by the estimated SD and ended up with a Cohen's d of 0.176. In other words, this is a fairly small effect. The finding is statistically significant. I have questions of its practical significance. On the positive side, at least this was an effort to test the hypothesis that the mere presence of a weapon (in this case a taser) could influence some form of aggressive behavior in an ecologically valid manner. I'm admittedly pretty jaded about the weapons effect as a phenomenon, but at the very least the research Ariel et al. (2019) conducted showed us a way forward: get out of the lab and get into everyday situations and see if there really is something of interest. We may end up realizing there isn't and likely never was. Or we may end up surprised to find that there was some substance to the old Berkowitz and LePage (1967) experiment. Time will tell.

While we're on the topic of fraud...

...maybe read this too. In fact, definitely read this, too. So much gets missed in the peer review process, and a fraudster really doesn't need to be especially brilliant to get findings based on dodgy or non-existent data into the body of published findings. I'm a much better peer reviewer, but mostly because I use some recently developed tools of the trade in post-peer review. That said, I use those same post-peer review tools whenever I read much of anything anymore. And yet I know those can only do so much. We're dealing with an entrenched culture that makes it difficult to actually change the behavior. In the meantime, I have seen a series of errata and a corrigendum from a particular lab that are just as troubling as the original papers - in some cases more troubling. And there seems like there is so little to be done about it. That is one thing keeping me up at night.

One postscript - Joe mentions one particular paper where the data were indeed troubling but in which it took the dogged effort of Pat Markey (and later Malte Elson) to get access to the data to try to reproduce it. A retraction followed. Like Joe, I didn't catch it either. Nor would I in the peer review process had I served as a peer reviewer. 

Another Stapel situation?

It's hard to say right now. What is clear is that another PI has seen a couple of his papers retracted due to data irregularities. His former students, post-docs, and coauthors are doing the right thing. At the end of the day, that's what matters. One thing to keep in mind: when we start looking at cases of potential fraud in scientific research, the people most affected are early career researchers (ECRs): grad students and post-docs in particular. With fewer lines on a CV, any retraction will have disproportionate repercussions any time they are on the job market, applying for tenure, etc. All of us, though are negatively affected, to the extent that any article based upon fraudulent (or fabricated) data, to the extent that policy,health, and other personal or professional decisions are based upon that research. The old Russian saying "trust but verify" is seeming more apt all the time. Maybe I'd leave the "trust" part out and just say "verify."

Post-script to the preceding

At the end of the day we as scientists need to discourage efforts to hijack our efforts to address legitimate problems in some of our scientific fields in the name of promoting pseudoscience or engaging in denial of empirically reproduced, replicated, and verified evidence of specific phenomena. It has been a long time since I had any exposure to the work "Merchants of Doubt", which documented the tobacco industry's decades-long (and for a while successful) effort to cast doubt on what was increasingly overwhelming evidence of negative health outcomes associated with using tobacco products. There are merchants of doubt now targeting other phenomena - climate change, immunizations for childhood diseases, etc. We as scientists have scarce resources. The less legitimacy we give to these contemporary merchants of doubt, in the form of conference attendance, membership dues, etc., the better. For me, that is easy. I only get partially funded for one conference per fiscal year. I have to make that conference count for something.