What's interesting is that Ariely is the chief behavioral officer to Lemonade (LMND) an insurtech company
<a href="https://www.lemonade.com/blog/oh-behave/" rel="nofollow">https://www.lemonade.com/blog/oh-behave/</a>
This is Dan Ariely's response to the case:<p><a href="http://datacolada.org/storage_strong/DanBlogComment_Aug_16_2021_final.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://datacolada.org/storage_strong/DanBlogComment_Aug_16_2...</a>
> <i>“I did not fabricate the data,” he insists. “I am willing to do a lie detection test on that.”</i><p>I imagine a world-famous psychologist probably knows how to beat a lie detector test. Not that it proves he's lying, just that this statement doesn't mean much.
Ah, come on.<p>They just wanted to test if anyone notices.
A meta-experiment on the Replication Crisis, so to speak.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis</a><p>Or some Excel BS.<p>As I already said elsewhere:<p>Nothing is true, everything is Excel...<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160827085658/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/26/an-alarming-number-of-scientific-papers-contain-excel-errors/" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20160827085658/https://www.washin...</a><p>Just wait for his next book...
Intuitive argument <i>against</i> suggestions that Ariely might have faked the data... It seems unlikely to me that someone of Ariely's mathematical knowledge and research experience would fake data in such an obvious manner.<p>(Full disclosure: I've met with Ariely a couple times, 20 years ago, about cross-disciplinary research, and have a favorable impression of his character.)
I'm a huge believer in letting the chips fall, but let's see what investigations yield prior to castigating any individual.<p>Now personally, reading about Dan's career, his writing, his talks, and even knowing one of his friends from the army, I fully believe, and want to continue to believe that he's innocent. His research, and his writing have proven fundamental to my world view in so many ways. He's frequently helped change how I think about things, approach problems, and generally view possibilities.<p>That however is anecdotal. Dan would be the first to say let's look at the data. So, let's wait, and look at the data.
The things that jumps out to me is how statistics and studies like this shape the larger cultural discussions, legal discussions, and public policy discussions. It really shows how data can be munged, cherry picked, and altered to fit any narrative you want to send. Luckily over time scientific method should correct this but these can do serious damage in the short term.