I mean, obviously it wouldn't pass a "peer-review" analysis, but that is exactly what happens every time in science pop readings. Either we eliminate every science reading that is not strictly papers, or we accept some misinformation here and there.
I respect Andrew Gelman, but in this case I think he jumped to fit this into a pattern where it doesn't belong. I've looked into all the criticisms of Why We Sleep (which, again, covers hundreds of studies), and there's no p-hacking, there's no fraudulent data, there's no piles of studies retracted, and there's no crisis of replication. Literally the worst criticism is that one bar of a bar graph is removed, in a way that doesn't even change the point of the single sentence referring to it. There are simply better targets out there than sleep.
I fundamentally disagree. What else is throwing away data that disagrees with your argument?
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/fo3ess/why_...
I still don't think that trimming a graph in a way that doesn't even change the conclusion of the sentence that refers to it (having less than 8 hours of sleep increases injury risk, and it's still true upon included the omitted bar, which barely even changes the average) is worth trashing an entire 300 page book. Academia isn't about following a set of rigid rules, as if it were some endless high school project. It's about finding the truth, and I've seen no evidence that this was harmed at all here.
> I still don't think that trimming a graph in a way that doesn't even change the conclusion of the sentence that refers to it … is worth trashing an entire 300 page book.
You're strawmanning. The trimming is simply the most obvious of many errors found in a single chapter. There are other known errors as well as (probably) unknown errors.
That said, I think we should be forgiving when people make mistakes as long as they own up to them. Neither the author, the publisher nor the university have demonstrated much of a commitment to research integrity in this case. That's my main complaint.
Like, this kind of exchange is exactly why academics try to avoid randos from the internet. They tend to seize on one point, declare victory, and refuse to change their minds. And when the academic doesn't grovel in compliance, they declare academia to be a failure. As far as I'm concerned, UC Berkeley responded perfectly.