Why Are Gamers So Much Better Than Scientists at Catching Fraud?

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/gamers-are-better-scientists-catching-fraud/619324/

by pseudolus • 5 years ago

39 13 5 years ago

A few peer reviewers with better things to do aren't as good as a few thousand people who can be incorrect about guessing fraud, and face 0 penalty.

Different incentives, different barrier to entry. I think this is a pretty irresponsible article.

jrd259• 5 years ago

To amplify on that. Consider the upside to catching a cheater.

Catching a scientific cheater:

* You improve the collective knowledge of humanity.

* If the cheater is in your own country, you may also reduce the size of the grant-seeking pool

* Fame? I doubt it.

Catching a speed-run cheater:

* If you're a contender, you retain your place on the leaderboard

* Fame.

Note too that the baseline assumption in science is that while we can make mistakes, we're not fraudsters. The reason science advanced so far and so quickly is that we basically trust one another. The baseline assumption in competitive games is that there will be cheaters.

andagainagain• 5 years ago

Scientists that I used to know would just quietly judge people who they suspected of fraud.

Several classes I had emphasized that peer reviewed journal papers were basically only good for reading their methods and results of those methods. And even those come with the baggage of "ok, but who put this out, because we know xyz groups make shit up all the time"

globular-toast• 5 years ago

Maybe because a computer game is just a handful of precisely defined rules that is possible for a single person to understand in depth while science is the real world that incomprehensibly more complicated and nobody fully understands?

helsinkiandrew• 5 years ago

Ultimately millions of gamers are competing at the same well known game, so anomalies are more evident and it's in the gamers interest to catch fraud.

Scientists even when working in the same area are working on different aspects or using different paradigms than other scientists so fraud can be much less evident. Also scientists aren't directly competing and there may be a cost to ones career of saying someone is a fraud when there isn't much of an incentive.

gerikson• 5 years ago

It would be more interesting to compare how gamers catch fraudsters compared to, for example, the fraud department of major financial institutions.

gregjw• 5 years ago

You'd be amazed on what motivated individuals, who wont face much backlash and have a score to settle and a lot of collective free time can accomplish.

Whereas scientists would face backlash and some serious repercussions in their career if they falsely accused someone of something and had a collective witch hunt.

EricE2• 5 years ago

"Whereas scientists would face backlash "

Bingo. It's usually not a good idea to expect groups to self police themselves - Doctors, Lawyers, Judges - they rarely hold themselves as accountable as outsiders.

The real issue for this in my mind - why the hell is this stuff still gatekeeping Before the internet journals made sense as a way to distribute content effectively - but content distribution is either a solved problem or should be a solved problem. Journals are relics that should die - need a scientific wiki or similar model to replace the journal concept.

Right now it's just a good 'ol boys club, like most professional organizations. Inject some external pressure and you will see the dynamics change.

HDMI_Cable• 5 years ago

Just get a bunch of scientists who also happen to be gamers. Now you have a competitive e-sports team and an anti-fraud team.

underseacables• 5 years ago

I know a scientist using an aimbot when i see one!

EricE2• 5 years ago

To catch fraud you first have to look for it :p

torginus• 5 years ago

I think one of the key reasons is that scientific effort and attention is spread over the largest possible space, in order to make good use of grants and brains, most people work on different topics, and are not intimately familiar with the work everyone else to develop a 'smell' for doctored results.

In contrast Speedrunners are working on the same problem, and are intimately familiar with the details of their chosen games, are aware of all the tips and techniques one could use to get ahead, and if someone suspiciously pulls ahead of the pack, you bet they will analyze everything to the smallest minutiae.

Cypher• 5 years ago

Incentives.

Why Are Gamers So Much Better Than Scientists at Catching Fraud?

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