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Jennifer Freyd’s Op-Ed on survey bias

I’m amazed at her patience, given the intemperance of the UO administration’s response to her efforts to get the sexual violence survey done. She’s quoting Karl Popper, and explaining how science works:

Third — and this is by far the more important consideration — true scientists have an incentive to uncover the truth rather than produce results consistent with what the public wants to hear. That is of great significance when what the public, politicians or even university administrators want to hear is at odds with the underlying reality.

Scientific reputations depend upon the replicability of our research and scholarship, and on evaluations of its quality. It is in a scientist’s self-interest to do careful research that others can replicate and to conduct high-quality research that others will cite and evaluate positively.

Thanks to Freyd’s fast and efficient work UO now has actual data to work with.

I’ll say what Freyd won’t: If we’d left this up to the UO administration, Robin Holmes would still be fretting over how to write a $250,000 RFP that would result in a survey with the main function of making Johnson Hall look good. Just as they have done by manipulating the Clery Act reporting requirements to minimize the extent of UO’s sexual violence problem, and to deceive our students and their parents about the role of athletics and greek life.

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