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gwern comments on Experiment: a good researcher is hard to find - Less Wrong Discussion

29 Post author: gwern 30 April 2012 05:13PM

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Comment author: gwern 01 May 2012 06:58:28PM *  3 points [-]

Yes, but this could be said of any experiment ever which involves deception.

And besides, typically research ethics calls for deceived participants to be debriefed. Either the meta-paper will be written in which case no deception is involved and there was no reason not to post this writeup; or it won't, in which case deception was involved and this writeup is ethically mandated. So either way, this writeup was worth doing.

Comment author: TobyBartels 01 May 2012 07:17:27PM *  1 point [-]

this writeup is ethically mandated

Do you mean that this post to Less Wrong is the debriefing? I don't think that posting to a blog, even one that the experimental subjects often read, is enough. What did the ethics committee say? :-)

Comment author: gwern 01 May 2012 07:29:25PM *  10 points [-]

I asked the committee in my head, and they said 'We're sure they read Discussion as much as you do. So good job - as a reward, you can go order yourself some mead!' I feel sorry for all the other guys who don't have as understanding an ethics committee as I do.