The Conclusion of the Kanazawa Affair

The LSE internal review into Satoshi Kanazawa's controversial blog post (which we discussed here and here) is finally concluded. The findings (and a letter of "apology" from Kanazawa) can be read here. The report states, among other things that

some of the arguments used in the publication were flawed and not supported by evidence, that an error was made in publishing the blog post and that Dr Kanazawa did not give due consideration to his approach or audience

that

some of the assertions put forward in the blog post were flawed and would have benefited from more rigorous academic scrutiny

and that

the author ignored the basic responsibility of a scientific communicator to qualify claims made in proportion to the certainty of the evidence.

As a result of these findings LSE has taken disciplinary action against Kanazawa:

In particular, Dr Kanazawa must refrain from publishing in all non-peer reviewed outlets for a year. Further, he will not be teaching any compulsory courses in the School for this academic year. 

Somehow the school thinks that these measures will ensure that

an incident of this nature does not happen again.

I don't know what readers of this blog who followed this story think, but as far as I am concerned this is an egregious example of too little too late and I really can's see how the measures put in place by the school can stop a repeat offender like Kanazawa, whose modus operandi crucially involves making outrageous and divisive claims on the basis of very little or no evidence evidence for the purpose of presumably getting some press attention, from offending again. What do others think?

More on the Kanazawa Scandal at LSE

Satoshi Kanazawa

Further to our discussion last week, I emailed Add Health about the nature of the data that Kanazawa used in his scandalous post seeking explanation of the alleged finding that black women are "objectively" less attractive than women of other races. They sent me a statement this morning, which has obviously been sent to many others who enquired. Here are some excerpts:

"The data Kanazawa used for his research were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a congressionally-mandated study funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Add Health data are available in two forms: a “public use” data set, which includes data from a subset of participants, and a “contractual” or “restricted-use” data set, which includes the full set of variables and participants. The “restricted-use” data are available to researchers who have appropriate research credentials (e.g., post-graduate degree) and an Institutional Review Board in their research institution that ensures their use of data security procedures required by Add Health to protect data and participant privacy and confidentiality. Kanazawa applied for and was granted access to these restricted data, as have thousands of other researchers . . .
"Kanazawa based his blog post on data derived from interviewer ratings of the respondents that were recorded confidentially after the interview was completed and the interviewer had left the interview setting. It is a widely-used and accepted survey practice for interviewers and researchers to include such post-survey completion remarks. These remarks provide both an additional observation about the respondent and data on the context of the interview for researchers to assess data quality. . .
"Interviewer ratings of respondent attractiveness represent a subjective “societal” perception of the respondent’s attractiveness.  We included these items because there is a long line of research evidence that indicates that perceived attractiveness is related to important health and social outcomes, including access to health care, health education and instruction, job search, promotions, academic achievement, and social success in friendship and marriage.   For example, males who are rated more highly attractive tend to have higher wages, shorter periods of unemployment, and greater success in the job market . . .

"Because the interviewer’s perception is subjective, researchers need to account for the characteristics and life experiences of the interviewer in interpreting their ratings. A wealth of research on perceived attractiveness (that is, as perceived by others, not oneself) has shown that such ratings vary according to the characteristics of the rater. For example, a male interviewer might rate a female’s attractiveness according to different criteria than a female interviewer rating the same female’s attractiveness.  Other interviewer characteristics that are important to take into account are age, race, ethnicity, education, geographic location, and life experiences, in general."

Though some of us may have sussed out the main points, especially those contained in the final paragraph above, this statement clearly demonstrates the irresponsibility of Santoshi Kanazawa's "research". As somebody who was granted access to the restricted-use data-set, he would have been aware of the nature of the attractiveness rating. Yet, he gave no indication of this in his blog post.

Add Health Director, Dr. Kathleen Mullan Harris, a professor of sociology at UNC, Chapel Hill drove the point home in an interview with NPR, quoted in the email sent to me: "He's mischaracterizing the objectiveness of the data — that's wrong. It's subjective. The interviewers' data is subjective."

It is not unreasonable to ask that LSE investigate Kanazawa, and take appropriate action. I leave to others who are more experienced in this kind of action how this request could be prepared and communicated to LSE.

(This is cross posted at NewAPPS)

More on the Kanazawa Affair

Here is the cached version of Dr Kanazawa's original post (see here for a bit of background and see here for my letter to the Director of LSE). It is such a mind-bogglingly bad piece of [pseudo-]"scientific research" (even by evolutionary psychology standards) that one would hope no respectable academic institution would employ its author. As far as I can see, this is not a matter of academic freedom, it's a matter of academic standards. And, I have to say, I now think my initial requests to the LSE Director were too mild, especially considering the guy was already well-known for his shock jock brand of "research".

Evolutionary Psychology or Open Racism?

Those of you outside of the UK might not have followed this story. Satoshi Kanazawa, an "evolutionary psychologist" and Reader in Management at LSE, has posted a post titled 'Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women' on his Psychology Today blog (which, alarmingly, is titled 'The Scientific Fundamentalist'). The post has since been taken down but above is a screenshot of it.

I have just sent the following e-mail to Professor J Rees (LSE's new Director after the resignation of its previous director on the heels of the Lybia scandal):

Dear Professor Rees,

I am writing to express my outrage about Dr Kanazawa's post on his Psychology Today blog. As a former Master's and doctoral student of LSE and as a philosopher of science, I am very disappointed that my Alma Mater's name is associated with research that seems to be as unsound in its methods as it is inflammatory and divisive in its content.
As an academic, I fully understand the importance of and strongly support academic freedom, but I do not think that academics should be allowed to express openly racist ideas under that guise, especially if this is done while claiming a pretense of scientificity. Of course, as researchers, we should always follow our research wherever it leads us, but the problem with Dr Kanazawa's research is that it is not its conclusion that is racist but its premises (as you probably know, the title of Dr Kanazawa's post was "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?", which assumes the racist stereotype that they are).
The LSE's reputation has already been tarnished enough by recent events that led to the resignation of your predecessor. I hope you will prevent it from being tarnished even more by this incident and issue a statement to distance the school from the ideas expressed by Dr Kanazawa and an apology to all people (and especially to black female students, faculty and staff) who felt offended and outraged by the open racism professed by one of your academics.

Sincerely,

Gabriele Contessa

PS I thought I'd let you know that I shall post this letter on the philosophy of science blog that I administer and contribute to. I'd be happy to also post a link to an apology statement from LSE when and if you decide to issue one.

I hope you'll join me in expressing your outrage at open racism being passed as science by e-mailing Professor Rees's PA at v.mizgailo@lse.ac.uk. (You'll receive a silly stock e-mail in return).

UPDATE: From the Guardian:

• "The University of London [Student] Union Senate, the union's legislative body, which represents more than 120,000 students, to vote unanimously for the dismissal of Kanazawa, and to condemn his research." You can read the full article here.
• "The LSE launched an internal investigation into Kanazawa's comments after senior academics at the school, including the new director, Judith Rees, received letters of complaint over the remarks."

You can read the full article here.

UPDATE #2: Here.