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Data Colada is a blog dedicated to investigative analysis and replication of academic research, focusing in particular on the validity of findings in the Social science.
It is known for its advocacy against problematic research practices such as P-Hacking, and for publishing evidence of data manipulation and research misconduct in several prominent cases, including celebrity professors Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino. Data Colada was established in 2013 by three behavioral science researchers: Uri Simonsohn, a professor at ESADE Business School, Barcelona/Spain (as of 2023), Leif Nelson, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Joe Simmons, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
The "Data Colada" blog was launched two years later, in 2013, carrying the tagline "Thinking about evidence, and vice versa", becoming what The New York Times described as "a hub for nerdy discussions of statistical methods — and, before long, various research crimes and misdemeanors".
In particular, the three researchers objected to the then widespread practice of cherry-picking data and attempts to make insignificant results appear statistically credible, especially an approach for which they coined the term P-hacking in a 2014 paper.
In 2021, Data Colada discovered fabricated data in a 2012 field study published in PNAS by Lisa L. Shu, Nina Mazar, Francesca Gino, Dan Ariely, and Max H. Bazerman. All of the study's authors agreed with their assessment and the paper was retracted. The authors also agreed that Ariely was the only author who had access to the data prior to transmitting it in its fraudulent form to Mazar, the analyst. Ariely denied manipulating the data, but Excel metadata showed that he created the spreadsheet and was the last to edit it. He also admitted to having mislabeled all of the values in an entire column of the data in an e-mail to Mazar shortly after he initially sent her the data. Ariely has stated that someone at the insurance agency that provided the data must have fabricated it.
The Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman described Data Colada in 2023 as "heroes of mine" and expressed his regret about previously endorsing research findings that the blog later showed were faulty. Brian Nosek of the Center for Open Science applauded Data Colada for having "done an amazing job of developing new methodologies to interrogate the credibility of research."
On the other hand, as summarized by The New Yorker, "Data Colada's harshest critics saw the young men as jealous upstarts who didn’t understand the soft artistry of the social sciences". Psychologist Norbert Schwarz accused Data Colada and other reformers of engaging in a "witch hunt," while psychologist Daniel Gilbert denounced what he called the "replication police" as "shameless little bullies".
On September 11, 2024, the judge dismissed all of Gino's claims against the Data Colada defendants (defamation and other claims), and dismissed Gino's defamation and certain other claims (such as violation of privacy) against the Harvard University defendants, while allowing some breach of contract claims against Harvard to continue. Full text of decision on defendants' motions to dismiss
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