WHEN THE STORY FITS THE NARRATIVE TOO WELL, BE VERY SUSPICIOUS: Alice Goffman’s Implausible Ethnography: ‘On the Run’ reveals the flaws in how sociology is sometimes produced, evaluated, and rewarded. “If science is bitterly competitive, and it isn’t set up to catch liars, and there are great rewards for liars who don’t get caught, then one doesn’t need a Ph.D. in social science to realize that this system will produce a whole lot of lying, and that a lot of that lying won’t ever be discovered. . . . Goffman’s book confirmed the suspicions of many readers that not only police misconduct but also standard policing practices, and indeed the very structure of the criminal-justice system, play key roles in maintaining the oppressive and dysfunctional status quo in America’s inner cities. In retrospect, the widespread failure to notice On the Run’s contradictions, incongruities, and improbabilities can be explained, in part, by the same factors that led Science to publish Michael LaCour’s fraudulent study, which told a story many readers wanted to hear about how to overcome opposition to gay marriage.”

Plus: “In the case of On the Run, groupthink and confirmation bias provide only part of the answer to the question of how this at best unreliable book achieved mainstream acclaim. Something more invidious than negligence and wish fulfillment is at work here. . . . Alice Goffman is a product of system that uncritically rewards the kind of things she was doing, even when those things may have included engaging in serious crimes, or serious academic misconduct.”