The Motivation of Manipulating Data and Information to a Desired Outcome, 2040’s Ideas and Innovations Newsletter, Issue 129

Issue 129, October 5, 2023

Some recent headlines have reported disturbing news about respected and respectable scholars falsifying or just ignoring data conclusions in scholarly papers. This is another example of the skepticism many of us have with the shifts in misinformation flooding our inboxes and newsfeeds, compelling each of us to exercise our critical thinking skills.  And the examples we’re referring to aren’t even results of AI.  It is human error, strong bias at play, or manipulative intention for one purpose or another.

This leads us to another topic in our continuing explorations of human motivation. Why do we lie? Why do we cheat?  We covered these topics expansively in our book, The Truth About Transformation, in terms of behavior in the workplace.  Based on the recent news, we’re going to take a deeper dive.

There are cases of deception with public anti-heroes Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos and Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, younger poster children for egregious fraud. But there …