Jonah Lehrer

Last updated

Jonah Lehrer
Jonah Lehrer - Pop!Tech 2009 - Camden, ME.jpg
Lehhrer in 2009
BornJonah Richard Lehrer
(1981-06-25) June 25, 1981 (age 43)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation
  • Blogger
  • author
  • journalist
Education Columbia University,
Wolfson College, Oxford
Period2007–present
Genre Popular science
SubjectBehavioural neuroscience
Notable worksProust Was a Neuroscientist (HMH, 2007)
How we Decide (HMH, 2009; recalled 2012)
Imagine: How Creativity Works (HMH, 2012; recalled 2013)
Spouse
Sarah Liebowitz
​
(m. 2008)​
Children2

Jonah Richard Lehrer (born June 25, 1981) is an American author and blogger. Lehrer studied neuroscience at Columbia University and was a Rhodes Scholar. Thereafter, he built a media career that integrated science and humanities content to address broad aspects of human behaviour. Between 2007 and 2012 Lehrer published three non-fiction books that became best-sellers, and also wrote regularly for The New Yorker and Wired.com .

Contents

Starting in 2012, Lehrer was discovered to have routinely recycled his earlier work and fabricated or misused quotations and facts, and was alleged to have plagiarized from colleagues. Scrutiny began when freelance journalist Michael Moynihan identified multiple fabrications in Lehrer's third book, Imagine: How Creativity Works (2012), including six quotations attributed to musician Bob Dylan. Imagine and Lehrer's earlier book How We Decide (2009) were recalled after a publisher's internal review found significant problems in that material. He was also fired from The New Yorker and Wired. In 2016, Lehrer published A Book About Love, to negative reviews.

Early life, education, employment

Jonah Richard Lehrer [1] [2] was born on June 25, 1981, in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. [3] His mother, Ariella (born Jean Hively), [4] a developer of educational software, [3] converted to Judaism to marry his father, [5] David Lehrer, a civil rights lawyer. [3]

Lehrer graduated from North Hollywood High School. When he was 15, he won $1,000 in an essay contest run by NASDAQ. [6] In 2000, he worked as a line chef at the Midtown Manhattan restaurants Le Cirque and Le Bernardin. [5]

Lehrer majored in neuroscience at Columbia University. [6] While an undergraduate, he worked in the laboratory of Eric Kandel, "examining the biological process of memory and what happens in the brain on a molecular level when a person remembers or forgets information". [7] He appears on one published paper from that laboratory, as fourth of eight authors on a primary report in a three-laboratory collaborative genetics study characterizing homologs of the human DYRK1A gene from model organism C. elegans , a gene believed to "play a significant role in the neuropathology of Down syndrome". [8]

While at Columbia, Lehrer also contributed to the Columbia Review , and was its editor for two years. [7] He tied for second place for the Dean Hawkes Memorial Prize in the Humanities. [1] Lehrer was a 2003 Rhodes Scholarship recipient, supporting his study at Wolfson College at Oxford University; [7] [9] while he is reported to have planned to study "philosophy, physiology and psychology", [7] he is further reported to have instead studied 20th century literature and philosophy. [10] [ better source needed ]

Writing career

Lehrer has written for The New Yorker (July 2008-March 2012; staff writer June 2012), [11] [12] [13] Wired (July 2010-June 2012) [13] [10] [14] Scientific American Mind (June 2008-July 2009), [15] Grantland , [10] The Wall Street Journal , [13] [10] and The Boston Globe , [13] [10] as well as the journal Nature , [16] and Seed magazine. [17]

Lehrer was a contributing editor for a variety of publications, including Scientific American Mind [18] (2009-2012) [19] [20] and Radiolab (2007-2012, 38 episodes). [21] [22] [23]

Lehrer resigned from The New Yorker on July 30, 2012, after accusations of fabricated Bob Dylan quotes in Imagine surfaced. [24] On August 31, 2012, Wired.com 's editor-in-chief, Evan Hansen, stating Lehrer's "failure to meet ... editorial standards", severed the relationship between that venue and the writer. [14]

Books

Lehrer is the author of three best-selling books: Proust Was a Neuroscientist (2007), How We Decide (2009), and Imagine: How Creativity Works (2012). The latter two books were withdrawn from the market by their publishers after "internal review uncovered significant problems" with the books. [25] These and other work by Lehrer were characterized as having misused quotes and facts, plagiarized press releases and authored work, and to have otherwise recycled earlier published work. [11] [25] [26] These acts and the process of uncovering them are recounted in So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson.

In print

Proust Was a Neuroscientist is a collection of biographical essays on creative figures such as Marcel Proust, Paul Cézanne, Walt Whitman, and Auguste Escoffier. [27]

Chris McManus, professor of psychology and medical education, University College London, writing in Nature, opens his review, saying "'Oh no he wasn't!' might well be the response to ... Lehrer's claim ... ," continuing with "Lehrer's conceit of the artist as a neuroscientist is not unique" (University of London Semir Zeki and Dartmouth's Patrick Cavanaugh having preceded him with the general point), that the "impressions [of artists] are neither experiments nor science" and that the "conceit remains exactly that, if the term 'neuroscientist' is to retain any serious meaning". [28] McManus goes on to quote Lehrer, with this analysis:

What did Proust learn from [the] prophetic crumbs of sugar, flour, and butter [Lehrer asks]? He actually intuited a lot about the structure of our brain." These intuitions included "smell and taste are the only senses that connect directly to the hippocampus, the center of the brain's long-term memory, [whereas] all other senses are first processed by the thalamus, the source of language and the front door to consciousness." [McManus concludes:] If indeed Proust intuited this anatomy, it was unfortunate because the taste pathway is wrong, and few regard the thalamus as the source of language ... [28]

On a more positive note, McManus notes that "The most interesting parts of Proust ... are its manifestos on art and science in the prelude and coda" that begins with C.P. Snow; however, Lehrer proceeds (McManus notes) with "attacks" on Richard Dawkins, Brian Greene, Steven Pinker and E. O. Wilson for failing to engage in a "dialogue of equals" with nonscientists. [28] McManus closes, stating that while Lehrer's notion of a "fourth culture" is a "grand dream", his "attempt at [it] fails" since the neuroscience laid out by Lehrer "seems 'sheer plod', undermining the central conceit—for what artist would partake in such a paltry matter?"

Nonscientists, on the other hand, mostly offered praise for Proust. Science journalist and Guggenheim Fellow D. T. Max described it for The New York Times as "a precocious and engaging book that tries to mend the century-old tear between the literary and scientific cultures". [29] [ verification needed ] [30] The review by music critic Helen Brown in The Telegraph stated, "Lehrer is a dazzlingly clever young man whose writing bears witness to both the clarity of his scientific training and the humanity of his literary studies. The Whitmanesque electricity of all the thought and heart he has put into this book fizzes from each sentence." [31] [ verification needed ] Jonathon Keats at Salon , writing as an artist, approached the "conceit" noted by McManus from the opposing perspective, and described Proust as being written "arbitrarily and often inaccurately".[ verification needed ] [32]

On June 6, 2013, Simon & Schuster announced that it would publish a book by Lehrer with the working title The Book of Love. [33] In Slate.com, Daniel Engber suggested that Lehrer might have plagiarized portions of his book proposal from the work of his former New Yorker colleague Adam Gopnik. Both had written about the same episode in the life of Darwin, using the same biography (that of Desmond and Moore) as a source. [34] The book was published as A Book About Love in 2016. Reviewing it in The New York Times , Jennifer Senior described it as "a nonfiction McMuffin" and "insolently unoriginal," containing "a lot of dime-store counsel" and "a series of duckpin arguments, just waiting to be knocked down." She concluded, "Perhaps Mr. Lehrer has changed—personally. But not sufficiently as a writer. I fear it may be time, at long last, for him to find something else to do." [35]

Withdrawn

In How We Decide, Lehrer argued that two main parts of the brain are involved in decision-making, the rational and the emotional.[ dubious – discuss ][ citation needed ] Steven Berlin Johnson, a technology writer with training in semiotics and English literature,[ citation needed ] reviewed How We Decide for The New York Times long before its withdrawal from market during the Imagine fabrication scandal, where he wrote,

Explaining decision-making on the scale of neurons makes for a challenging task, but Lehrer handles it with confidence and grace. As an introduction to the cognitive struggle between the brain's 'executive' rational centers and its more intuitive regions, How We Decide succeeds with great panache. [36]

Adam Kepecs, however, writing in the journal Nature called portions of the book into question based on current understanding of neuroscience. For instance, Kepecs noted that "Lehrer's insistence on attributing decisions to either an emotional brain or a rational one" was "problematic" because there "is no evidence that the brain has distinct and opposing emotional and rational regions." Kepecs laments that Lehrer's writing is "neurobabble [which] has unfortunately become commonplace in science journalism." [37]

Before it was pulled from the shelves by publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), Imagine: How Creativity Works was on the Los Angeles Times ' hardcover nonfiction bestseller list for 22 weeks. [38] Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times called Lehrer adept for Imagine's "teasing out ... social and economic implications of scientific theories while commuting easily among the realms of science, business and art ..." noting that "[h]e deconstructs the creative process behind a Bob Dylan song with the same verve he brings to the story of how Procter & Gamble created the Swiffer, its New Age mop. ... " [12] But Christopher Chabris, writing in The New York Times Book Review , derided Imagine for its "many elementary errors" and formulaic approach, as well as for "Lehrer's failure to grasp some fundamental principles of scientific thinking". [39] A review by Michael S. Roth in The Washington Post said, "Lehrer practices what he preaches, showing an appetite for learning, a determined effort to cross fields and disciplines, and a delight in exploring new possibilities," [40] while Isaac Chotiner of The New Republic described Imagine as inaccurate, simplistic, and glib, and concluded, "Lehrer writes self-help for people who would be embarrassed to be seen reading it." [41]

Plagiarism and quote fabrication scandal

Findings of self-plagiarism

On June 19, 2012, Joe Coscarelli of New York magazine and Josh Levin of Slate reported that five posts by Lehrer on The New Yorker blog had reused significant, identical portions of his own work without acknowledging having done so, referring to the practice as "self-plagiarism". [42] [43] Additionally, Edward Champion reported that portions of Imagine: How Creativity Works had been published previously in various forms by Lehrer, [44] and that he had subsequently re-used parts of his books, unattributed, in further submitted publications, e.g.,

The most mysterious thing about the human brain is that the more we know about it, the deeper our own mystery becomes. [45]

The most mysterious thing about the human brain is that the more we know about it, the deeper our own mystery becomes. [44]

All five of The New Yorker blog posts now appear on the magazine's website with editor's notes listing where Lehrer had previously published related sentences, a list that included The Wall Street Journal , The Boston Globe , Wired , and The Guardian . [13] In a response soon after, a spokesperson for Lehrer's publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), stated: "[Lehrer] owns the rights to the relevant articles, so no permission was needed. He will add language to the acknowledgments noting his prior work." [46] Lehrer apologized for this unattributed reuse of his own work. [46] In a related matter, a correction was appended to a January 30, 2012, article by Lehrer on The New Yorker website, noting that quotations published in the original version of that article had been taken from the work of another writer, Peter Dizikes, at another publication, the MIT Technology Review (i.e., without permission or attribution). [47] [48]

Imagine fabrications, The New Yorker resignation

The seriousness of the disclosures then escalated. Some weeks later, Michael C. Moynihan reported in Tablet Magazine that Lehrer had fabricated quotes attributed to singer Bob Dylan in his book Imagine: How Creativity Works. [49] [50] Moynihan discussed his discovery at length with Mark Colvin, host of Australia's ABC News' program Friday Late. [51] Moynihan noted later that the quotations immediately sounded phony to him when he read the book: They "sounded like a Dylan self-help book", leading him to seek clarification from Lehrer and Dylan's manager. [52] [ page needed ] In a subsequent statement, Lehrer admitted, "The quotes in question either did not exist, were unintentional misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes." [53] He also acknowledged having initially lied about the sources for these quotes to Moynihan when first confronted about them. [11] [53]

At a Moth storytelling event, Jonah Lehrer said "I'd been a lifelong Dylan fan and was familiar with approximate versions of what he'd said, so I put in those approximations to make it sound better, as if I'd actually done my homework. And then I forgot they were there." [54]

In the wake of plagiarism revelations Lehrer resigned from The New Yorker on July 30, 2012, [11] less than two months after he had joined the staff. [55] Several scheduled speaking engagements were cancelled. [56] In the days and weeks that followed, reporting on the scope of the issues, and related criticism, continued. Colleen Curry of ABC News in the U.S. compared Lehrer in mid-July to "Publishing's ... Notorious Offenders", Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass, and Jayson Blair. [57]

Recall of Imagine

Lehrer's publisher for Imagine and for his two other major works, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, announced that unsold print copies of the book would be recalled and sales of e-books would be suspended.[ when? ] [58] HMH was subsequently reported, in early August, to have placed all of Lehrer's books that they had published under an internal review. [59]

Broadened review and consequences

On July 31, 2012, New York Public Radio issued a statement that described Lehrer "a talented and valued colleague." The statement also expressed that the station was "deeply saddened by the news" of the preceding week and further addressed Lehrer's role as a contributing editor between 2007 and 2012. [21] The statement suggested that his work at this NPR venue was untainted, because of their applied journalistic oversight:

Jonah Lehrer has been a regular contributor to Radiolab as an "explainer", making technical science more accessible and bringing much needed meaning to new scientific research. He has been a lively and compelling voice and has helped make the history of science come alive for listeners. ... Radiolab has not used Jonah as a standalone authority on any topic within an episode. Rather, he has brought new research to the attention of the program and the producers in turn have interviewed primary sources and researchers, weaving the voices together as part of a choir—a style of reporting that defines Radiolab. Since Jonah has not been in the role of reporter for Radiolab and we have employed standard practices of journalism in producing the episodes, we have no reason to believe his work with Radiolab is compromised. But we will review the work as needed. [23]

The final episode to which Lehrer is seen to contribute, "The 'Decline Effect' and Scientific Truth", aired on June 29, 2012. It contains a comment indicating audio editing to make two corrections to content. One is a factual quantitative statement. The other is an attribution of a quote without reference to any individual at the program bearing responsibility. [21]

On August 10, 2012, Steve Myers at Poynter.org reported that a quotation from the magician Teller of the performance duo Penn and Teller that had been included in Imagine was inaccurate, [24] [51] : 8:05  but that a previous version of the quote, which Lehrer had used for a 2009 Wired magazine article, [60] had been accurate. [24] In the wake of the disclosures, Wired.com asked journalism professor Charles Seife to investigate Lehrer's posts to its website. Writing in Slate.com (after Wired.com declined to publish his findings), Seife stated that he had found 17 of a sample of 18 Lehrer posts to contain rampant, longstanding recycled work, as well as plagiarism of press releases and of authored work, and issues with misuse of quotes and facts. [26] He summarized his findings in this way:

I am convinced that Lehrer has a cavalier attitude about truth and falsehood. This shows not only in his attitude toward quotations but in some of the other details of his writing. And a journalist who repeatedly fails to correct errors when they're pointed out is, in my opinion, exhibiting reckless disregard for the truth. / It is thus my opinion that Lehrer plagiarized others' work, published inaccurate quotations, printed narrative details that were factually incorrect, and failed to address errors when they were pointed out. [26]

On August 31, 2012, Wired.com's editor-in-chief, Evan Hansen, announced that Wired.com had cut ties with Lehrer. Hansen wrote that while Lehrer's blog had not been subject to fact checking, Wired.com expected all work published under its banner to meet its standards. For that reason, "Lehrer's failure to meet WIRED editorial standards leaves us no choice but to sever the relationship." [14]

As well, Lehrer lost many scheduled speaking engagements, including addresses to the Holmes Report's Global Public Relations Summit and Iowa State University's College of Engineering; a ticketed book signing at the Aliso Creek Inn in Laguna Beach, California; and an appearance as a part of the Robert Simpson Charles Lectureship in Ethics at Earlham College. [56]

In The New Republic , Isaac Chotiner gave a mostly negative review to Imagine in June 2012. He accused Lehrer of grossly oversimplifying complicated scientific issues and habitually using "slippery language", such as treating creativity and imagination as synonyms when they actually describe different phenomena. [61] After the revelations about Lehrer's plagiarism and falsification of data, Chotiner revisited Imagine in 2013:

If I had known of Lehrer's deceptions before writing my piece, I would have tried to argue that the book would have been just as absurd and nonsensical even if every word of it had been true. ... The fact that such a shoddy piece of work could be written by such an ostensibly serious writer is somehow more disturbing than the knowledge that an overconfident journalist invented several quotes. [62]

Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed

The controversy surrounding Lehrer's misuse of Bob Dylan quotes in Imagine and his February 2013 speech to the Knight Foundation feature heavily in Jon Ronson's 2015 book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed. [52] Drawing from his research into the history of public shaming, Ronson argues that the public humiliation that followed the discovery of Lehrer's journalistic malpractice was excessive even by 18th century standards. [63] Slate.com journalist Daniel Engber disagreed, arguing that the media has not been "too hard". [64] In assessing Ronson's book in March 2015, Engber argues that Lehrer's Knight Foundation apology (see above) and Ronson's view of Lehrer's actions and of the apology fail to address the full scope of Lehrer's malpractices;[ verification needed ] Engber states,

Lehrer's transgressions went much deeper. In Imagine, he didn't just make up quotes from Bob Dylan; he twisted words and reversed their meanings. (Per Moynihan, for example, he suggests that Dylan had "tantrums of genius" and started tearing up his papers when his writing wasn't going well. In context, though, that phrase from Marianne Faithfull, quoted in a Dylan book called Behind the Shades, refers not to the singer's writer's block but to his sexual frustration.) Lehrer also made up quotes from W. H. Auden and Raymond Teller, and misrepresented their beliefs. He plagiarized widely. (Among the victims seems to have been his erstwhile colleague Malcolm Gladwell.) Lehrer's publisher hired fact-checkers to look closely at the book, and subsequently pulled remaining copies from the shelves. [64]

Engber concludes that Lehrer's catalogue of inaccuracy "wasn't sloppiness or a rash of dumb mistakes. At best, it was a systematic disregard for journalistic ethics. At worst, it was calculated fraud." [64]

Affirmation of Proust, recall of How We Decide

By March 2013, Lehrer's publisher HMH determined that his first book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist (2007), had no significant problems and would remain in print. [25] However, adding to the mounting disgrace of the Imagine recall and severed ties with The New Yorker and Wired.com, [64] Lehrer's publisher announced at the same time that his second book, How We Decide (2009) would also be pulled. [25]

Apologies

Lehrer at his February 2013 Knight Foundation paid apology speech, which drew significant media disapprobation Jonah Lehrer Knight Foundation speech.jpg
Lehrer at his February 2013 Knight Foundation paid apology speech, which drew significant media disapprobation

On February 12, 2013, Lehrer gave a paid [65] speech to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation entitled "My Apology." [66] His speech included the following content:

I'm the author of a book on creativity that contained several fabricated Bob Dylan quotes. I committed plagiarism on my blog, taking without credit or citation an entire paragraph from the blog of Christian Jarrett. I plagiarized from myself. I lied to a journalist named Michael Moynihan to cover up the Dylan fabrications. [65]

Lehrer also announced plans to continue writing, and spoke of potential safeguards to prevent similar lapses in judgment and accuracy from recurring; [67] at one point he stated, "I need rules." [68]

Various media commentators have criticized the speech, arguing that Lehrer did not express sufficient regret and finding Lehrer's attempts to use neuroscience to discuss his conduct evasive and misleading.[ citation needed ] Daniel Engber wrote in Slate that the speech "was couched in elaborate and perplexing disavowals". [68] Joseph Nocera of The New York Times wrote that "As apologies go, it was both arrogant and pathetic." [69] Michael Moynihan, who broke the Imagine fabrication story, described it as "a string of Gladwellian bullshit". [52] : 49  The day after the speech, the foundation acknowledged that paying Lehrer was a mistake. [70] In 2015, Lehrer continued offering apologia for his misconduct at student fora, for which he does not receive honoraria, according to a report in the Fresno State University student publication, The Collegian. At one such forum at Fresno State, Lehrer stated that his large workload led to "very serious mistakes. I was taking on more projects than I could handle." [10] With regard to the Dylan quotes he admits to having fabricated, Lehrer specifically cited the pressure he felt from the deadline to finish Imagine. [10] Lehrer now states that he "records all his interviews for reference" and "sends interview subjects the quotes he plans to use". [10]

Further projects and news

In March 2014, Lehrer began to post blog entries on the scientific subjects that interested him at jonahlehrer.net. In the opening post, "Welcome to my blog", Lehrer thanks his readers, expresses the desire to regain their trust, and indicates that "when possible, all material will be sent to the relevant researchers for their approval. If that's not possible, an independent fact-checker will review it." [71]

In November 2014, the Associated Press (AP) announced that Portfolio, an imprint of Random House, had acquired rights to a work, then titled The Digital Mind: How We Think and Behave Differently on Screens. It was to be "co-written by Lehrer and Shlomo Benartzi", [72] the latter a behavioural economist, [73] and professor and co-chair of the Behavioral Decision-Making Group at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. [72] Adrian Zackheim of Portfolio was reported by AP as stating that while "[n]o responsible publisher could entirely overlook his past mistakes ... the prospect of working with him was also fantastically appealing," and as describing Lehrer as "one of the most gifted nonfiction writers of his generation". [72]

The early characterization of the proposed work proved to be inaccurate with regard to the eventual book that was released. Business professor Benartzi is involved with a new Portfolio title that involves Lehrer, entitled The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behavior (alternative subtitle, What Your Business Can Learn from the Way Consumers Think Online); [74] [75] Lehrer is listed as a contributor, rather than a co-author—Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post notes that Lehrer's name appears on the cover "in far smaller type size than Benartzi's name". [76] Lehrer is described by the publisher as "a science writer living in Los Angeles", and only Benartzi's photograph appears on the jacket. [76]

Personal life

In 2008 Lehrer married journalist Sarah Liebowitz. The couple has two children. [3] Lehrer bought the historic Shulman House in Los Angeles in 2010. [77] [78] [79]

Bibliography

Books

Essays and reporting

See also

References and notes

  1. 1 2 Cross, Timothy P. (July 1, 2002). "Around the Quads: College Honors 65 Students at Awards and Prizes Ceremony". Columbia College Today. Retrieved April 18, 2016.
  2. ↑ Nather, Aziz (2015). Planning Your Research and How to Write It. World Scientific. p. 285. ISBN   9789814651059.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Harris, Paul (March 25, 2012). "Jonah Lehrer: the prodigy who lights up the brain". The Guardian. London. Retrieved April 13, 2016. There is no doubt Lehrer is very smart. He was born on 25 June 1981 in the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Los Feliz. His father, David, is a civil rights lawyer and mother, Ariella, developed educational software. It was a happy, middle-class home under sunny Californian skies with parents that encouraged their son's almost manic curiosity.
  4. ↑ Chain, Sarah (February 13, 2013). "Jonah Lehrer, of York roots, gets $20K for public statement on plagiarism". York Daily Record. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  5. 1 2 Fogal, Gloria (September 11, 2008). "Paperback has local connection". York Daily Record. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  6. 1 2 "Proust Wasn't a Neuroscientist. Neither was Jonah Lehrer". New York Magazine. November 2011. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Sterling, Kristin (December 16, 2002). "College's Cyrus Habib, Jonah Lehrer Named Rhodes Scholars". Columbia News. Columbia University.
  8. ↑ Raich, William B.; Moorman, Celine; Lacefield, Clay O.; Lehrer, Jonah; Bartsch, Dusan; Plasterk, Ronald H. A.; Kandel, Eric R.; Hobert, Oliver (2003). "Characterization of Caenorhabditis elegans homologs of the Down syndrome candidate gene DYRK1A". Genetics . 163 (2, February): 571–580. doi:10.1093/genetics/163.2.571. PMC   1462454 . PMID   12618396.
  9. ↑ Rhodes Trust Staff. "Rhodes Scholars: complete list, 1903-2015". The Rhodes Scholarships. Archived from the original on November 6, 2013. Retrieved April 13, 2016. Search "Jonah Lehrer" at this site to access information used.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Pues, Trentyn (March 5, 2015). "[Former] New Yorker reporter Jonah Lehrer shares cautionary tale". The Collegian. Fresno, Calif.: California State University, Fresno. Retrieved April 13, 2016. Jonah Lehrer, a science writer who was caught fabricating quotes in one of his books, said plagiarism is "the worst mistake a journalist can make". / Speaking at a forum discussion at Fresno State on Thursday, Lehrer has written for Wired, Grantland, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal ... / ... Lehrer graduated from Columbia University in 2003 with a degree in neuroscience. He then studied 20th century literature and philosophy at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. / Lehrer no longer accepts honorariums to speak and said he has participated in eight other forum discussions similar to Thursday's in the past year. He currently is writing books and said he isn't quite ready to get back into journalism yet, adding he's enjoying writing now more than ever.[ better source needed ]
  11. 1 2 3 4 Bosman, Julie (July 30, 2012). "Jonah Lehrer Resigns From New Yorker After Making Up Dylan Quotes for His Book" (media blog). The New York Times . Retrieved April 13, 2016. A spokeswoman for The New Yorker said that in addition to his work online, Mr. Lehrer wrote six articles for the magazine, beginning in July 2008. His last article for the magazine was published in March 2012. He became a staff writer in June 2012.
  12. 1 2 Kakutani, Michiko (April 2, 2012). "How to Cultivate Eureka Moments: 'Imagine: How Creativity Works,' by Jonah Lehrer" (book review). The New York Times . Retrieved April 18, 2016.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 "Jonah Lehrer, Frontal Cortex". The New Yorker . June 13, 2012. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  14. 1 2 3 Hansen, Evan (August 31, 2012). "Violations of Editorial Standards Found in WIRED Writer's Blog". Wired. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Stories by Jonah Lehrer" (online publication db). Scientific American. April 17, 2016. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
  16. ↑ Myers, Steve (August 13, 2012). "Science writers: Jonah Lehrer's scientific errors worse than fabricated quotes". Poynter. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  17. 1 2 Lozada, Carlos (October 9, 2015). "The humbling of Jonah Lehrer, as told through a book jacket". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  18. ↑ Lehrer, Jonah. "The Root of Thought: What Do Glial Cells Do?". Scientific American .
  19. ↑ Branan, Nicole (September 1, 2009). "MIND Reviews: Neuro-Economic Boom, Recommendations from Scientific American MIND [incl. book mini-review, How We Decide]". Scientific American Mind. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
  20. ↑ Lehrer, Jonah; Harris, Judith Rich (2012). "Do Parents Matter? (§5.2)" (interview, e-book ed.). In Scientific American' (ed.). The Science of Education: Back to School [A Scientific American Mind collection]. New York: Macmillan. ISBN   978-1466824140 . Retrieved April 14, 2016.
  21. 1 2 3 WNYC Staff (April 14, 2016). "People: Jonah Lehrer" (online publication db). WNYC. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
  22. ↑ "People –Jonah Lehrer" (online publication db). Radiolab. April 14, 2016. Retrieved April 14, 2016.
  23. 1 2 Taintor, David (July 31, 2012). "'Radiolab' Distances Itself From Jonah Lehrer In Wake Of Fabricated Quotes". Talking Points Memo . Retrieved April 14, 2016.
  24. 1 2 3 Myers, Steve (10 August 2012). "Another false quotation found in Jonah Lehrer's 'Imagine'". Poynter. Archived from the original on 22 July 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
  25. 1 2 3 4 Moynihan, Michael (March 1, 2013). "Publisher Pulls Jonah Lehrer's 'How We Decide' From Stores". The Daily Beast. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  26. 1 2 3 Seife, Charles (August 31, 2012). "Jonah Lehrer's Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com". Slate. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
  27. 1 2 Max, D.T. (November 4, 2007). "Swann's Hypothesis". The New York Times. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  28. 1 2 3 McManus, I. C. [Chris] (November 1, 2007). "Prions, pleasure and purple notes [Review of the books, Proust was a neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer, and The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia in Art and Science, by Cretien van Campen]" (PDF). Nature. 450 (7166): 30. doi: 10.1038/450030a . S2CID   4413776 . Retrieved April 18, 2016.
  29. ↑ Max, D. T. (November 4, 2007). "Swann's Hypothesis [Proust was a Neuroscientist, By Jonah Le\hrer]" (book review). The New York Times . Retrieved April 18, 2016.
  30. ↑ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation – D. T. Max". gf.org. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  31. ↑ Brown, Helen (March 1, 2011). "Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer: review" (book review). The Telegraph . London. Retrieved April 18, 2016.
  32. ↑ Keat, Jonathon (June 7, 2012). "Proust was a Neuroscientist". Salon. Retrieved April 18, 2016. [Quoting subtitle:] Did novelist George Eliot anticipate the ability of the brain to grow new cells? Did chef Auguste Escoffier foretell the science of the palate? Jonah Lehrer thinks so.
  33. ↑ "Jonah Lehrer Has Deal for New Book". AP. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
  34. ↑ Daniel Engber (June 7, 2013). "Jonah Lehrer book proposal on love: Did he plagiarize Adam Gopnik?". Slate Magazine.
  35. ↑ Senior, Jennifer (July 6, 2016). "Jonah Lehrer's 'A Book About Love' Is Another Unoriginal Sin" (book review). The New York Times . Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  36. ↑ Johnson, Steven Berlin (March 18, 2009). "Mind Matters [How We Decide, By Jonah Lehrer]" (book review). The New York Times . Retrieved June 26, 2012.
  37. ↑ Kepecs, Adam (April 16, 2009). "Decisions, decisions ..." Nature. 458 (7240): 835. Bibcode:2009Natur.458Q.835K. doi: 10.1038/458835a .
  38. ↑ "Bestsellers: Jonah Lehrer, Imagine: How Creativity Works, Hardcover Nonfiction". Los Angeles Times . September 16, 2012. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  39. ↑ Chabris, Christopher (May 11, 2012). "Boggle The Mind –'Imagine,' by Jonah Lehrer" (book review). The New York Times . Retrieved July 30, 2012.
  40. ↑ Roth, Michael S. (March 23, 2012). "'Imagine: How Creativity Works,' by Jonah Lehrer". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 25, 2012.
  41. ↑ Chotiner, Isaac (June 6, 2012). "The Curse Of Knowledge [Imagine: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer]" (book review). The New Republic . Retrieved June 25, 2012.
  42. ↑ Coscarelli, Joe (June 19, 2012). "New Yorker Writer Jonah Lehrer Plagiarizes Himself Repeatedly". New York. Retrieved June 20, 2012.
  43. ↑ Levin, Josh (June 19, 2012). "Why Did Jonah Lehrer Plagiarize Himself?". Slate.
  44. 1 2 Champion, Edward (June 22, 2012). "How Jonah Lehrer Recycled His Own Material for Imagine". Reluctant Habits. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  45. ↑ Lehrer, Jonah (2008). Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 185. ISBN   9780547394282.
  46. 1 2 Schuessler, Jennifer (June 20, 2012). "Lehrer Apologizes for Recycling Work, While New Yorker Says It Won't Happen Again". The New York Times . Retrieved June 23, 2012.
  47. ↑ Lehrer, Jonah (January 30, 2012). "Groupthink". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 13, 2016. See the undated Editor's Note at the end of this article.
  48. ↑ "New Yorker Writer Jonah Lehrer Plagiarizes Himself Repeatedly [Updated]". Daily Intelligencer. Retrieved January 19, 2017.
  49. ↑ Moynihan, Michael C. (July 30, 2012). "Jonah Lehrer's Deceptions". Tablet. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
  50. ↑ Myers, Steve (30 July 2012). "Jonah Lehrer resigns from New Yorker after accusation he fabricated Bob Dylan quotes in 'Imagine'". Poynter. Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  51. 1 2 Colvin, Mark & Moynihan, Michael (August 17, 2012). Interview: Michael Moynihan (streaming audio) (radio broadcast). Sydney, NSW, AUS: ABC News (Australia) . Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  52. 1 2 3 Ronson, Jon (2015). "Chapters 2-5". So You've Been Publicly Shamed. New York, NY: Penguin-Riverhead. pp. 14–80, and passim. ISBN   9781594487132.
  53. 1 2 Kellogg, Carolyn (July 30, 2012). "Jonah Lehrer's Bob Dylan quotes lead to resignation". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  54. ↑ The Moth. "Attachment" by Jonah Lehrer. https://themoth.org/stories/attachment
  55. ↑ Bercovici, Jeff. "Jonah Lehrer Resigns From The New Yorker Over Fabricated Bob Dylan Quotes In Book". Forbes. Retrieved November 29, 2018.
  56. 1 2 Bercovici, Jeff (August 1, 2012). "Jonah Lehrer Was Going To Give A Speech On Ethics. It's Canceled, Obviously". Forbes. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
  57. ↑ Curry, Colleen (July 12, 2012). "Jonah Lehrer, Jayson Blair and Publishing's 6 Notorious Offenders". ABC News.
  58. ↑ "Fabrications acknowledged, a bestseller is withdrawn - the Boston Globe". The Boston Globe .
  59. ↑ Myers, Steve (August 7, 2012). "Jonah Lehrer's publisher is reviewing all of his books". Poynter. Archived from the original on August 12, 2012. Retrieved August 11, 2012.
  60. ↑ Lehrer, Jonah (April 20, 2009). "Magic and the Brain: Teller Reveals the Neuroscience of Illusion". Wired.
  61. ↑ Chotiner, Isaac. The Curse of Knowledge, The New Republic June 6, 2012; accessed December 12, 2017
  62. ↑ Chotiner, Isaac. "The Real Trouble with Jonah Lehrer", The New Republic June 6, 2012; accessed 12 December 2017
  63. ↑ Cooke, Rachel (March 15, 2015). "So You've Been Publicly Shamed and Is Shame Necessary? review – think before you tweet". The Observer. ISSN   0029-7712 . Retrieved March 20, 2023.
  64. 1 2 3 4 Engber, Daniel (March 31, 2015). "Were We Too Hard on Jonah Lehrer?". Slate. Retrieved April 7, 2015.
  65. 1 2 Beaujon, Andrew (February 12, 2013). "Jonah Lehrer earns $20,000 honorarium for talking about plagiarism at Knight lunch". Poynter. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
  66. ↑ Chotiner, Isaac (February 14, 2013). "The Real Trouble with Jonah Lehrer". The New Republic . Retrieved April 15, 2016. [Quoting subtitle:] He's apologized for intellectual dishonesty. But not for intellectual laziness.
  67. ↑ Brainard, Curtis (February 12, 2013). "'I need rules': Jonah Lehrer says he still intends to pursue writing". Columbia Journalism Review . Retrieved April 18, 2016.
  68. 1 2 Engber, Daniel (February 13, 2013). "Jonah Lehrer's Mea Sorta Culpa". Slate . Retrieved November 3, 2014.
  69. ↑ Nocera, Joe (June 7, 2013). "How to Monetize Plagiarism". The New York Times . Retrieved April 18, 2016.
  70. ↑ "Knight Foundation regrets paying Lehrer speaking fee". knightfoundation.org. Archived from the original on February 17, 2013. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
  71. ↑ "Jonah Lehrer" . Retrieved April 14, 2016.
  72. 1 2 3 "Jonah Lehrer Working on Book About Digital Life". Associated Press. November 11, 2014. Retrieved April 18, 2016. 'Jonah Lehrer is one of the most gifted nonfiction writers of his generation,' Portfolio publisher Adrian Zackheim said in a statement. 'No responsible publisher could entirely overlook his past mistakes, but the prospect of working with him was also fantastically appealing.'
  73. ↑ Benartzi, Shlomo (18 March 2016). "Faculty: Benartzi". UCLA Anderson School of Management, Department of Accounting. Los Angeles: University of California Regents. Archived from the original on 12 April 2016. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
  74. ↑ Benartzi, Shlomo; Jonah Lehrer (2015). The Smarter Screen: Surprising Ways to Influence and Improve Online Behaviour. New York: Penguin-Portfolio. ISBN   9781591847861.
  75. ↑ Benartzi, Shlomo; Jonah Lehrer (2015). The Smarter Screen: What Your Business Can Learn from the Way Consumers Think Online. London: Piatkus-Little Brown. ISBN   9780349410395.
  76. 1 2 Lozada, Carlos (October 9, 2015). "The humbling of Jonah Lehrer, as told through a book jacket". The Washington Post .
  77. ↑ Beale, Lauren (December 4, 2010). "Hot Property: New owner in the picture at Julius Shulman residence". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 30, 2012.
  78. ↑ Gelles, David (April 14, 2012). "Jonah Lehrer: The man with the big ideas". FT Magazine . Retrieved July 30, 2012.
  79. ↑ Kudler, Adrian (November 30, 2010). "Just The Right Buyer for Julius Shulman's Laurel Canyon Soriano". Curbed LA. Retrieved July 30, 2012.
  80. ↑ Hutson, Matthew (July 15, 2016). "A discredited writer seeking rehabilitation in a new book". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  81. ↑ Lozada, Carlos (July 5, 2016). "In his new book, Jonah Lehrer expresses shame and regret about his old books". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  82. ↑ "In digging into the "mystery of mystery," Lehrer begins with fiction". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved August 17, 2021.

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Lehrer</span> American musician and mathematician (born 1928)

Thomas Andrew Lehrer is an American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, who later taught mathematics and musical theater. He recorded pithy and humorous songs that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. His songs often parodied popular musical forms, though they usually had original melodies. An exception is "The Elements", in which he set the names of the chemical elements to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance.

<i>The Human Stain</i> 2000 novel by Philip Roth

The Human Stain is a novel by Philip Roth, published May 5, 2000. The book is set in Western Massachusetts in the late 1990s. Its narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appears in several earlier Roth novels, including two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain,American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998). Zuckerman acts largely as an observer as the complex story of the protagonist, Coleman Silk, a retired professor of classics, is slowly revealed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Sapolsky</span> American endocrinologist (born 1957)

Robert Morris Sapolsky is an American academic, neuroscientist, and primatologist. He is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, and is a professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery. His research has focused on neuroendocrinology, particularly relating to stress. He is also a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominic Sandbrook</span> British historian and television presenter

Dominic Christopher Sandbrook, is a British historian, author, columnist and television presenter. He co-hosts The Rest is History podcast with author Tom Holland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Eagleman</span> American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator (born 1971)

David Eagleman is an American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator. He teaches neuroscience at Stanford University and is CEO and co-founder of Neosensory, a company that develops devices for sensory substitution. He also directs the non-profit Center for Science and Law, which seeks to align the legal system with modern neuroscience and is Chief Science Officer and co-founder of BrainCheck, a digital cognitive health platform used in medical practices and health systems. He is known for his work on brain plasticity, time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">André Aciman</span> Writer and professor (born 1951)

André Aciman is an Italian-American writer. Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, he is currently a distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he teaches the history of literary theory and the works of Marcel Proust. Aciman previously taught creative writing at New York University and French literature at Princeton University and Bard College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Heffernan</span> American journalist (born 1969)

Virginia Heffernan is an American journalist and cultural critic. Since 2015, she has been a political columnist at the Los Angeles Times and a cultural columnist at Wired. From 2003 to 2011, she worked as a staff writer for The New York Times, first as a television critic, then as a magazine columnist, and then as an opinion writer. She has also worked as a senior editor for Harper's Magazine, as a founding editor of Talk, and as a TV critic for Slate. Her 2016 book Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art argued that the Internet is a "massive and collective work of art", one that is a "work in progress", and that the suggested deterioration of attention spans in response to it is a myth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Grann</span> American journalist (born 1967)

David Elliot Grann is an American journalist, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and author.

<i>How We Decide</i> Book by Jonah Lehrer

How We Decide, is a 2009 book by journalist Jonah Lehrer, that provides biological explanations of how people make decisions and offers suggestions for making better decisions. It is published as The Decisive Moment: How the Brain Makes Up Its Mind in the United Kingdom.

Proust Was a Neuroscientist is a non-fiction book written by Jonah Lehrer, first published in 2007. In it, Lehrer argues that many 20th and 21st-century discoveries of neuroscience are actually re-discoveries of insights made earlier by various artists, including Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman, Paul Cézanne, Igor Stravinsky, and, as alluded to in the title, Marcel Proust.

Tablet is a online magazine focused on Jewish news and culture. The magazine was founded in 2009 and is supported by the Nextbook foundation. Its editor-in-chief is Alana Newhouse.

Michael Christopher Moynihan is an American journalist, former National Correspondent for Vice News and co-host of The Fifth Column podcast. He was previously the cultural news editor for The Daily Beast, the managing editor of Vice magazine, and a senior editor of the libertarian magazine Reason. Moynihan was also a resident fellow of the free-market think tank Timbro in Sweden, where he lived and wrote articles about politics in the country, contributing to Swedish-language publications, including Expressen, Aftonbladet, Sveriges Television, Neo and Göteborgs-Tidningen. According to Media Bistro, "Moynihan is perhaps best known for breaking the story on Jonah Lehrer's fabrications."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Taylor (author)</span> American writer

Benjamin Taylor is an American writer whose work has appeared in a number of publications including The Atlantic, Harper's, Esquire, Bookforum, BOMB, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, The Georgia Review, Raritan Quarterly Review, Threepenny Review, Salmagundi, Provincetown Arts and The Reading Room. He is a founding member of the Graduate Writing Program faculty of The New School in New York City, and has also taught at Washington University in St. Louis, the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, Bennington College and Columbia University. He has served as Secretary of the Board of Trustees of PEN American Center, has been a fellow of the MacDowell Colony and was awarded the Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger Residency at Yaddo. A Trustee of the Edward F. Albee Foundation, Inc., he is also a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University and a Guggenheim Fellow for 2012 - 2013. Taylor's biography of Marcel Proust, Proust: The Search, was published in October 2015 by Yale University Press as part of its newly launched Yale Jewish Lives series.

<i>Imagine: How Creativity Works</i> Book by Jonah Lehrer

Imagine: How Creativity Works is the third non-fiction book by Jonah Lehrer, published in 2012. It explores brain science, and creativity and its social aspects. By July 2012, the book had been recalled by its publisher due to factual inaccuracies.

<i>Tempest</i> (Bob Dylan album) 2012 album by Bob Dylan

Tempest is the thirty-fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 10, 2012, by Columbia Records. The album was recorded at Jackson Browne's Groove Masters Studios in Santa Monica, California. Dylan wrote all of the songs himself with the exception of "Duquesne Whistle", which he co-wrote with longtime Grateful Dead associate Robert Hunter.

Barry Blitt is a Canadian-born American cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his New Yorker covers and as a regular contributor to the op-ed page of The New York Times. Blitt creates his works in traditional pen and ink, as well as watercolors.

<i>So Youve Been Publicly Shamed</i> 2015 nonfiction book by Jon Ronson

So You've Been Publicly Shamed is a 2015 book by British journalist Jon Ronson about online shaming and its historical antecedents. The book explores the re-emergence of public shaming as an Internet phenomenon, particularly on Twitter. As a state-sanctioned punishment, public shaming was popular in Colonial America. Between 1837 in the UK and 1839 in the US, it was phased out as a punishment, not due to the increasingly populous society, as was widely held, but instead in response to rising calls for compassion.

WNYC Studios is a producer and distributor of podcasts and on-demand and broadcast audio. WNYC Studios is a subsidiary of New York Public Radio and is headquartered in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin DiAngelo</span> American academic (born 1956)

Robin Jeanne DiAngelo is an American author working in the fields of critical discourse analysis and whiteness studies. She formerly served as a tenured professor of multicultural education at Westfield State University and is currently an affiliate associate professor of education at the University of Washington. She is known for her work pertaining to "white fragility", an expression she coined in 2011 and explored further in a 2018 book entitled White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.

Shlomo Benartzi is an American behavioral economist, known for his research on retirement savings and the Save More Tomorrow nudge. Benartzi is currently a Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles, California.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.