Advocacy as a Scientific Strategy: The Mitroff Myth

A committee created a fictitious author, Ian Mitroff, who published a paper that violated scientific guidelines. The Mitroff paper recommended an advocacy strategy for scientific research; it said that scientists should vigorously defend their initial hypothesis. I use the advocacy strategy to scientifically prove that Mitroff does not exist. Comments Postprint version. Published in Academy of Management Review, Volume 5, Issue 4, October 1980, pages 509-511. Publisher URL: http://www.aom.pace.edu/amr/ This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/marketing_papers/116 1 [Reprinted from Academy of Management Review, 5 (1980), 509-511] Advocacy as a Scientific Strategy: The Mitroff Myth J. Scott Armstrong Marketing Department, The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania A committee created a fictitious author, Ian Mitroff, who published a paper that violated scientific guidelines. The Mitroff paper recommended an advocacy strategy for scientific research; it said that scientists should vigorously defend their initial hypothesis. I use the advocacy strategy to scientifically prove that Mitroff does not exist. In September 1971, in connection with the debate over the United States Anti-Ballistic Missile System, an ad hoc committee for the Operations Research Society of America [ORSA, 1971] published a set of guidelines for doing scientific research. The ORSA committee members were concerned that many people who claim to be scientists operate in violation of these guidelines. Their feelings could be summarized as follows: Most so-called scientists either do not understand or cannot bring themselves to follow the scientific method. They solve problems in a biased fashion just as non-scientists do. The result is that most of the scientific literature is pure garbage. Worse yet, the scientists cannot even recognize it as garbage. The committee felt that publication of the guidelines was unlikely to have a significant effect on the behavior of scientists. To give their report some impact, the committee tried to generate a controversy over the guidelines by publishing papers under the fictitious name of Ian Mitroff. (Mitroff is Russian slang for hoax.) The purpose of “The Myth of Objectivity” [Mitroff, 1972] was to present guidelines on the proper use of the scientific method and then to violate these guidelines in an obvious fashion. The only constraint was that the paper should look as if it were a serious piece of work. Previous Mitroff papers had not been successful in drawing response because the violation of the guidelines had been less obvious. The only adverse reaction was by Litsios [1970] in response to Mitroff [1969]. “The Myth of Objectivity” was submitted for publication by the committee to demonstrate that unscientific papers are publishable. In fact, it was published by a reputable scientific journal, Management Science. Furthermore, the paper was accepted by readers as a serious piece of work, and Ian Mitroff was accepted as a real scientist. The reaction to the paper exceeded the expectations of the committee. It was widely read, and its mythical author received invitations to lecture at scientific institutions. The ORSA committee was hastily convened to determine the next step. Here the accounts of what happened vary greatly. Although some members of the committee objected, a decision was made to perpetuate the hoax by hiring an actor to pose as Mitroff. Furthermore, the