EXCLUSIVE: Did This Expert On Truth Get Caught Lying?

Dan Ariely is the most famous cognitive behavioral scientist on the topic of lying and misbelief. Over the summer an organization named Data Colada accused him of making up some of the data that made his career. Soon The New Yorker, NPR, The Atlantic, New York Times and a dozen other publications picked up the story about how he, and Francesca Gino (a researcher at Harvard) were lying about their research on lying. Ariely never gave a recorded interview on the topic, instead submitting his answers to reporters over email.  

But it just so happened that over the summer I reached out to Ariely because I was fascinated by his MRI research on the brains of pathological liars (which is not under any sort of investigation that I'm aware of) and we set up a date to talk earlier this month. The result: An exclusive interview with Ariely on the scientific fraud scandal, and some answers to the hard questions about what really lies at the bottom of truth and deception.