He'd already been suspended from teaching, but until this announcement, it looked as though he might be able to hang on and resume his research, which focussed on the evolution of language and morality. Not any more. Hauser says he's quitting the field that made him famous:
“While on leave over the past year, I have begun doing some extremely interesting and rewarding work focusing on the educational needs of at-risk teenagers. I have also been offered some exciting opportunities in the private sector,” Hauser wrote in a resignation letter to the dean, dated July 7. “While I may return to teaching and research in the years to come, I look forward to focusing my energies in the coming year on these new and interesting challenges.”So that's the end of the Hauser controversy, then?
Not really. The problem is, we still don't know what actually happened. It's hard for anyone to draw a line under this and move on, as Hauser seems to be doing.
Harvard have been reluctant to reveal any more than the barest details of the case. When the allegations first appeared, they set up an internal investigation. In August 2010 this concluded that Hauser was "soley responsible" for 8 cases of scientific misconduct.
But no-one - outside Harvard's investigative committee - knows what they were. He's been found guilty, and he's been punished, but no-one knows the crimes or the evidence against him.
Am I alone in finding this situation unsatisfactory?
Marc Hauser has published hundreds of scientific papers as well as various books. Only a small number of papers were implicated in the misconduct allegations. But to scientifically evaluate the rest of Hauser's work, we need to know what happened - and how easy the misconduct was to detect.
It makes a big difference, for example, whether the misconduct was the kind of thing that could have been going on, leaving no trace, for many years prior to this.
The lack of firm facts has led to discussion of the case being dominated by rumours and speculation. In October last year, for example, a newspaper published an article claiming that the case against Hauser might not be as strong as it first seemed.
This led to a rebuttal by Gerry Altman, then Editor of Cognition, a journal from which Hauser retracted a paper. Altman said that based on the information he had, Hauser was indeed guilty. But he admitted that he was going on what the Harvard investigation told him; he had not had access to the full data.
When Harvard found Hauser guilty, the Dean of his Faculty justified their secrecy:
The work of the investigating committee as well as its final report are considered confidential to protect both the individuals who made the allegations and those who assisted in the investigation.However, while this is certainly important, I don't see why it would prevent Harvard from releasing the conclusions of the report. They don't need to name the people who gave evidence against Hauser - but they do need to spell out what he did, and what they think he didn't do, so that the scientific community can come to their own conclusions as to the validity of the rest of Hauser's work.
Our investigative process will not succeed if individuals do not have complete confidence that their identities can be protected throughout the process and after the findings are reported to the appropriate agencies.
Furthermore, when the allegations concern research involving federal funding, funding agency regulations govern our processes ... For example, federal regulations impose an ongoing obligation to protect the identities of those who provided assistance to the investigation.
In his letter, the Dean closed by saying that Harvard were going to
form a faculty committee this fall to reaffirm or recommend changes to the communication and confidentiality practices associated with the conclusion of cases involving allegations of professional misconduct.I hope so.
15 comments:
doesn't that effectively mean that all of Hausers work must be considered as critical and not trustworthy?
Somehow this still feels as if Harvard wants to cover up more dirt from Hauser. If he has faked data for the last xx years and noone and Harvard ever said something - well...
Harvard is becoming the most corrupt university in the world. Hell the entire department of psychiatry has been bribed by Big Pharma and Harvard delivers slaps on the wrist after they are exposed (think Biederman et al. We will never get the truth about the Hauser affair. At least not from Harvard.
Did you mean to make "Harvard" plural? "Harvard have been reluctant" and "Harvard were going to"
I worked in Harvard's psychology dept. during the investigation and prior to his suspension and occasionally crossed paths with him and members of his lab. There was not a lot of willingness to discuss the affair early on amongst folks in the department (at least, not that I was privvy to). Early on, he was being given the benefit of the doubt.
One thing that always struck me as odd from the very start was that the risk/reward ratio seemed off. What I mean is: why fake data this deep into your career, after you've already received tenure and established a reputation as a leader in your field? Doesn't make any logical sense that he intentionally faked data for a few papers; so much to lose, and not that much to gain.
Just speculation, but my guess as to what happened is that the Harvard psych dept. community, his peers, had to decide whether or not to support him, and, that support (which was there in the beginning) started to trickle away, reached a tipping point, and then fell off completely, en masse.
These academic communities are pretty tightly knit affairs, and good relations between PIs are crucial. Just speculation, but I would suppose that he lost the support of his colleagues, the department couldn't stomach the negative attention, and he was given the option to resign or be terminated.
Whether or not he actually committed intentional fraud may have become a moot point..
T Lobe - I don't think this means that all of his work must be considered untrustworthy. Much of it has been under scrutiny over the last couple years and has held up.
Since Hauser had funding from NIH, eventually the Office of Research Integrity will be obliged to publish the results of their inquiry.
Neurocritic: That's true, but according to the Chair of the Dept. of Psychology, that could take up to 7 years.
Though I've never had any interaction with Hauser myself, I don't think that this is an example of a case where an individual is acting based on negative intentions. It seems more likely that, though unfortunate it may be, Hauser might have become a bit dogmatic in his approach to research, which doesn't seem to be so implausible given most of the work over his career, as noted by others, has been an up hill battle. That being said nothing justifies the actions, but it just seems unlikely that deceit or the pursuit of fame/respect were the motivations for his actions. It seems more probable that somewhere along the way he lost sight of the impartiality that researchers should have.
Dejc: Yes, that's been my impression too, although I've never been anywhere near either Harvard or Hauser.
As Anonymous says above, Hauser had an extremely strong track record - one of the best of anyone in psychology - before this happened.
So if he made a conscious decision to "turn to the dark side", it would have been an extremely stupid one.
Does anyone really believe that if he were innocent he would resign from his tenured full professorship at HARVARD?
He resigned because he probably was innocent. Guilty ones get impeached or fired because they actually have damning evidence.
Do people in the real world care what monkey researchers do? Yes, he's crossed over to the "dark side." Perhaps now he can make a difference in the world.
Yes, I have to say that his resignation is hardly damning. A much more reasonable explanation is that the damage to his reputation has made it untenable for him to continue his research in this area at any time in the future. So why should he bother to stick around at Harvard?
And I have to agree, it is important to the process of scientific inquiry that the results of Harvard's investigation be published in full and with a relative promptness. The high profile nature of this event makes this even more important. If we cannot have transparency on these issues, particularly coming from one of the world's flagship research institutions, then why should the public trust the validity of any scientific data?
The problem that Harvard have, and the Office of Research Integrity that will eventually publish the results of the investigation, is that if it's been concluded that federally funded data have been fabricated, it is a requirement that someone (the District Attorney, or some such) investigate whether funds were misappropriated. I don't think anyone would believe that funds were in fact misappropriated, so this is probably a waste of time. But my guess is that ORI have to wait until the DA's office make a decision on whether to take this forward. And of course, the DA's office are more likely interested in the very many more serious cases piling up around them. I suspect that Harvard would wish that they could publish more details, but legally, they can't at this stage.There is any conspiracy; just due legal process. It's frustrating, but don't on this occasion be too quick to blame Harvard. As usual, it's the lawyers who're holding things up.
Many people have discussed the logic, or illogical nature of these man's supposed behavior later in his storied career. Let's remember that emotionally compelling reasons, trump logic, and that very smart humans, do very stupid things. Time & time again people wonder why people who "had it all" cheat, lie, kill, etc etc. As one late thinker said, Reason is just the tip of the iceburg.
Veri:
People do not resign tenured positions with high salaries and generous retirement benefits because they are innocent. My guess is that he is guilty, very guilty, and obvious guilty in the sense that his fabrication had multiple witnesses. Look what just happened to Luk Van Parijs from MIT. He just pled guilty to federal fraud charges and has to pay back like $65K in overhead costs from his grants. LVP was a new assistant professor. Hauser was a faculty at Harvard for many years. My guess is that Harvard said to him: resign or we will sue you for millions of dollars of overhead.
No one ever loses their tenure at Harvard. Ever. They are made to quit before they are fired. And since Hauser's guilt makes everyone look bad, I don't think there is any doubt that he is guilty. I predict federal charges are coming.
Veri:
People do not resign tenured positions with high salaries and generous retirement benefits because they are innocent. My guess is that he is guilty, very guilty, and obvious guilty in the sense that his fabrication had multiple witnesses. Look what just happened to Luk Van Parijs from MIT. He just pled guilty to federal fraud charges and has to pay back like $65K in overhead costs from his grants. LVP was a new assistant professor. Hauser was a faculty at Harvard for many years. My guess is that Harvard said to him: resign or we will sue you for millions of dollars of overhead.
No one ever loses their tenure at Harvard. Ever. They are made to quit before they are fired. And since Hauser's guilt makes everyone look bad, I don't think there is any doubt that he is guilty. I predict federal charges are coming.
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