{"id":4470,"date":"2010-11-05T22:10:16","date_gmt":"2010-11-06T02:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4470"},"modified":"2010-11-05T22:16:31","modified_gmt":"2010-11-06T02:16:31","slug":"just-not-how-things-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/05\/just-not-how-things-work\/","title":{"rendered":"just not how things work…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Harvard Crimson<\/font><\/strong><\/a>
August 21, 2010<\/div>\n

Dear faculty colleagues,<\/p>\n

No dean wants to see a member of the faculty found responsible for scientific misconduct, for such misconduct strikes at the core of our academic values. Thus, it is with great sadness that I confirm that Professor Marc Hauser was found solely responsible, after a thorough investigation by a faculty investigating committee, for eight instances of scientific misconduct under FAS standards. The investigation was governed by our long-standing policies on professional conduct and shaped by the regulations of federal funding agencies. After careful review of the investigating committee’s confidential report and opportunities for Professor Hauser to respond, I accepted the committee’s findings and immediately moved to fulfill our obligations to the funding agencies and scientific community and to impose appropriate sanctions…<\/p>\n

Respectfully yours,<\/div>\n
    Michael D. Smith<\/div>\n
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Marc Houser was one of Harvard’s more popular teachers and a heavily published researcher, studying the cognitive abilities of primates. He is on leave right now, and under investigation by various agencies for essentially fabricating data to support his belief that monkeys have similar abilities to discriminate sounds as humans. <\/p>\n

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Scientific Misconduct, and Its Aftermath<\/a>
Harvard Magazine<\/strong>
November-December 2010<\/div>\n

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… Harvard’s investigation evidently began in 2007; the Chronicle of Higher Education <\/em>obtained a statement<\/strong><\/a> from a former research assistant in Hauser’s lab who said he and other researchers had approached University authorities with their concerns about practices there. According to the Chronicle<\/em>, the trouble started with an experiment involving rhesus monkeys’ ability to recognize auditory patterns. Hauser and one research assistant watched the monkeys’ responses to the sounds and “coded” the results, marking whether they seemed to respond to novelty [similar to the study with the cotton-top tamarins]. A second research assistant, who was asked to analyze the data, noticed a major discrepancy: the first research assistant’s coding found the monkeys didn’t notice the patterns; Hauser’s coding of the same videotapes indicated that they did. After Hauser resisted a request to have a third investigator review the data independently, one of the research assistants and a graduate student reviewed the tapes themselves without Hauser’s permission, the Chronicle <\/em>said.<\/div>\n