What’s Wrong with the Monkey Paper?
Posted on August 11th, 2010 in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »
Yesterday the Globe reported (signs of life!) that Harvard had compelled scientist Marc Hauser to take a “year-long leave” after “a lengthy internal investigation found evidence of scientific misconduct in his laboratory.”
Hauser, by the way, is a fellow at the Center for Ethics.
The news came out not because Harvard disclosed it, but because Hauser wrote a pained—but vague—letter to colleagues, one of whom (or a subsequent recipient) leaked it to the Globe.
Published in the Journal Cognition, the government-funded paper claimed to show that monkeys could learn patterns, which suggested that pattern-recognition was not the critical building block in human speech that it had previously been thought to be. (Because monkeys could recognize patterns, but not speak.)
So what malfeasance did Harvard find? It’s an important question for determining whether the paper remains generally valid, is partly discredited, or totally worthless. The answer? No one knows. Because Harvard isn’t saying.
The editor of Cognition, Gerry Altmann, said in an interview that he had not been told what specific errors had been made in the paper, which is unusual. “Generally when a manuscript is withdrawn, in my experience at any rate, we know a little more background than is actually published in the retraction,’’ he said. “The data not supporting the findings is ambiguous.’’
Today the Globe calls on Harvard to ‘fess up.
Harvard’s reaction isn’t entirely shocking; the revelation of defects in the work of a big-name researcher is an embarrassment to the institution, and most employers of any sort are wary of publicly singling out misdeeds by individual employees. But faulty scientific studies aren’t merely a personnel matter, and vague acknowledgments of serious flaws in a study only fuel broader doubts — and not just about Hauser’s work. Correcting the record in a straightforward, detailed way is important to Harvard’s reputation, too.
That strikes me as a pretty gentle admonition. I have two words for Harvard: “taxpayer-funded.” You can’t take public money and then play secret when it is stolen, which is essentially what fraudulent research is—the theft of the money paid to underwrite it.
Moreover, there’s a public interest in the disclosure of accurate information about this apparently inaccurate study.
And finally, why cover it up? The university will only look worse than if it tells the truth.
I know this is corny, but Truth is Harvard’s motto. Is that really too much to ask?
If Drew Faust were a strong president, she’d step in here….
10 Responses
8/11/2024 2:26 pm
Harry Lewis has it right when he says in a previous post that this is a “disturbing and saddening” story. It would be good to know more about it, but it seems to me that Marc Hauser is the one who really needs to say what he can about it. It appears from what you say above, RB, that Marc Hauser wrote a letter to some colleagues, and that this was what was leaked to the Globe. I suspect that it may take more time before Marc can formulate his explanation of what happened.
What does puzzle me a little is that there is, as yet, no word in the Crimson about this matter.
8/11/2024 3:58 pm
The University as well as Hauser needs to say something.
However, it will not, just as it didn’t do anything substantive about plagiarism accusations involving Tribe and Ogletree. Why not?
Because we are Harvard.
8/11/2024 5:16 pm
I know a lot, but of course I cannot speak. I’m pretty cute, though.
8/11/2024 8:47 pm
I agree with a lot of the above: the whole story is indeed troubling. My sense is that if the scientific community needs to know the problems of the work that requirement should be paramount.
The government/tax-payer funded argument seems less strong to me: at least such an argument would challenge many longstanding practices within academic science. My sense is that at a place like Harvard government funded (in part) research is the norm (with the exception of the stem cell institute, which has had to conduct certain research separately from government funds). But such funding does not preclude getting patents and starting private companies in part on the basis of the rewards of that research.
Why is the journal Cognition being so passive? It seems that this has breached standard scientific practice, but not reached the status of fraud? Shouldn’t the journal be launching an investigation. I’m thinking about how it worked in some publicized clear cut cases of scientific fraud (working on my pattern recognition skills): In the Hwang Woo Suk case (the South Korean stem cell researcher), if I’m remembering right, it was the journal that launched the investigation (or was it Seoul Uni?). In the Eric Poehlman case (menopause research), after a university investigation, he was then the first academic to be given prison time for falsifying data on grant applications. Surely if this were heading towards fabrication, Harvard would be taking more severe action, no?
8/11/2024 8:55 pm
NYT:
“The people who really know what’s happened are students, current and former,” said a scientist who asked to remain anonymous because of Dr. Hauser’s continuing power in the field. “They are very unhappy about how Harvard has handled this, and they feel things are being swept under the rug.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/education/12harvard.html?_r=1
8/11/2024 10:20 pm
I agree with all the arguments that have been put forward against secrecy in cases like this. But as in the Shleifer case, I am most unhappy about the fact that students are learning how to live by watching what we say and do. We are teaching them that the way to behave when confronted with wrongdoing is to keep quiet and wait out the critics. Quite aside from the problems our posture creates for scientific research, what does it say about us as an educational institution?
8/11/2024 11:03 pm
Harry,
Right on!
In fact, I took the opportunity last fall of our Ware Street ‘teachable moment’ to teach my current students how to read a police report (a crucial Ad Board skill, as you know).
They were quite surprised by the outcome.
8/12/2023 6:55 am
Almost got through an entire “bad Harvard” post without getting a dig at DGF.
Almost, but not quite.
Yes she should know all the facts instantly about every thing happening every where at once that relates to Harvard, its students, its employees, its flora, fauna, and infrastructure and instantly comment insightfully and constructively.
8/12/2023 5:05 pm
A certain amount of cheating is the price we pay for a system that rewards more for producing positive results than for meticulous adherence to the canons of science. You don’t get published, promoted, tenured, and awarded grants for exquisitely designed and executed studies that fail to achieve statistical significance. Competition to be first in discovery also encourages departure from the straight and narrow path-you don’t get many kudos for being second (although being able to confirm an earlier finding is some slight consolation).
But competition is also the major check on sloppy and deceptive work. Odds are that sooner or later someone will attempt to confirm or refute your study. If you’ve done solid honest work, you’ve nothing to fear from a challenge and should be happy to exhibit documentation. Sometimes failure to replicate an earlier finding is the result of a simple statistical fluke or honest error-no harm done to the discipline or to the researcher’s reputation. Miscreant or slipshod methodology is another matter.
For their part, peer-review journals could help by setting higher standards regarding methodology and documentation but this is easier said than done. Chairs and deans could require greater transparency although PIs would likely balk at having someone looking over their shoulders and politics could interfere with fair application of added supervision. It would feel like a violation of collegiality.
In any case, the worst way of handling questions of this sort is what Harvard appears to be doing. Secrecy breeds suspicion.
8/12/2023 7:51 pm
It seems Marc Hauser was an Associate Editor at the journal Cognition in the year that his piece, which is being retracted, was published. I imagine that they must have some sort of system of blind review, so that an editor position doesn’t affect the review process. But it strengthens my view that the journal could be demanding and offering more details on its review system and the cause for subsequent retraction.