Today’s Times reports on the Marc Hauser/fraudulent research scandal at Harvard. It goes farther than the Globe in suggesting what might have gone wrong—although it’s unclear (to me, anyway) what it’s basing the suggestion below on.

Dr. Hauser is a fluent and persuasive writer, and his undoing seems to have been his experiments, many of which depended on videotaping cotton-topped tamarin monkeys and noting their responses. It is easy for human observers to see the response they want and so to be fooled by the monkeys.

[Columbia professor of psychology] Dr. Terrace said there had been problems for some time with Dr. Hauser’s work.

“First there was arbitrary interpretation of the videotapes to suit the hypothesis,” he said. “The other was whether the data was real. There have been a number of papers using videotape, and all of them have to be reviewed to see if the data holds up.”

This is a good quote and if I reported the story I’d use it. But I wouldn’t use it without some other indication that there was a consensus on the issue of “arbitrary interpretation” and, more important, whether there really were widespread doubts that “the data was real.” That’s a serious charge and the Times should have more backing it up than just one quote—which it doesn’t.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more this reporting/hypothesizing by the Times’ Nicholas Wade makes me uncomfortable. It is simply bad journalism to present an allegation within the body of a quote as fact—an allegation that is unsupported.

That said, the article represents more bad publicity for Harvard, and hammers home the theme, espoused here and in the Globe yesterday, that Harvard is handling this matter in a manner reminscent of the Nixon White House. (Don’t they know that the cover-up is worse than the crime?)

Harvard’s silence about the nature of the problem in Dr. Hauser’s laboratory has stirred concern among other researchers who fear their field will be discredited unless the full facts are made known.

“I think that Harvard has to make public what they found,” said Herbert Terrace, a professor of psychology at Columbia University. “They say they have to protect Harvard and Hauser, but how about protecting the field?”

[Again—relevant questions here include who is Herbert Terrace in the context of this subfield, does he have any prior relationship/dispute with Hauser and/or Harvard, and why is he the only person quoted? All of these need to be addressed in order to make this article fair.)

But yes, Terrace is right that Harvard’s sneakiness isn’t helping the situation, and it’s making Harvard look terrible.

A commenter below admonishes me for taking a shot at Drew Gilpin Faust’s (lack 0f) leadership. The commenter wrote (sarcastically):

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.

Here are the possible scenarios:

1) The people involved in this didn’t tell Faust, which suggests that they didn’t think they needed to—or that they didn’t think there would be repercussions if they didn’t. That is a sign that they think Faust is weak. Which is often a sign that she is weak.

2) Faust was informed of and agreed to go along with the cover-up.

3) Faust instigated the cover-up.

These are all unflattering options, but I can’t think of another one that reflects well on her leadership. Suggestions are welcome.

It reminds me of the Christy Romer debacle, in which Faust, perhaps feeling out of her league when it came to economics, accepted the recommendation to reject her tenure nomination.

Could it be that Faust allows herself to be steamrolled when she’s out of her comfort zone? Or is she just out of the loop?