Did Marc Hauser Hire Alan Dershowitz?
Posted on August 16th, 2010 in Uncategorized | 17 Comments »
Did the accused scientist hire the man who defended Claus von Bulow, O.J. Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein to defend him against allegations of scientific fraud?
A commenter on Greg Laden’s Blog says so. As does a commenter (maybe the same one) on the blog Why Evolution is True.
The plot, as they say, thickens.
Crimson, you there?
17 Responses
8/17/2010 10:42 am
Lots of silence here. Let’s see if we can start something: I suppose the Crimson will get more interested when they can use this to complain about the Ad Board procedures for handling undergraduate academic dishonesty. The rules are written precisely to eliminate the possibility of Dershowitz defending students: no outside lawyers; no faculty outside of FAS. The Crimson may like the angle of, “Why do faculty deserve better counsel than students when it comes to Harvard’s investigations of academic dishonesty?”
8/17/2010 10:59 am
“The plot, as they say, thickens.”
Ugh, what, as they say, a bad sentence. These two are not so different.
8/17/2010 11:11 am
Well, I take potshots at other folks’ writing—hello, Amalie!—so I’m certainly fair game. But in my defense, it was kinda tongue in cheek.
8/17/2010 2:52 pm
Yes, one does wonder whether the Crimson is “there.” There’s plenty of controversy here for the taking. The links to other blogs are so interesting and so full of fascinating material that it’s hard to believe that this is passing the Crimson by.
8/17/2010 4:24 pm
Not much new here, but the fish, as they say, is starting to stink:
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100817/full/466908a.html
8/17/2010 6:42 pm
I know nothing about this case, just connecting some dots.
Of course Hauser would hire a lawyer once the records had been seized from his office — who wouldn’t? Having Dershowitz’s name introduced adds some pizzazz, but really isn’t an indication of anything. I needed a tough lawyer, I’d try to hire Dershowitz too.
Big Papi, I don’t know how Harvard carried out the investigation, but your analogy is weak. Of course Harvard students hire lawyers — they just can’t bring them to Ad Board proceedings. In fact, when a student is accused of an infraction of College rules that is also a serious crime, the dean INSTRUCTS the student to retain a lawyer, because the state is likely to bring its own charges, and Harvard doesn’t want the student’s cooperation with its process to jeopardize the student’s legal rights in a criminal process. So yes, whenever anything serious happens at Harvard, people get lawyered up. No news there. And yes, that slows things down, sometimes by years.
(There IS an analogy in what we expect of faculty vs. students in the way of forthrightness and honesty. I go through that in my book when I discuss the Shleifer case.)
Now Harvard is quite specific that Harvard employees have no right to privacy in Harvard business. That is what justified the seizure of Hauser’s records, if that is the way this started. Probably privacy is not the right word here to explain what is at stake.
What may have happened is that Hauser’s lawyer told Harvard’s lawyers that if Harvard maligned Hauser, Harvard would have to pay dearly for the defamation. Harvard would have seen no good reason to get itself into court over whether some unnecessary public statement was defamatory or not, when after all the standard operating procedure, as in the Shleifer case, is to say nothing at all. In the end Hauser may have accepted some kind of sanction, but part of Harvard’s end of the bargain might have been a pledge to remain silent. If that is what happened, then Harvard’s silence is now neither a matter of policy alone, nor a matter of avoiding a defamation charge — it is a simple matter of contract law, easy for Hauser to act on if Harvard breaks its end of the deal.
All just speculation on my part, trying to put the pieces together.
8/18/2010 2:30 am
Yes, that does sound plausible, Harry. I had begun to think in that direction as well.
8/18/2010 8:01 am
I don’t understand why this case is being portrayed in this blog as a coverup of any sort. These are the facts:
1. Harvard professor used research methods not fully accepted by his peers.
2. Unable to replicate his findings some of his colleagues denounced his findings.
3. The professor informed a journal that his conclusions in one article should be retracted. This retraction was published.
4. Aware of the allegations re the controversial research methods used by the Professor, Harvard University began an internal investigation.
This case seems, on the surface at least, to be entirely within the standard practices in the scientific community. Where’s the evidence of coverup, or even wrong-doing? It’s not even obvious why Harvard had the right to launch an internal investigation or seize the professor’s files. Accountability re the practices of scientists rests with the scientists, not with their employers. If this Professor fabricated his findings this is something that will affect him, not anyone else, and certainly not Harvard. The scientific establishment has it’s own ways to determine if this is the case. Why should Harvard as an institution become involved in determining the veracity of any potential allegations re the research methods of this Professor? And, if Harvard is to get involved in fact finding, one would hope that it would be academic experts in the field, and not administrators, who would examine the facts and determine any potential wrongdoing. This is precisely the method used to hire faculty and to promote them, and it should also be the method used to sanction faculty or demote them.
What is most troubling about the discussions re this case posted on this blog is the possibility that those in charge of making determinations about this case at Harvard are not faculty members, but administrators, which is to say, people without the substantive or methodological expertise to render qualified judgement on the matter.
8/18/2010 9:00 am
“Why should Harvard as an institution become involved in determining the veracity of any potential allegations in the research methods of this Professor [sic]?”
I can think of a bunch of reasons, but the simplest is this: Because Harvard pays his salary.
8/18/2010 10:14 am
Sorry Richard, the fact that Harvard employs scientists gives Harvard the right to expect faculty to teach, research and serve according to standards established by each department. It does not give Harvard the right to determine WHAT scientists should study or HOW. There are normally within a given discipline controversies re what methods are accepted, or what topics should be studied, and the reason ACADEMIC FREEDOM exists is precisely to allow such divergence of views in the expectation that these disagreements are, on balance, helpful to the advancement of knowledge.
Of course, scientists should conform to certain academic and ethical norms in how they conduct research and more generally engage in their work, including their teaching. Fabrication of findings is entirely unacceptable by any standards, but divergence in how to interpret evidence is entirely acceptable.
Unless thsi is a case of obvious misrepresentation of facts -e.g. claiming empirical support for speculative writing for example when such support does not exist- there are no obvious grounds for Harvard to interfere with how this Professor conducts his research.
People in Mass Hall know this. Given that Harvard is launching an internal investigation one has to assume that those who did so have serious reasons to suspect fabrication or something of this sort. If they can’t prove this, they better be prepared to pay significant compensation to this Professor for damages on multiple forms and for violations of basic academic norms. Given the legal counsel he has engaged it would seem Professor Hauser is getting ready precisely for that kind of litigation.
Let us hope that, after the dust settles, this case does not end up in the public eye as an example of Harvard not knowing how to manage fundamental aspects of academic life… as was the case of the recent mishap over the leveraged investment of the operating budget.
8/18/2010 10:32 am
Of greater consequence to the present and future of the University than this Monkey Business, is the performance of the endowment:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/8/16/million-harvards-quarter-13f/
These news are reason for serious concern
8/18/2010 12:20 pm
Anon 10:14, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head: One suspects that the argument you write is exactly the debate underlying this matter—and the precise reason why Harvard has clammed up.
8/18/2010 2:03 pm
Anon 10:14, this is the first time I’ve heard that the investigation may have been conducted by administrators rather than specialists in Professor Hauser’s field. Is there some reason why you think that might have happened? You’d think that an investigation would have to include the same sorts of scholars/scientists that Harvard usually calls on when somebody is up for tenure. I may be naive, but I’d be surprised if Harvard would not take great care in selecting the members of the investigatory committee.
8/18/2010 2:15 pm
The investigation was conducted by three respected senior faculty members who were appointed by the faculty chair of the professional conduct committee. In accordance with FAS procedures, they worked independently of the administration. Their conclusions were reported to the Dean, who again according to FAS procedures decided whether to accept the conclusions and what actions to take.
8/18/2010 2:30 pm
Fact Check, can you confirm that these senior faculty had substantive and methodological expertise in the field of study of Professor Hauser? Senior faculty at Harvard span a wide range of disciplines, from theology to quantum physics. One would hope that, as with recruitment and promotion decisions the conduct committee had relevant expertise to bring to bear in their analysis of the facts here.
8/18/2010 4:41 pm
Fact Check, can you also specify when the investigation began and when the conclusions were reported to the dean.
8/19/2010 6:14 am
Here’s a little more detail from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/article/Document-Sheds-Light-on/123988/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en