Shots in the Dark

Michael Smith, the dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, has released a statement regarding Marc Hauser and the allegations of scientific fraud.

It’s printed below in its entirety.

Dear faculty colleagues,

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.

Harvard, like every major research institution, takes a finding of scientific misconduct extremely seriously and imposes consequential sanctions on individuals found to have committed scientific misconduct. Rigid adherence to the scientific method and scrupulous attention to the integrity of research results are values we expect in every one of our faculty, students, and staff.

In brief, when allegations of scientific misconduct arise, the FAS Standing Committee on Professional Conduct (CPC) is charged with beginning a process of inquiry into the allegations. The inquiry phase is followed by an investigation phase that is conducted by an impartial committee of qualified, tenured faculty (the investigating committee), provided that the dean, advised by the CPC, believes the allegations warrant further investigation. 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. 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 during the investigation and our obligations after our investigation is complete. (For example, federal regulations impose an ongoing obligation to protect the identities of those who provided assistance to the investigation.) When the investigation phase is complete, the investigating committee produces a confidential report describing their activity and their findings. The response of the accused to this report and the report itself are considered by the dean, who then decides whether to accept the findings, and in the case of a finding of misconduct, determine the sanctions that are appropriate. This entire and extensive process was followed in the current case.

Since some of the research in the current case was supported by federal funds, the investigating committee’s report and other supplemental material were submitted to the federal offices responsible for their own review, in accordance with federal regulations and FAS procedures. Our usual practice is not to publicly comment on such cases, one reason being to ensure the integrity of the government’s review processes.

A key obligation in a scientific misconduct case is to correct any affected publications, and our confidentiality policies do not conflict with this obligation. In this case, after accepting the findings of the committee, I immediately moved to have the record corrected for those papers that were called into question by the investigation. The committee’s report indicated that three publications needed to be corrected or retracted, and this is now a matter of public record. To date, the paper, “Rule learning by cotton-top tamarins,” Cognition 86, B15-B22 (2002) has been retracted because the data produced in the published experiments did not support the published findings; and a correction was published to the paper, “Rhesus monkeys correctly read the goal-relevant gestures of a human agent,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274, 1913-1918 (2007). The authors continue to work with the editors of the third publication, “The perception of rational, goal-directed action in nonhuman primates,” Science 317, 1402-1405 (2007). As we reported to one of these editors, the investigating committee found problems with respect to the three publications mentioned previously, and five other studies that either did not result in publications or where the problems were corrected prior to publication. While different issues were detected for the studies reviewed, overall, the experiments reported were designed and conducted, but there were problems involving data acquisition, data analysis, data retention, and the reporting of research methodologies and results.

Beyond these responsibilities to the funding agencies and the scientific community, Harvard considers confidential the specific sanctions applied to anyone found responsible for scientific misconduct. However, to enlighten those unfamiliar with the available sanctions, options in findings of scientific misconduct include involuntary leave, the imposition of additional oversight on a faculty member’s research lab, and appropriately severe restrictions on a faculty member’s ability to apply for research grants, to admit graduate students, and to supervise undergraduate research. To ensure compliance with the imposed sanctions, those within Harvard with oversight of the affected activities are informed of the sanctions that fall within their administrative responsibilities.

As should be clear from this letter, I have a deeply rooted faith in our process and the shared values upon which it is founded. Nonetheless, it is healthy to review periodically our long-standing practices. Consequently, I will 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. To be clear, I will ask the committee to consider our policies covering all professional misconduct cases and not comment solely on the current scientific misconduct case.

In summary, Harvard has completed its investigation of the several allegations in the current case and does not anticipate making any additional findings, statements, or corrections to the scientific record with respect to those allegations. This does not mean, however, that others outside Harvard have completed their reviews. In particular, Harvard continues to cooperate with all federal inquiries into this matter by the PHS Office of Research Integrity, the NSF Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Respectfully yours,

Michael D. Smith
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

…summer vacation or no, if the students working on the Harvard Crimson truly believed there were good jobs out there for them when they graduate, would the most recent reporting on Marc Hauser and Monkeygate be five days old?

Or are they just enjoying vacation?

Former Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens is about to be indicted for making false statements to Congress regarding steroid use.

Honestly, isn’t it about the time that the Spanish realized how barbaric bullfighting is?

Yesterday a bull jumped a fence and injured 40 people at a bullfight.

As Gawker describes it,

The bull tried to escape during a “recortadores,” where people tease the animal and try to get as close as possible without being gored.

I hope the bull did some damage before they slaughtered it.

Watch the humans pile on at the end, like bloodthirsty savages….

While Harvard maintains its uncomfortable silence, the Chronicle of Higher Education breaks some new ground on Marc Hauser’s monkey business.

An internal document…, sheds light on what was going on in Mr. Hauser’s lab. It tells the story of how research assistants became convinced that the professor was reporting bogus data and how he aggressively pushed back against those who questioned his findings or asked for verification.

The document was provided to the Chronicle by a former Hauser research assistant who testified before the Harvard team of investigators and was concerned that Harvard’s undignified silence was hurting the careers of students and researchers who did nothing wrong.

Which, of course, it is.

The former research assistant also hoped that the document would help scientists in the field understand the severity and breadth of the allegations.

It really is astonishing that a young person who runs a real risk of hurting his career is doing the right thing, while Harvard is…not.

The Chronicle details a particular experiment in which monkeys were tested to see if they could discern differences in tonal patterns. A researcher who wrote up his results found that they absolutely did not. But…

…Mr. Hauser’s coding showed something else entirely: He found that the monkeys did notice the change in pattern—and, according to his numbers, the results were statistically significant. If his coding was right, the experiment was a big success.

Two research assistants told Hauser they were uncomfortable going with his results and that they should conduct another test of the experiment. Hauser would not.

“i am getting a bit pissed here,” Mr. Hauser wrote in an e-mail to one research assistant. “there were no inconsistencies!…

But there were. A research assistant and a graduate student took it upon themselves to review the videotapes of the experiment without Hauser’s permission; one imagines that the circumstances would have to be extreme for a researcher and grad student at vulnerable points in their careers to take that initiative.

(After all, Hauser currently has the world’s most powerful university compromising its principles; on NPR yesterday, Times reporter Nicholas Wade talked of why many scientists feel the university should “come clean.” If he can do that to Harvard, imagine what Hauser could do to a graduate student.)

The research and graduate student found that the monkeys didn’t react to the sonic changes [emphasis added]:

They then reviewed Mr. Hauser’s coding and, according to the research assistant’s statement, discovered that what he had written down bore little relation to what they had actually observed on the videotapes. He would, for instance, mark that a monkey had turned its head when the monkey didn’t so much as flinch. It wasn’t simply a case of differing interpretations, they believed: His data were just completely wrong.

The obvious implication: Hauser fabricated his results.

As word of the disturbing results spread, other researchers in Hauser’s lab came forward with similar stories, and that led to contact with the university ombudsman.

What an opportunity this would be for Harvard to act on its stated principles—”Veritas” and all that—and share the results of its investigation with the world.

The university should call Dershowitz’s bluff—presuming that rumors of Dershowitz representing Hauser are true—disseminate what it knows about what happened and, essentially, dare Dershowitz to sue.

Any subsequent trial would make Dershowitz look terrible—after Harvard is good enough to ignore his alleged plagiarism, Dershowitz bites the hand that feeds him in defense of an apparent con man—and the discovery process would probably destroy Hauser’s career (to the extent that he hasn’t already done so). Yes, there’d be legal fees. But this money would be well spent.

And, of course, Harvard could always counter-sue Hauser for alleged fraud.

Meanwhile, the university would look like it was doing the right thing—because it would be doing the right thing: Putting the principles of research and scholarship and teaching ahead of legalistic concerns.

This situation is not a problem; it’s an opportunity.

Unfortunately, in Mass Hall, the lawyers are running the show….

A celebrity plastic surgeon in LA just drove his car off a cliff and died because he was posting updates about his dog to Twitter.

Oh, the banality!

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?

The Taliban orders the execution by stoning of an Afgan couple who had tried to elope—and hundreds of local villagers, and even relatives, join in.

The Times reports:

As a Taliban mullah prepared to read the judgment of a religious “court,” Mr. Khan said the lovers, a 25-year-old man named Khayyam and a 19-year-old woman named Siddiqa, defiantly confessed in public to their relationship.

“They said, ‘We love each other no matter what happens,’ ” Mr. Khan said.

Heroes…and villains.

The details are hard to get your head around. The woman didn’t want to marry the person chosen for her; the young couple fled.

…family members persuaded them to return to their village, promising to allow them to marry. (Afghan men are legally allowed to marry up to four wives). Once back in Kunduz, however, they were arrested by the Taliban, who convened local mullahs from surrounding villages for a religious court.

… some 200 villagers participated in the executions, including Khayyam’s father and brother, and Siddiqa’s brother, as well as other relatives, with a larger crowd of onlookers who did not take part.

“People were very happy seeing this,” Mr. Khan maintained, saying the crowd was festive and cheering during the stoning. “They did a bad thing.”…

I don’t know which is more horrifying: The idea that a father would voluntarily throw stones at his daughter with the intention of killing her, or the possibility that he was so afraid of the Taliban that he threw stones at his daughter with the intention of killing her.

The Times reported on Friday that Marc Hauser’s problems began three years ago, when a team of Harvard investigators “raided” his lab. The university has been looking into Hauser and his work ever since.

In January this year, a faculty committee at last completed its report, said to contain eight charges against Dr. Hauser. But the report was kept secret and nothing changed until this month when someone showed The Boston Globe a letter about the investigation from Dr. Hauser to his faculty colleagues.

This report raises serious questions, such as: What took Harvard three years? (This isn’t Iran-contra.) If the matter is so serious, why is Hauser only on leave? And why does the university continue to refuse to say anything—or even say something about why it won’t say anything?

And if any of the alleged misdeeds occurred before 1998, when Hauser was granted tenure by Harvard, should the university revisit that decision?

As a commenter on the blog Neuron Culture points out,

Also under question is a paper dating all the way back to 1995. Gordon G. Gallup Jr. of the State University of New York at Albany asked Dr. Hauser for videotapes of an experiment in which cotton-topped tamarins were said to recognize themselves in a mirror. Gallup could see no evidence for this.

Havard spokesperson Jeff Neal has implied that the university can not say anything publicly until the government finishes any investigation it may be pursuing.

That rationale has been shown on this blog to be untrue; if it weren’t an implication, it would be a lie, which is why it’s an implication.

Now Neal comes up with another excuse.

… a Harvard spokesman, Jeff Neal, declined to comment, saying the university had to respect individuals’ privacy.

Let us be fair to Neal, who is, after all, singing for his supper; it’s an embarrassment to Harvard that on a matter of this seriousness, the only person to step forward is a paid press secretary.

But as to his question: Why does the university have to respect this individual’s privacy?

I pose this as a serious question, not a rhetorical one. If Hauser did nothing wrong, then the university should clear the air. If he did, then his “right to privacy”—which may, in some instances, be a constitutional right, but at Harvard is probably not a contractual one, at least not when it comes to published work—should not exist.

Of course, if Harvard is legally bound in some stupid way not to disclose possible fraud by one of its employees, then, really, it needs a new contracts lawyer. Not least because Harvard is a) setting a terrible example for its students, and b) getting hammered in the press—even the press, like the Times and the Globe, that Harvard cares about.

A commenter below suggests that Hauser has friends in high places. That might explain Harvard’s reticence.

But it shouldn’t explain Drew Faust’s invisibility.

For years now, Faust’s handlers have labored to keep her away from any association with bad news—even if makes Faust look weak, which it does. (Which then, of course, has the effect of making her weak.) And Faust, weakly, goes along with their advice.

It’s unfortunate. She is un-firable; Harvard can not oust two presidents in a row, and certainly not its first woman. So why does she do so little with her unassailable position? She reminds me of the anchorman in last night’s episode of True Blood.

The other day I read a bit of an unpublished memoir whose author detailed a meeting with Derek Bok and Henry Rosovsky over a potentially litigious matter in which the university was probably at fault. The author suggested a resolution; Bok and Rosovsky conferred momentarily and said, “Okay, fine.” The author said, well, how do I know you’ll stick to this? Bok said, “You have our word.” And that was enough.

Would anyone trust Drew Faust’s word in such a matter? Does she even have autonomy to give it?