Comments on: Harvard Confirms Scientific Misconduct by Marc Hauser

By: Evelyn Haskins

Evelyn Haskins — Tue, 03 May 2011 05:59:45 +0000

Huh?
Have you people ever REALLY looked at most research papers??
So often, while the results might be perfectly statistically analysed, it is questionable just exactly WHAT they were measuring, whether what they were measuring had any bearing on what they were trying to prove, and then sometimes the ‘conclusions’ seem to be plucked from thin air.

The whole thing seems to be more of a case of “Let’s get Hauser” than serious scientific analysis of his findings.

Only if false information is included does ‘misconduct’ arise. Missing information and unfounded conclusions should have been picked up by the “peer” reviewers and the editors of the journals in which the papers were published.

IF he bullies his students and co-workers then that is an entirely different matter, too!!

By: Evelyn Haskins

Evelyn Haskins — Tue, 03 May 2011 05:42:20 +0000

The whole thing seems to be more of a case of “Let’s get Hauser” than serious scientific analysis of his findings.

IF he bullies his students and co-workers then that is an entirely different matter, too!!

By: KP

KP — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:24:15 +0000

SP, I still think it’s worth a read. Just because his science (at least some of it) sucked, doesn’t mean his theories are all bunk. Most of Moral Minds cites research either done entirely by others or that has been replicated or built upon by other groups, so I think it still has a mostly solid foundation.

Also, it seems like it’s just the communication stuff that had real issues with the conclusions. The action/omission papers with macaques that were amended are cited in some of Hauser’s morality stuff, but they were repeated with better record keeping and got identical results (under what one must assume was tremendous scrutiny). All the human Moral Sense Test stuff, the reciprocal altruism in monkeys, etc hasn’t been brought into question. (And a lot of that stuff wasn’t particularly novel anyhow, it’s been done before and since by others)

By: SnottyProfessor

SnottyProfessor — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:44:59 +0000

This is weird, just now, I turned the pages of “Moral Minds” and then saw this post. Should I read it or skip it? I don’t know what to do…

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:09:00 +0000

CCP: Yes, that’s interesting. Anyone who has read the stuff that’s been written knows more than that article says we know but not a lot.

By: CCP

CCP — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:55:57 +0000

Recent and worth reading:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/08/hausergate-scientific-misconduct.html

By: The Brain

The Brain — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:44:48 +0000

For those who are worried about the fallout to his students, I can say with close personal knowledge that most people found out pretty quickly what was going on after the investigation started (they *did* raid the lab after all) and that people have had some time to look after their careers. I know of a few people who have directly suffered and I’m sure at least a couple more will as well, but I think for the most part most of his students/post-docs suffered a hiccup and that’s all. Partly this also has to do with the fact that many people in the field in and out of his lab have, for years, had the impression he valued getting results and getting them published quickly more than a slow but ultimately correct process of doing science. This is not to say the majority of his lab knew he performed actual misconduct, but his grad students and post-docs who valued producing science carefully kept their data close to their vests and forced him to go at or near their pace.

By: Pinky

Pinky — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:50:29 +0000

Is Harvard now digging deeper by doing a formal root cause analysis? Do universities do them?

It would examine the situation differently than the investigation that uncovered the wrong doing and the person responsible. There may be a string of circumstances, which might look unrelated to the misconduct, but when taken together, are a major weakness. I am not shifting blame away from Marc Hauser, he is responsible for his actions, I’m saying there may be conditions that make misconduct more likely.

I have no knowledge of the workings of a university lab, so forgive me if this is a routine thing they do.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:37:03 +0000

Alex, what you are suggesting is itself a correction (of the correction process) and I wholeheartedly support that.

By: Alex Holcombe

Alex Holcombe — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:00:07 +0000

You say the Hauser affair shows that science is self-correcting, and certainly science was corrected in this instance. However I think far more cases of misconduct go undiscovered than are caught. The absolute number of cases discovered is extremely small, especially relative to the significant proportion of scientists who in anonymous polls admit to misconduct.
We must increase the deterrence of this kind of behavior by making it easier for other scientists to scrutinize work. For example, there’s no reason why in Hauser’s field the original videotapes are not provided when the paper is submitted and posted online when the paper is published (more on this here: http://alexholcombe.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/are-most-scientific-results-replicated/ )