Former Harvard University psychologist Marc Hauser has admitted to making “mistakes” in his research that led to the findings of research misconduct announced today by the US Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which polices research funded by the US National Institutes of Health.
“I let important details get away from my control, and as head of the lab, I take responsibility for all errors made within the lab, whether or not I was directly involved,” says Hauser in a statement sent to Nature by e-mail. The ORI says that he neither admits nor denies committing research misconduct.
In August 2010, the Boston Globe broke news that an internal investigation at Harvard, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had found evidence of misconduct in work by Hauser, who was prominent in the fields of evolutionary linguistics and psychology and also wrote extensively for the lay public. A paper Hauser had published in the journal Cognition was retracted, but the nature of his transgressions remained unclear and, after Harvard refused to release its investigation report on the case, supporters of Hauser sprang to his defence, attributing errors in his research to sloppy record-keeping, not fraud.
Those who had hoped to find out who was right when the ORI closed the case might be disappointed, however. Although the ORI finding does conclude that Hauser published “fabricated” data in the Cognition paper and “falsified” the results of other, unpublished experiments on tamarin monkeys, it remains silent on whether his fabrication and falsification were intentional.
At least one supporter still thinks that it wasn’t. “The ORI finding is consistent with an interpretation of the case as involving errors in data analysis and record-keeping, not serious fraud,” says Jeffrey Watumull, a PhD student in linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and at Cambridge University, UK, who previously co-authored a paper with Hauser and has spoken publicly in his defence. “It’s interesting the sanctions are not punitive.” The ORI stopped short of banning Hauser from raising federal funding for research in the future, but says that he has agreed to submit a supervisory plan if he does so.
Bert Vaux, a linguist at Cambridge University and another supporter of Hauser’s, says that he finds the ORI report reasonable, but questions the amount of time, energy and money that the government has spent investigating the case.
A spokeswoman for the US Department of Health and Human Services, which houses the ORI, did not provide access to officials with knowledge of Hauser’s case before Nature’s deadline. According to the National Institutes of Health website, the US government spent US$223,860 in one year on just one of four grants raised by Hauser that were used in part to fund research affected by the misconduct.
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I am greatly saddened to read these news. As someone who worked with Hauser for almost a year in his Lab, I can say with great confidence that there will never be a better professor, humanist, or family man. I had the rare opportunity to work close with him and I can attest to his rigorous data standards and kinetically creative mind.
His classes were so popular at Harvard, they were “lotteried,” and his willingness to meet with students personally was an exception in an institution known for ignoring its undergraduates and sending them to their TFs (Teaching Fellows), disgruntled graduate students who were obviously not as knowledgeable as the class professor(s) and usually carried a chip on their shoulder because they hadn’t gone to Harvard College as undergraduates. With Hauser though, you could always drop by his office and ask him questions about class yourself. As one of his favored babysitters, I can attest to the fact that he has a wonderful family, and he s a thoughtful, caring, and gentle human being.
While we may never know the details of this federal investigation, I find it interesting—and heartening—that he will be allowed to conduct research at a future date. I look forward to seeing his work published once again. He is too great of a mind to be silenced.
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And of course not a word of actual admission of guilt or breach of ethics by our courageous, fiercely independent seeker of truth. Just the old, reliable chestnut, “Mistakes were made.” The sum total of spine possessed by all the academics in all the Ivy League colleges wouldn’t be enough to hew a pair of chopsticks out of.
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“consistent with an interpretation of the case as involving errors …..not serious fraud,” Was the ORI report actually read? It says that data in the Cognition paper was fabricated. There is a graph showing data that does not exist! You can’t accidentally make up data. Fabrication is serious fraud. I hope they are teaching that in grad school.
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Sofia Velez: While the ORI said he can return to unsupervised research after 3 years, I very much doubt that will happen. No research institution will touch him.
Also, your wonderful family man tried to throw his students under the bus not once, but twice. Once when he was first caught. And now in his statement that he is responsible for mistakes even if he was indirectly involved. The ORI and Harvard both investigated and said that he was solely responsible for data falsification and fabrication. His own students confirmed this. See recent statements by Jenny Saffron, for example.
Your wonderful family man sounds like a con man to me. Or your average sociopath.
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Investigating Research Integrity? Better start by investigating the Office of Research Integrity!
It is ironic that the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is regarded as a stronghold of the ethical standards in academic research. For those who have closely examined trial proceedings involving the ORI nothing is further from the truth. ORI surely catches some of the bad science that appears to be rampant, but its blatant incompetence, abusive behavior, and witch-hunt ordeals often pass unnoticed to the general public. If you examine closely the famous Baltimore-Imanishi-Kari case you will see exactly what I am talking about.
The ORI has very little oversight and operates pretty much like in the margins of democratic transparency. Unfortunately, its incompetence and venality becomes apparent only in cases where their proceedings are brought to light, like in the Baltimore-Imanishi-Kari case. The fact that ORI lacked expertise to properly assess that case did not deter the ORI from performing a “statistical analysis” of the data under scrutiny and concluding (incorrectly) that Dr. Imanishi-Kari had committed fraud. Nothing more dangerous than drawing conclusions from statistics on data when you don’t know what the data means! But ORI did not treat their sloppy findings with caution (after all, who cares about destroying a human being?). To justify their existence as the ethics rottweiler, the ORI invested heavily on Imanishi-Kari downfall, they bullied the institution where she was working (after all, nobody wants to lose juicy NIH financial support), and trashed a good 5-6 years of her life. When she brought the right experts to trial, she won her case with flying colors, revealing the utter venality and incompetence of the ORI. She could have gotten tens of millions from NIH but chose not to sue, as far as I know.
Ethical standards? Beware of people who talk too much about ethics! Case in point: Alan Price, the former ORI director. Alan Price, the ORI insider, now offers his consultancy services to institutions that investigate misconduct and must report to ORI, so the institutions can be more effective at neutralizing witnesses and destroy reputations to justify the role of ORI in society. Furthermore, ORI even recommends Alan Price as advisor to the institution. Any conflict of interest here?
It is true that ORI has a job that few would enjoy. It is hard to imagine a successful scientist working at ORI. Yet, its service is viewed as important to the taxpayer. But this perception will quickly change, especially as ORI’s actions are brought to light and Congress becomes more and more aware of their SS tactics. Like the infamous Wisconsin senator McCarthy in the TV era, bring to light the ORI trials, and the agency will disintegrate in thin air.
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I couldn’t agree more strongly about the incompetence of ORI. The only misconduct they know how to catch is image manipulation. Statistics are much too sophisticated for them. I refer you to my website to see how they really missed the boat — not once but twice: http://www.helenezhill.com.1621