As I have noted in the past, Andrew Gelman, a statistician
at Columbia (and someone whose work I both follow and have learned from) has a
bee in his bonnet about Marc Hauser (and, it seems, Chomsky) (see here). In many of his posts he has asserted that
Hauser fraudulently published material that he knew to be false, and this is
why he takes such a negative view of Hauser (and those like Chomsky who have
been circumspect in their criticisms).
Well, Hauser has a new book out Evilicious
(see here
for a short review). Interestingly, the book has a blurb from Nicholas Wade,
the NYTs science writer that covered the original case. More interestingly the
post provides links to Wade’s coverage for the NYT of the original “case” and
because I have nothing better to do with my time I decided to go back and read
some of that coverage. It makes for very
interesting reading. Here are several
points that come out pretty clearly:
1. The
case against Hauser was always quite tenuous (see here
and here). Of the papers for which he as accused of
fabrication, two were replicated very quickly to the satisfaction of Science’s referees. The problem for these
was not fabrication, but not having the original tapes readily available. Sloppy? Perhaps. Fraud? No evidence here.
2. Of
the eight charges of misconduct, five involved unpublished material. This
is a very high standard. I would be curious to know how many other scientists
would like to be held responsible for what they did not publish. A Dr. Galef
from McMaster University (here) notes
incredulously in the NYT (rightly in my view): “How in the world can they get
in trouble for data they didn’t publish?”
3. L’Affaire
Hauser then devolves down to one
experiment published in Cognition
that Galef notes “was very deeply flawed.” However, as I noted (here)
the results have since been replicated. That, like the Science replications, suggests that the original paper was not as
flawed as supposed. Sloppy? Yes. Flawed? Perhaps (the replication suggests that
what was screwed up did not matter much). Fraud? Possible, but the evidence is
largely speculative.
4. The
NYT’s pieces provide a pretty good case that (at least one) outside scientists,
who reviewed the case against Hauser, thought that “the accusations were unfounded.”
Maybe Galef is a dupe, but his creds look ok to me. At any rate, someone with
expertise in Hauser’s field reviewed the evidence against him and concluded
that there was not enough evidence to conclude fraud, or anything close to it.
5. Galef
further noted that the Harvard investigating committee did not include people
familiar with “the culture of an animal behavior laboratory,” which has “a
different approach to research and data-keeping” than what one finds in other
domains, especially the physical sciences from which the members of the Harvard
investigating committee appeared to come from. I’m pretty sure that few
behavioral or Social scientists would like to be subject to the standards of
experimental hygiene characteristic of the work in the physical sciences. Is it
possible that in the investigation that
set the tone for what followed, Hauser was not judged by scientists with
the right background knowledge?
6. The
final ORI report concentrates on the retracted (subsequently replicated) Cognition article (here).
The claim is that “half the data in the graph were fabricated.” Maybe. It would
be nice to know what the ORI based this judgment on. All involved admit that
the experimental controls were screwed up and that some of the graphs, as
reported, did not reflect the experiments conducted. I have no trouble
believing that there was considerable sloppiness (though to repeat, it seems
not to have been fatal given the subsequent replication), but this would not
support ORI’s assertion of fabrication, a term that carries the connotation of
intentional deceit. I suspect that the ORI
judgment rests on the prior Harvard findings. This leaves me thinking: why did
this particular set of data get through the otherwise pretty reliable vetting process
in Hauser’s lab, one that nixed earlier questionable data? Recall, the data from five of the other investigated
papers were vetted before being sent out and as a result the reported data were
changed. What happened in this case? Why did this one slip through? I can
understand ORI’s conclusion if tons of published data was fabricated. But this
is precisely what there is no evidence
for. Why then this one case? Is it so
unlikely that some goof up casued the slip? As Altmann, one of Hauser’s early
accusers, notes in the NYT: “It is conceivable that the data were not
fabricated, but rather that the experiment was set up wrong, and that nobody
realized this until after it was published.” In the end, does the whole case
against Hauser really devolve to what happened in this one case? With
effectively one set of controls? Really?
I suspect that the real judgment against Hauser rests on the
fact that he resigned from Harvard and that the Harvard committee initially set
up to investigate him (but whose report, so far as I know, has never been
publically made available) decided he was guilty. Again, as Altmann notes in the
NYT: his earlier accusation was “heavily dependent on the knowledge that
Harvard found Professor Hauser guilty of misconduct.” This, coupled with the
thought that Hauser would not have quit were he innocent. But, it’s not a
stretch to think of many reasons why a non-guilty person might quit, being fed
up with one’s treatment perhaps topping the list. I am not saying that this is
why Hauser resigned. I don’t know. But to conclude that he must be guilty
because he left Harvard (who but a criminal would leave this august place,
right? Though on second thought…) is hardly an apodictic conclusion. In fact,
given all the evidence to date, it strikes me that the charges of fraud have
very little evidential support, and that there are decent alternative
explanations for what took place absent the intention to deceive. In fact, I
would suggest that given the gravity of the charge, we should set a pretty high
evidential bar before confidently declaring fraud. As far as I can tell from
reading what’s in the NYT, this bar has not been remotely approached, let alone
cleared.
I think that this will be the last post on this topic for
me. I have harped on it because,
frankly, I think Hauser got a raw deal, from what I can tell, and that the
condemnations he drew down on himself struck me as a tad too smug, uninformed,
and self satisfied. As I’ve said before: fraud does not seem to me to be the
biggest source of data pollution, nor the hardest one to root out. However, such charges are serious and should
not be leveled carelessly. Careers are at stake. And from what I can tell, in
this particular case, Hauser was not given the benefit of the doubt, as he
should have been.
