Marc Hauser
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Marc D. Hauser (born October 25, 1959) is an American
evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life for ...
and a researcher in
primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
behavior,
animal cognition Animal cognition encompasses the mental capacities of non-human animals including insect cognition. The study of animal conditioning and learning used in this field was developed from comparative psychology. It has also been strongly influenc ...
and human behavior and neuroscience. Hauser was a professor of psychology at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
from 1998 to 2011. In 2010 Harvard found him guilty of research misconduct, specifically fabricating and falsifying data, after which he resigned. Because Hauser's research was financed by government grants, the
Office of Research Integrity The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is a U.S. government agency that focuses on research integrity, especially in health. It was created when the Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Office of ...
of the
Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is " ...
Department also investigated, finding in 2012 that Hauser had fabricated data, manipulated experimental results, and published falsified findings.Johnson, C., 2012
Former Harvard professor Marc Hauser fabricated, manipulated data, US says
''Boston Globe'' nlineSeptember 5 ccessed September 12, 2012/ref>


Research and publications

Hauser's research topics include
evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...
,
cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental proces ...
, cognitive evolution, and language evolution. Hauser's internet-based 'The Moral Sense Test' involved presenting participants a series of hypothetical moral dilemmas and requesting them to provide a judgment. Since his resignation from Harvard, Hauser has continued to publish his research in the fields of cognitive neuroscience and comparative psychology and also in the field of education.


Books and essays

; Books * ''The Evolution of Communication'' (1996) * ''Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think'' (2000) * ''
Moral Minds ''Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong'' is a 2006 book by former Harvard psychologist Marc Hauser in which he develops an empirically grounded theory to explain morality as a universal grammar. He draws eviden ...
: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong'' (2006) * ''Evilicious: Cruelty = Desire + Denial'' (2013)


Scientific misconduct

In 2007, Harvard University announced an internal investigation of alleged
scientific misconduct Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. A '' Lancet'' review on ''Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countrie ...
by Hauser. In August 2010, the investigators found him solely responsible for eight counts of misconduct, and he took a year's leave of absence. In July 2011, Hauser resigned his faculty position at Harvard, effective August 1, 2011. In his resignation, Hauser stated that he had "some exciting opportunities in the private sector" involving education for high-risk teenagers, but that he might go back to academia "in the years to come." In September 2012, after conducting a separate investigation, the
Office of Research Integrity The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is a U.S. government agency that focuses on research integrity, especially in health. It was created when the Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Office of ...
(ORI) found Hauser guilty of scientific misconduct. They concluded that Hauser had fabricated data in one study, manipulated results in multiple experiments, and incorrectly described how studies were conducted. The ORI barred Hauser from certain types of research and required that other research be conducted under supervision. They published a notice stating:
Notice is hereby given that the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has taken final action in the following case:
''Marc Hauser, Ph.D., Harvard University'': ORI found that Dr. Marc Hauser … engaged in research misconduct in research supported by * National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) * National Institutes of Health (NIH), grants P51 RR00168-37 and CM-5-P40 RR003640-13, * National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), NIH, grant 5 R01 DC005863 * National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), NIH, grant 5 F31 MH075298.


Details, retractions, and replication

The details of this investigation were not publicly released, and the lack of transparency evoked substantial speculation. Writing in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' in August 2010,
Nicholas Wade Nicholas Michael Landon Wade (born 17 May 1942) is a British author and journalist. He is the author of numerous books, and has served as staff writer and editor for ''Nature'', ''Science'', and the science section of ''The New York Times''. ...
summarized: On August 20, 2010, Michael Smith, Dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, released a statement confirming that an internal investigation had found Hauser guilty of eight counts of scientific misconduct. Three counts involved published papers, and five involved unpublished studies. The statement said that Harvard was cooperating with further investigations by the US
Office of Research Integrity The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is a U.S. government agency that focuses on research integrity, especially in health. It was created when the Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Office of ...
, the
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
Office of Inspector General, and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. They stated that they would conduct their own review and make their conclusions available to the public. A 2002 paper published in the journal ''Cognition'' was retracted. In this paper, Hauser and his collaborators concluded that cotton-top tamarin monkeys could learn simple rule-like patterns. In two additional published papers, some field notes or video recordings were "incomplete", although Hauser and his co-author replicated the experiments. The ''
Proceedings of the Royal Society ''Proceedings of the Royal Society'' is the main research journal of the Royal Society. The journal began in 1831 and was split into two series in 1905: * Series A: for papers in physical sciences and mathematics. * Series B: for papers in life s ...
'' published the replication of the missing data in an addendum to one of the papers. In April 2011 Hauser and Justin Wood (coauthor of the original paper) replicated the results of the 2007 ''Science'' study and published them—as an addendum—in the journal. Charles Gross published an article in The Nation that detailed the Hauser case (Disgrace: On Marc Hauser. A case of scientific misconduct at Harvard).


Other controversy and allegations

In August 2010, after the initial allegations came out, various publications published other accusations and speculations about Hauser's research, often citing reports by his former students and research assistants.
Michael Tomasello Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950) is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University. Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he is c ...
, another well-known animal cognition researcher, claimed that some of Hauser's previous students personally told him that there "was a pattern and they had specific evidence". Tomasello also stated, prior to the official announcement, that he had information from "a Harvard faculty member and from former students of Dr. Hauser" that the investigation found evidence for eight counts of scientific misconduct; this statement was later confirmed by Harvard's dean (see previous section). ''
The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to rea ...
'' reported the contents of allegations made by a former research assistant of Hauser. The former research assistant stated that Hauser falsely coded videotapes of monkey behavior, resisted research assistants and students' requests to have them re-coded by another observer and pressured his students to accept his data analysis. When they re-coded the data without Hauser's permission, they allegedly found Hauser's coding bore little relation to what was on the tapes. According to the document, several other lab members had similar run-ins with Hauser. An article in ''
New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...
'' claimed that Harvard opened its investigation of Hauser's lab after students who had worked there made allegations of data falsification. Gerry Altmann, the editor of ''Cognition'', subsequently posted his personal conclusion that Hauser fabricated data as part of a deception, after being given a summary of the relevant portions of Harvard's inquiry. Altmann noted that the conclusion of fabrication was his own conjecture, and not that of the Harvard investigation, which offered no explanation for discrepancies between the video record and the published paper.


Related issues at Harvard

While Harvard confirmed that Hauser committed misconduct, scientists continued to criticize Harvard over a lack of transparency in the investigation. However, Harvard stated that "in cases where the government concludes scientific misconduct occurred, the federal agency makes those findings publicly available." Although Hauser took a year-long leave of absence from Harvard in 2010, he was at first still planning to teach at the Harvard Extension School, which generated further controversy. On September 1, 2010, his classes at the Extension School were canceled. In April 2011, he was barred from teaching in the Psychology department or any other Arts and Sciences department.


Unreplicable cotton-top tamarin study

In 1995, Hauser reported that
cotton-top tamarin The cotton-top tamarin (''Saguinus oedipus'') is a small New World monkey weighing less than . This New World monkey can live up to 24 years, but most of them die by 13 years. One of the smallest primates, the cotton-top tamarin is easily recogn ...
s can recognize themselves in a mirror.
Gordon G. Gallup Gordon G. Gallup Jr. (; born 1941) is an American psychologist in the University at Albany's psychology department, researching biopsychology. Early life and education Gallup received his Ph.D. from Washington State University in 1968, after w ...
questioned Hauser's findings, and reviewed some video recordings of Hauser's experiment, saying that "when I played the videotapes or Hauser's experiments there was not a thread of compelling evidence — scientific or otherwise — that any of the tamarins had learned to correctly decipher mirrored information about themselves.'' Upon requesting the remaining videotapes, Gallup was informed that the other tapes had been stolen. Together with Anderson, Gallup published a critical response to Hauser's article. Their criticism of Hauser's paper stated that the coding criteria were described in insufficient detail to code the monkeys' behavior and that, according to their assessment, the cotton-top tamarins did not show the behavior that they considered as evidence for mirror recognition in chimpanzees or other great apes. Hauser and a co-author published a reply to these criticisms, clarifying their coding criteria. However, in 2001 Hauser reported that his subsequent attempts to replicate the experiments were unsuccessful, observing no evidence for the previously claimed result.


See also

*
List of scientific misconduct incidents Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. A '' Lancet'' review on ''Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries ...


References


External links


PBS Video: The Rituals of Courtship


- Office of Research Integrity {{DEFAULTSORT:Hauser, Marc 1959 births 21st-century American biologists Living people American psychologists Animal cognition writers Evolutionary biologists Harvard University faculty People involved in scientific misconduct incidents