When one bad apple threatens science
SEP 03, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024646
Chronicle : In the review section of this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, Michael Ruse, who directs the program in the history and philosophy of science at Florida State University, compares the recent cases of two individuals who fell from grace at august organizations: Mark Hurd, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, who was ousted in a scandal, and Marc Hauser, the Harvard psychologist, whose research was found to be based on scientific misconduct. Ruse worries that such bad apples, when they turn up in the science community, imperil science’s reputation and embolden its enemies. He writes:
Most of us feel a tremor of schadenfreude at the troubles of a prominent Harvard professor, but no one will be following the Hauser story with the unabashed glee of the critics of modern evolutionary theory. Wait for them to start pumping up the publicity, and fear the sideways damage that might be inflicted on all of the good work out there. One man’s mistakes rebounds on every evolutionist. But that’s science for you.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
