Ever since Marc Hauser’s 2011 resignation from Harvard amid findings of scientific misconduct, observers, critics, colleagues, and defenders have argued about Just How Bad His Behavior Was or Wasn’t. Harvard’s refusal to release its full report encouraged this, since people could speculate freely about the actual evidence behind the findings. Did he commit minor or common transgressions […]
Continue reading →Apparently it’s Eric Michael Johnson week here at Neuron Culture. Last Friday Johnson, who studies evolutionary anthropology and the history of science, wrote about the Allure of Gay Caveman. Today he published a magnificent cover story at Times Higher Education, “Ariel Casts Out Caliban,” that explores the long-running argument over whether humans are more like […]
Continue reading →As many know, Harvard psychologist Marc Hauser was placed on a year’s leave yesterday after an internal Harvard investigation found problems in some of the data supporting a 2002 paper on monkey cognition, and, according to coverage at the Globe and elsewhere, perhaps some others as well. … The longer source is Horace Freeland Judson’s “The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science” , a splendid account of not only how outright fraud occurs, but how pressure to produce, which is intense in most research universities, can lead to the sort of atmosphere DrugMonkey alludes to.
Continue reading →Having reciprocated the attack the young bonobo I had come to know as Aaron then calmly moved away, leaving Jumanji to rub his shoulder and stare at the ground in a way that, should he have been human, would probably be interpreted as nursing a bruised ego.
…Responding to inequities: gorillas try to maintain their competitive advantage during play fights Biology Letters DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0482 __ Related at Neuron Culture: Chimpanzee hunting tactics – an aerial view The Science of Gossip, in Scientific American Williams Syndrome, or why are we so social?
Continue reading →Eric Michael Johnson contemplates the hearts, minds, teeth, and claws of bonobos and other primates, while — no fault of Eric’s — the flu, the end of publishing, and the death of the uninsured march on. Plus some great old surgery footage.
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