The Scientific American carries an article about the Marc Hauser case at Harvard. (Marc Hauser was found to have committed 8 cases of scientific misconduct).
Scott O. Lilienfeld argues that Hauser may only be guilty of “confirmation bias” and that it is premature to ascribe deliberate wrongdoing to him:
Hauser has admitted to committing “significant mistakes.” In observing the reactions of my colleagues to Hauser’s shocking comeuppance, I have been surprised at how many assume reflexively that his misbehavior must have been deliberate. For example, University of Maryland physicist Robert L. Park wrote in a Web column that Hauser “fudged his experiments.” I don’t think we can be so sure. It’s entirely possible that Hauser was swayed by “confirmation bias”—the tendency to look for and perceive evidence consistent with our hypotheses and to deny, dismiss or distort evidence that is not.
The past few decades of research in cognitive, social and clinical psychology suggest that confirmation bias may be far more common than most of us realize. Even the best and the brightest scientists can be swayed by it, especially when they are deeply invested in their own hypotheses and the data are ambiguous. A baseball manager doesn’t argue with the umpire when the call is clear-cut—only when it is close.
Scholars in the behavioral sciences, including psychology and animal behavior, may be especially prone to bias. They often make close calls about data that are open to many interpretations…….
………. Two factors make combating confirmation bias an uphill battle. For one, data show that eminent scientists tend to be more arrogant and confident than other scientists. As a consequence, they may be especially vulnerable to confirmation bias and to wrong-headed conclusions, unless they are perpetually vigilant. Second, the mounting pressure on scholars to conduct single-hypothesis-driven research programs supported by huge federal grants is a recipe for trouble. Many scientists are highly motivated to disregard or selectively reinterpret negative results that could doom their careers.
But I am not persuaded. When “eminent” scientists use their position and power to indulge in “confirmation bias” it is merely a euphemism for what is still cheating by taking undue advantage of their position. It is “corruption” in its most basic form. I reject the notion that such “confirmation bias” is a form of “unwitting behaviour”. It may well be behaviour which resides in the sub-conscious but that is not “unwitting” behaviour. Neither is it excusable just because it may be in the sub-conscious. It gets into the sub-conscious only because the conscious allows it to do so. When any behaviour residing in the sub-conscious conflicts with the values and morality of an individual it is inevitably ejected into the conscious. Being sub-consciously immoral but consciously moral is not feasible.
In the case of Marc Hauser, even assuming that his faults were due to “confirmation bias” then either it was behaviour which remained entirely in the sub-conscious in which case his values and morality are suspect, or it was triggered into the conscious and he continued anyway in which case it was simple cheating.
Tags: Confirmation bias, ethics, Harvard University, hausergate, marc hauser, Scientific misconduct
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