From New Scientist we learn, “Shamed Harvard scientist is barred from the classroom” (Peter Aldhous, 21 April 2011):
Marc Hauser, the prominent animal cognition researcher found guilty of scientific misconduct by Harvard University last year, is to receive no rapid rehabilitation by his closest colleagues.
He’s the one who made Discover’s Top Ten Retractions list (# 3) fr unsubstantiable claims about monkey minds.
According to The Boston Globe, members of the university’s psychology faculty voted in February not to allow Hauser to teach in the department in the 2011-2012 academic year. Following the vote, Michael Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, decided that he shouldn’t be allowed to teach in other departments, either. Could his upcoming book Evilicious have helped tip the applecart?
Hauser, on leave of absence, was scheduled to teach two classes,”Hot Topics in Cognitive Science and Neuroscience” and “Origins of Evil”, about which he was writing a book, Evilicious (Viking Penguin):
Marc Hauser, Evolutionary Biologist
Marc Hauser’s award-winning research, at the interface between evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience, is aimed at understanding how the minds of human and nonhuman animals evolved. By studying nonhuman animals (monkeys, apes, dogs) in both the wild and in captivity, as well as human infants and adults, Hauser’s work has unlocked some of the mysteries of language evolution, conceptual representation, social cooperation, communication and morality.
The author of five books–including The Evolution of Communication, Wild Minds and Moral Minds: How nature designed our universal sense of right and wrong–he is currently working on a book called Evilicious: why we evolved a taste for being bad (Viking/Penguin.)
Dr. Hauser is a Harvard College Professor, Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Human Evolutionary Biology, Co-Director of the Mind, Brain and Behavior Program and Director of the Cognitive Evolution Laboratory.