88 Scientific American, May 2022
Naomi Oreskes is a professor of the history of science
at Harvard University. She is author of Why Trust Science?
(Princeton University Press, 2019) and co-author
of Discerning Experts (University of Chicago, 2019).OBSERVATORY
KEEPING AN EYE ON SCIENCE
Illustration by Jaime JacobEarly this year one of the world’s most prominent scientists, Eric
Lander, had to resign his position as President Joe Biden’s science
adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy. He was forced to quit because of evidence that
he had bullied staff members and created a hostile work environ-
ment. Lander, a leader in the successful effort to sequence the
human genome, had headed the prestigious Broad Institute of
Harvard and M.I.T. before being tapped for the White House job.
He now joins the ranks of other top scientists who have been sanc-
tioned over behavior ranging from disrespect and bullying to ille-
gal sexual harassment.
The most publicized cases have involved Title IX violations.
(This is the federal civil rights statute that bars sexual harassment
in educational programs that receive federal funds.) In 2015 astron-
omer Geoffrey Marcy resigned from the University of California,
Berkeley, after a Title IX investigation found him guilty of sexual
harassment, including kissing and groping students. In 2018 evo-
lutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, a one-time president and chair
of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, resigned from U.C. Irvine after an investigation found
that he had violated the university’s policies on sexual harassment
and sex discrimination, even after repeated warnings. In 2019
geologist David Marchant—who had a glacier named for him—
was fired from Boston University after an investigation conclud-
ed that he had repeatedly made sexual comments and used derog-
atory sex-based slurs against a former graduate student. (The
student also alleged Marchant pushed her down a rocky slope,
although the investigation did not confirm this.) In a historic first,
in 2021 the National Academy of Sciences expelled both Marcy
and Ayala from its ranks. Marchant’s glacier was renamed.
But not all cases fall under Title IX. As Lander’s case shows,
there are many forms of bad behavior in science that don’t rise to
the level of illegality, and perhaps for that reason colleagues often
look the other way.
Why? The reasons are complex and likely include some
outright sexism and a whole lot of implicit bias. But there’s
another problem in scientific culture that is rarely addressed:
the acceptance of personal misconduct in light of high profes-
sional accomplishment.
Many academics seem to believe that brilliant people should
be excused a degree of bad behavior. This can veer into an intel-
lectual superiority complex. Arthur T. Hadley, president of Yale
University from 1899 to 1921, offered this view in an influential
1925 text that argued intelligence should be “a determining fac-
tor” in deciding on allowable personal conduct. The greater your
brainpower, the greater your right to do as you please.
Hadley is mostly forgotten, but his attitude persists. It helps to
explain why academics often rally around bullies with arguments
about how accomplished they are as geologists, biologists, anthro-
pologists or even literary theorists. This is a logical error: it con-
flates intellectual greatness with human decency, which are, clear-
ly, two different things. It also may help explain a pattern common
in these cases: that some people close to the culprit insist they nev-
er witnessed anything like the alleged behavior. In the Marchant
case, a fellow geologist who had worked with him for 11 years
insisted the accusations were “inconsistent” with his experiences.
But Marchant may have behaved well around those he respected,
while acting badly toward people of lesser professional stature.
Call it the Raskolnikov effect after the law student in Fyodor
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, who justified theft and
murder because he believed the crimes would let him overcome
his poverty and fulfill his exceptional intellectual potential. Bul-
lying is not murder, but the mindset that motivated Raskolnikov
often undergirds other forms of antisocial behavior, and surveys
show this kind of personal abuse in science is widespread.
It is an important step forward when the research community
holds its most prominent members accountable for their actions.
It’s not unfair, inappropriate or an overreaction. It’s about time.JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE
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or send a letter to the editor: [email protected]Science Takes
On Bullies
Intellectual achievement
does not excuse abusive behavior
By Naomi Oreskes