• Hauser published "fabricated data" in a paper on how cotton-top tamarin monkeys learn rules. In one of the graphs "half of the data" was made up. That paper has since been retracted.
• Hauser falsified coding in two other experiments with tamarins "making the results statistically significant when the results coded by others showed them to be nonsignificant." Those experiments...

In the introduction to a new paper answering his critics, Mark Regnerus writes that his gay-parenting study "raised a variety of questions" among readers. That is a bit of an understatement. The paper started a controversy that has yet to die down, with critics questioning the motives of Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as his research methods. The new paper, which is a commentary and not a peer-reviewed study, was published online on Monday, a couple of days before the University of Texas released the results of an inquiry into the original study that found no evidence of scientific misconduct. (The university's report did not rule out the possibility that the study might be "seriously flawed," finding only that there was no apparent ethical breach.) It's worth noting, again, that the audit of Regnerus's original paper by...

An inquiry by the University of Texas at Austin has found no evidence of scientific misconduct by Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology whose controversial gay-parenting study caused a stir when it was published, in June. But, according to a report released on Wednesday by the university, that does not mean the study isn't "seriously flawed," only that there was no evidence of falsification or other unethical practices. The inquiry was prompted by a complaint by Scott Rose, a blogger for the New Civil Rights Movement who has aggressively covered the Regnerus case. As part of the inquiry, Regnerus's computers, e-mail, and grant applications were examined, and the professor responded to each of Rose's allegations. According to the university's report, the inquiry found that "[n]one of the allegations of scientific misconduct put forth by Mr. Rose were substantiated either...

When human beings are startled, we raise our shoulders and close our eyes. Our blood vessels constrict, and our pulse quickens. The startle response is a well-documented phenomenon; one of the first studies to examine it was published in 1939, and there's even an entire book on the subject. An involuntary reaction to, say, a very loud noise is thought to be deeply primitive and impossible to overcome. Try to stifle it, and you will almost certainly fail. Unless, perhaps, you're a Buddhist monk with 40 years of experience in meditation like Matthieu Ricard. Born in France, a son of the philosopher Jean-François Revel, Ricard has a doctorate in cell genetics and serves as the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama. Researchers decided to see if Ricard, with decades of meditation under his belt, would respond differently to being startled than those of us with decades of being...

The peer-review process failed to identify significant, disqualifying problems with a controversial and widely publicized study that seemed to raise doubts about the parenting abilities of gay couples, according to an internal audit scheduled to appear in the November issue of the journal, Social Science Research, that published the study. The highly critical audit, a draft of which was provided to The Chronicle by the journal's editor, also cites conflicts of interest among the reviewers, and states that "scholars who should have known better failed to recuse themselves from the review process." Since it was published last month, the study, titled "How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships?," has been the subject of numerous news articles and blog posts. It has been used by opponents of same-sex marriage to make their case, and it's been blasted...

On Monday, President Obama made fun of Mitt Romney's jobs plan, citing a commentary by an economist who estimated that his proposal to shift to a so-called territorial corporate-tax system—that is, to exempt American corporations from taxes on their foreign income—would cause them to move their operations overseas, creating 800,000 jobs in other countries. The commentary was by Kimberly A. Clausing, a professor of economics at Reed College, and published in Tax Notes. She doesn't mention Mitt Romney by name, writing that "others" are pushing for such a system, but it's clear who she's talking about, and it's obvious that she thinks it's a bad idea. "U.S. tax payments for the income from foreign operations of U.S. multinational corporations would not simply be deferred; they would be completely erased," she writes. "That would eliminate constraints on shifting income abroad." Clausing ...