Showing up in the middle of the night and forcing him to a mental health facility against his will? Harvard investigators taking his writings? People believing he could be spiking their coffee with poison?
It just sounds bizarre and German seems to be the real victim.
I have no idea since both stories seem plausible. That said, this portion stood out to me:
" In January 2016, a postdoctoral researcher reported that German asked her to perform a tedious task, which she believed was disrespectful, leading to a dispute. German was “red in the face and shaking with rage,” she said in her sworn statement. "
Reading the docket NO. 1681CV01640 shows: " The Lab Manager, LaLonde, who would have seen German daily (until May 21, 2016), described plaintiff as "odd sometimes in his behavior, but nothing requiring immediate action, no danger to himself or anyone." " " how they should treat him better and how he deserves things other people should not have. This behavior has lasted for a while. "
That makes me question exactly who is the real victim. There doesn't seem to be enough evidence to know for sure. I've seen both types of things. I've seen advisors sabotage their pupils. I've seen pupils blame their advisors when things didn't go their way.
I'm sure we've all heard how Robert Openheimer tried to poison his tutor at Cambridge. Unrelated, but still worth mentioning is also a suspicious suicide of a former lover of his.
Openheimer got out of trouble, despite the attempted murder because of his parents influence at Cambridge. It is interesting that this article mentions German was with his parents as well. That swayed me a bit against believing that German was the real victim.
A (in this case well-meaning good) kid calls the police saying your kid is suicidal.
The police and paramedics show-up to your house.
You and your kid say all is fine, SI has passed but paramedics say a LCSW needs to make the call, police agree.
They strap your kid to a stretcher and go to hospital.
There you learn that a social worker cannot make the call unless your kid is sure to not be in an altered state (like say high on drugs), so you need for a nurse to draw blood and wait for results.
A doctor looks at the test results showing no substances and calls for the LCSW.
A social worker shows-up speaking to you and your kid separately.
The social worker now needs to consult a psychologist and the doctor on call.
The doctor on call discharges your kid from the ER.
Clearly this can be abused, but I'm happy it's the way it is.
I have to say though, the police in this seemed very reasonable and friendly, so a great round of applause to the guys in between doing a good job.
"In the fall of 2015, he took a refresher course in the conduct of science, which covered topics such as ethics and misconduct. The course reminded him that, around June 2015, a member of Rubin’s lab had told him about the alleged data fabrication in the Cell Stem Cell paper."
It "reminded him"? As in, someone told him his supervisor was falsifying data, and that didn't warrant even taking notice until something had to jog your memory? While the general circumstances -- student makes false allegations vs supervisor maliciously treats student -- are both plausible, this one line, if accurate in truth and accurately worded, makes me pretty skeptical.
What stood out to me was the fact that he was accused his own advisor BEFORE GETTING HIS PH.D. There is just something wrong here- especially if it's gray area. It's almost like it's not your place at that time (not to mention realizing you are throwing everything away- it's not like somebody is going to pick you up).
So, yeah. Weird story.
When data falsification comes out, these numerically small "four of six" cases don't usually seem to represent total invention. (Some larger cases, like one of the social psych studies that tanked a few years ago, do appear to involve making up hundreds of data points from scratch.) Rather, someone drops data, or reruns an experiment a few times, or 'adjusts' a number "based on their judgement". Normally you wouldn't call it fabrication, but sometimes people do that aggressively enough to get completely-baseless results off real experiments.
In that case, I can honestly see someone (perhaps short on judgement overall) suddenly realizing that something was fraud. There's a note that German talked to some people and concluded that what happened was "grave misconduct". Infamously, Millikan 'tweaked' a lot of the data for his oil drop experiment, but got results so stunningly accurate that it's hard to criticize his chosen methods. If you think you're seeing that, I guess it could be a moment of realization that you're actually seeing fraud.
Obviously there's not enough information to distinguish here, and no one comes out looking pretty. But that's the best justification I could come up with for 'realizing' an ethical issue had occurred.
>> "In the fall of 2015, he took a refresher course in the conduct
>> of science, which covered topics such as ethics and misconduct."
> It "reminded him"?
It suggests that he had misgivings, and took a refresher course to determine whether his fears were justified, or whether this was a normal part of academic life. Or perhaps he took the course to give himself a rationale for raising the issue.
This confuses me. I don't see how his parents being present affects the story.
Allegations of academic misconduct can be a serious, career-ending thing, even if they are dismissed. If German did this maliciously, or even just negligently, Rubin might have been very justly incensed (but getting someone committed of course is completely unjustified).
"Team science" is actively penalized, just so you know. You're either a rock star PI with 5 R01s and an indentured servant "research professor" to handle actual work, or you're nobody. It is, and always has been, all about the money -- those sweet, sweet indirects from NIH grants, and the endowments from gullible old rich people.
Rubin sounds like an asshole, exactly the sort of PI that is selected for at many top-tier institutions. If he's really clever he'll "help" German GTFO of his lab and then write some coded instructions in recommendation letters ("if you've any questions, please call me at 617-867-5309"). And then things can go back to normal, hopefully with Rubin being more cautious and/or less vindictive the next time around.
If you suspect someone is tampering with your research you review the access logs or, better yet, put a camera on it. You don't spread a rumor that so and so is crazy and watch your coffee mugs because you don't know what crazy they might do.
I believe the judge made the correct ruling. It's unfortunate for the lab and researchers that care caught in the middle.