Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Losing a Ph.D for discredited papers...

From today's NYT:

A German university has revoked the doctoral degree of the former Bell Labs scientist who claimed a series of research breakthroughs, then was fired two years ago when it was discovered that he had manipulated data and fabricated results.

The physicist, J. Hendrik Schön, 33, did not commit misconduct in his doctoral research at the University of Konstanz, an investigation there found last year. But on Friday, the university said it had a legal right to rescind a degree when the recipient behaved "unworthily" of it.

I have mixed feelings about this: on the one hand it appears that he did fabricate data at Bell Labs. However, to rescind his Ph.D seems arbitrary, even if the university "had a legal right" to rescind it.

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