Marc Hauser

Marc D. Hauser (born October 25, 1959) is an American evolutionary biologist and a researcher in primate behavior, animal cognition and human behavior. Hauser was a Harvard University professor from 1998 to 2011, regarded as "a leader in the field of animal and human cognition".

In 2010, Harvard found him guilty of scientific misconduct and a year later he resigned. Because his research was financed by government grants, the Office of Research Integrity of the Health and Human Services Department also investigated, reaching the same conclusion in 2012.

Hauser's research lies at the intersection of evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience. It was aimed at understanding the processes and consequences of cognitive evolution. His observations and experiments focused on nonhuman animals and humans of different ages and mental competence, incorporating methodology and theory from ethology, infant cognitive development, evolutionary theory, cognitive neuroscience and neurobiology. Research interests included: studies of language evolution, the nature of moral judgments, the development and evolution of mathematical representations, comparative studies of economic-like choice, the precursors to musical competence, and the nature of event perception.

His most widely known work involved long-term studies of monkeys and other primates. His lab at Harvard was called the "monkey lab". Another of his research projects was the internet-based 'The Moral Sense Test' in which the participant is presented with a series of hypothetical moral dilemmas and is asked to offer a judgment regarding each one.

In 2007, Harvard University announced an internal investigation of alleged scientific misconduct by Hauser. In August 2010, the investigators found him solely responsible for eight counts of misconduct, and he took a year's leave of absence. In July 2011, Hauser resigned his faculty position at Harvard, effective August 1, 2011.

In his resignation, Hauser stated that he had "some exciting opportunities in the private sector" involving education for high-risk teenagers, but that he might go back to academia "in the years to come." As of May 2013, Hauser's LinkedIn profile listed him as a co-founder of the website Gamience, claiming "Scientifically-based games that address global health problems of self-control."

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