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Science 22 February 2002:
Vol. 295. no. 5559, p. 1441
DOI: 10.1126/science.295.5559.1441b
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ScienceScope

After nearly a year of pressuring Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) leaders, security studies professor Theodore Postol has gotten the university to investigate alleged scientific misconduct by professors involved in ballistic missile defense studies. In an 11 February letter, MIT provost Robert Brown grudgingly agreed to the inquiry, which will be headed by Edward Crawley, aeronautics and astronautics department chair. Crawley's panel will examine whether MIT Lincoln Lab researchers involved in a 1998 study covered up failures in a Pentagon missile test, as Postol has charged (Science, 1 February, p. 776).

Postol says the inquiry is too little, too late, and refuses to cooperate. "I will only respond to an inquiry that clearly is independent," he says. But Brown has rejected including non-MIT officials on the panel, which is the first step toward a formal university investigation. The feud is likely to continue. In a 7 February letter to the MIT board, Postol rails against a culture of "negligence, indifference, and lying" within the university's management.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)