Stapel Speaks
Holland’s most infamous former scientist Diederik Stapel is seeking the media. The New York Times published a lengthy interview with the fraudulent scientist. The Dutch newspaper Volkskrant translated the article and ran it in today’s paper. This is the first time since the discovery of his fraud that Stapel sought the media.
The interview was held by Yudhijit Bhattcharjee, an editor of Science, Wired and Discover. He spoke to Stapel several times last year as well as to Stapel’s wife, co-workers and his parents. The article doesn’t condone Stapel’s actions, but explains the circumstances and Stapel’s motivation for committing extensive fraud.
Stapel denies that he acted for his own glory. But he claims that there is more to it than that. He loves his research subject: sociology. Stapel claims that his data never yielded clear-cut conclusions. His search for order and elegance in his data drove him to prettifying his data. He calls his behavior an addiction: it made him take larger gambles with his data each time – like a junk needing a fix. The author of the article in the Times, says he sees this craving for order and symmetry reflected in Stapel’s behavior.
His wife Marcelle describes Stapel’s depression after the first report described him as arrogant and intimidating. The report stated that Stapel befriended students in order to manipulate them. Stapel had a nervous breakdown when he read the judgments about his character. His wife says that he cried for his mother and went berserk. Still, his wife says that he is a good husband, father and son to his parents: “And that was when I thought: ‘all right, Diederik and science is the only bad combination.’”
The article doesn’t contain much new information – besides the revelation that Stapel tried to collect his research data in Groningen. It is definitely worth the effort to read the whole article: you get to know the person behind the rogue scientist and his motivation for his actions.
Read the whole article – the Mind of a Con Man – here.
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