Over the past few weeks, the stories of three high-profile scientists accused of bullying have emerged: geneticist Nazneen Rahman, psychologist Tania Singer and astrophysicist Guinevere Kauffmann.
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Each of these researchers are (or were) at the top of their fields, recipients of huge amounts of funding. They are accused of abuses of power, bullying and abuse of their subordinates and creating a climate of fear in their institutions.
It would be easy to look to the personal characteristics of these three scientists to understand what’s going on. For instance, all three are women, and two (Singer and Kauffmann) are directors of Max Planck Institutes (MPIs), highly prestigious research organizations which offer directors a greater degree of independence compared to a traditional university post.
However, in this post, I’m going to suggest that to understand how cases such as these come about, we might need to look to the nature of ...
