Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Second Inquiry Exonerates Taleyarkhan?

Oh really now?

Supposedly, Purdue University administrators have exonerated Rusi Taleyarkhan of allegations of misconduct in the bubble fusion debacle. Unfortunately, no one knows what was done, what was reviewed, who reviewed it, and how they arrived at such a conclusion. This was done by a secret panel deliberating secretly. In other words, as much as Purdue tries to kill this off, it will not go away, and will continue to be a blemish on the university.

Now, compare this to what Bell Labs did after a similar allegations was leveled at Hendrik Schon a few years ago. Bell appointed a blue-ribbon panel headed by Malcolm Beasley, a very respected physicist from Stanford, and had a very open, full disclosure investigation and findings that were available online. The difference here is night and day!

Whether there was any misconduct at all, at this point, is quite irrelevant. What I do know is that the reputation of Purdue University in terms of integrity is SHOT.

Zz.

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