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Pressure to Produce. Because of this report, researchers at S.K.I, became suspicious last month when Summerlin showed Good some mice he claimed had been recently and successfully grafted. They charged that Summerlin had dyed the animals' skins to make it appear that new tissue had been accepted. Reacting quickly, Good temporarily suspended his protege and asked a committee of S.K.I, scientists to report promptly on the accusation.
S.K.I, researchers are embarrassed by the case, which suggests, at the very least, that the early enthusiasm about Summerlin's work may have been premature. But many of them are nonetheless sympathetic to Summerlin. They feel that even if the charges against him should prove to be true, he may be a victim of the overly competitive spirit now pervading science. Caught between the enthusiasm of his superiors and a federal-grant system that tends to award funds for results rather than research, Summerlin has been under enormous pressure to reproduce the results of his first experiments. There is no excuse for any scientist to fake his findings in order to gain more time to prove his theory. But any researcher who has ever submitted a grant application or sweated out a decision as to whether or not his work will be allowed to continue can understand why a colleague might be tempted.