A disgruntled lab technician sabotages a stack of experiments at SLAC. The blogosphere reacts with contempt, outrage, and surprise.
The outrage is justified, but the surprise is phony. Does anyone in academic science really not understand what is going on here? People cannot tolerate, indefinitely, relationships in which they perceive they lack power. Most people stop short of what Oommachen did, or of doing what the Columbine shooters did. Many, like Milton Waddams, don't go much farther than mumbling bitterly. But anybody who feels helpless will eventually find some way, however misguided it may be, to make that feeling go away.
I'd imagine that someone who destroys an experiment and signs the results with the name of her alter-ego has been feeling isolated and disillusioned for some time. But that is how a lot of today's young scientists feel. Did Oommachen have any legitimate avenue for protest? When she did protest, was she heard, or was she ridiculed? It's interesting that, before she decided to do things IWW style, she had already turned to a somewhat less extreme form of protest- simply staying away from work. (Evidently that wasn't enough.) Oommachen was an accomplished scientist with almost two dozen publications, some first-authored. I'm not trying to justify her actions, but simply to dismiss her as "lazy" or "crazy" is absurd. She acted the way people do when they're in situations they can't figure out how to handle.
