Cochran is not alone in his observation that Belsky appears to have something to prove. Other researchers on the NICHD study have indicated, mostly off the record, that Belsky has been extremely dogged in his view that extended child care is a "peril."

For his part, Belsky complains loudly and often that other researchers in the field of child-care studies are professionally jealous and intimidated by what he regards as his vindicated prophesies about the negative impact of child care. "I am amazed they have any credibility at all," says Belsky of his colleagues. "What they said years ago turned out to be not so; they fail to acknowledge it and then blame me."

So why did the NICHD choose Belsky, the lonely and vociferous doomsayer in the group, to make its presentation about aggression and child care? "I know he differs from the group," says Friedman. "But I thought in this setting, he would behave himself. I thought that since he was invited to represent the story, he would represent the party line. It didn't occur to me that he would abuse the opportunity and advance his own cause.

"This is completely unprofessional," concludes Friedman, "but this is what he did and a lot of people in the study are upset with him. He didn't represent the truth, he represented his minority [view]."

For his part, Belsky is insistent that the ire of researchers is based upon their personal and political agendas, that they are inclined, "when it comes to disconcerting news about child care, to shoot the messenger." He concedes that he is not a lead investigator in the study, though he has been a principal investigator in the past, and suggests that it is a "presumption" that people are still ready to make. He has not attempted, however, to publicly correct this impression.

As to whether he is selectively using the data from the NICHD report to bolster his early findings, Belsky is unapologetic. He believes he was unfairly declared to be a cranky misogynist at the time he released his 1986 study and he is quick to point out that the data, if it doesn't prove him right now, will certainly prove him to be right at some point in the future.

"I wrote a paper 15 years ago that said that there were developmental risks associated with long-term child care that begins in the first year of life," says Belsky. "You can play divide and conquer here, but there is a pattern of results that are uncannily consistent with my findings of 15 years ago, when I was told I was off my rocker."

But other researchers in the field say the pattern that Belsky points to is essentially random and totally inconclusive until scientifically proven to be correct.

"I just don't think the scholarship that he has produced is as assiduously precise in all facets as is necessary in an area with such strong relevance for policy and programs," says Richard Lerner, who holds the Bergstrom Chair in applied developmental science at Tufts University and headed the search committee that first hired Belsky at Penn State. "His is a [scientifically] weak bias," says Lerner; "it is a distorted bias. There is data there, but there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with it and he is doing it the wrong way."

Belsky simply replies that "anyone who trusts what Richard Lerner says about me is a fool because Rich decided years ago for entirely personal reasons, which I never understood, to break off a close friendship."

Lerner acknowledges that he and Belsky have not been personal friends for some time, owing to a private falling out he will not discuss on the record. But Lerner says that his decision not to socialize with Belsky has had no impact on his observations about Belsky's work.

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