The scientific community is in shock, as well might be expected, since six of our own have been indicted on federal government charges, and the accusations are a violation of bioethics laws, fraud and embezzlement.

Anyone would stop and think twice. We’ve got blue collar crime and white collar crime and all manner of slippery slope political activities, but lab coat crime? How could these scientists?

Among other charges, Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, the famous and now infamous stem cell scientist, is accused of misusing over $2 million of the South Korean government’s funds and some $6 million in private donations.

Of course, that’s hardly unexpected if you’ve been following the University of Pittsburgh inquiry into the involvement of Dr. Gerald Schatten, one of the leading authors on the one of the articles published – then rescinded – by the prestigious journal Science. It’s unusual but not so inexplicable that Dr. Schatten might have received $40,000 in honoraria over a 15-month period from Dr. Suk. What flabbergasting is that $10,000 of it was in cash, and he received it at the 2005 press conference celebrating the publication of the paper.

Cash? Nobody’s that bad a bookkeeper. Not even scientists.

The investigation into Dr. Schatten’s behavior resulted in downgrading the original charge of “research misconduct” to “research misbehavior.” But no one quite understands what this means, including Donald Kennedy, the editor-in-chief of Science, who commented, "I think 'research misbehavior' is not a term that anybody in our community understands."

What was proven to the satisfaction of the University of Pittsburgh panel was that Schatten should have done some more checking, and that he should have gotten approval of the manuscript from all 25 co-authors prior to its submittal, and any number of other inappropriate little behaviors. It’s true that the panel was dubious about Dr. Schatten’s claim as to his sole contribution to another article – this one on dog-cloning, this time in the journal Nature, and in this case, scientifically true. He claimed his involvement was limited to simply recommending the use of a professional photographer to ensure the best image. And this warrants being a co-author?

It all smacks of opportunism and over-excitement, as much as the downside of extending professional courtesy and the incredible pressure to publish in the world’s most elite journals.

The panel acknowledged Dr. Schatten for reporting the problems as soon as they came to his attention and immediately disassociating with the scientists in question. He has been non-responsive publicly from that time on, and no one is as angry as Schatten is with himself. Fortunately, he’s not indicted, nor should he be. The really onerous behavior rests squarely on the shoulders of the South Koreans.

I must say that if you’re a scientist, the indictments are horrifying to read: The smuggling of fertilized eggs into the lab to pretend that patient-specific cell lines were thriving. Paying women for their ova, which is also specifically against the law. Modifying raw data. Tinkering with results. Publishing what fits, not what is. It seemed that nothing was immune to adjustment.

And then there’s the money. Were they thinking it didn’t count as embezzlement, if it was applied to the scientific effort at hand?

One central question is: Why did they do it? No doubt everyone slipped a little here, and then a little there. Everyone began to collude in a small way, and pretty soon, it added up to something big.

So there’s a lesson there for all of us. The little slip here, and the little compromise there. The biting of one’s tongue to keep the peace or your job.

In this, as in every human story, a little collusion goes a long way.

I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.