This is my reading, as an outsider: the head activator almost certainly does not exist, but the question of fraud is somewhat ambiguous.

To establish either the status of the head activator or whether fraud was committed, however, are not purposes of this article (IMHO). This is a real-life story about clashes of personalities, where ambiguity is the norm. Something is going on beneath the surface, but it is not clear exactly what and why. I would say there is evidence for an indictment, but not for a conviction.

you read an article on the domain asimov.press about a very narrow, deep slice of biology, and expect it not to be long-winded? yeah, it’d be nice if there were a nice bow to wrap around the whole thing, but said bow is not (yet) extant. how much shorter would you pike the story to be? it took me literally 5 minutes to read, and i easily could have read something else titillating were i bored at any point…