The Experiences and Challenges of Science and Ethics Proceedings of an American-Iranian Workshop (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix N Extract from Report Honor in Science
Appendix N Extract from Report Honor in Science
Pages 107-114
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From page 107... ...
1-7) , by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Research Triangle Park, NC, 2000.
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From page 108... ...
Scientific problems such as the structure of DNA or the origin of submarine canyons are investigated by scientists, who may be all-too-human in their capacity to make mistakes, to miss or misinterpret critical pieces of evidence, and, on occasion, deliberately to fake research results. Science may be morally neutral, but so is a traffic light; car drivers and scientists are not.
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From page 109... ...
Error and even unethical behavior may not be much less prevalent in science than in other aspects of human life, and detection of error may not be inevitable. Most of the best-known exposures of fraud have tended to be in areas of scientific research where there is vigorous activity -- cancer research, for example -- and where replication of experiments and critical reviews of earlier work are therefore more likely to happen.
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From page 110... ...
If our original investigation was flawed, however, that is another matter. One objection to this booklet may be that it is likely to be read only by those who have no need of the advice it contains: those who are honest and accurate by nature and whose scientific research will be therefore reliable.
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From page 111... ...
Another type of objection is that advice on scientific research ethics ought to be unnecessary, simply because science is not different from the rest of human life. There may be rules of behavior to be learned to meet specific situations (e.g., "always quote exactly, even if you spot a misprint or an apparent minor error in the passage you are quoting")
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From page 112... ...
The end of this road is self-deception on the one hand, or conscious deception on the other, since in time, scientists who must make research proposals learn that it is better not to reveal what they really intend to do, or to set down in plain language their choicest formulations of experimental plan ning, but instead write up as the program of their future work what they have in fact already performed. Again, the integrity of science is seri ously compromised.3 If it is likely to be several years before you are invited to act as a referee or as a research award panel member, think instead about the situation that frequently arises in which you intend to publish a paper jointly with an author from another discipline.
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From page 113... ...
A referee is appointed to advise whether the results that are reported are sufficiently important to merit publication. Some errors are detected by referees, and others by readers, but neither referee nor reader can verify the critical elements of much scientific research except by doing the work over again.
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From page 114... ...
Yet the progress of science as a whole depends on communication and integration of these individual specialized results: the loneliness of the individual scientist exists simultaneously with interdependence among all scientists. In Bronowski's words: All this knowledge, all our knowledge, has been built up communally; there would be no astrophysics, there would be no history, there would not even be language, if man were a solitary animal.
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