PHIL 7570
CASE STUDIES IN RESEARCH ETHICS
MISCONDUCT & RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH
Spring Schedule
This session introduces the idea of responsible conduct of research (RCR) by contrasting it with research misconduct and other questionable research practices. This session will discuss the identification of misconduct, procedures for investigating charges of misconduct, whistleblowing, but most importantly we will discuss the rationale behind why misconduct and other questionable research practices should be avoided.
Assigned Readings:
- ORI Text: Chapter 2 (pp. 19-29) available for free download at ORI.
- Article: Dishonesty in Science. Richard Lewontin. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 51, November 18, 2004. A book review discussing the concerns about scientific misconduct and Lewontin's own insights into what is really wrong with misconduct. See also the letters by Gottfried, et al. and Lewontin's response, linked at the bottom of the article.
- Case Study: The Baltimore Affair
Other Articles and Links
- University of Utah Research Integrity and Compliance. (Links to University policies regarding scientific misconduct.)
- Office of Research Integrity (ORI). (Website for the Federal Office of Research Integrity)
- Ethics for the Next Generation, by Philip Langlais. The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 13, 2006. (The Chronicle Review
Volume 52, Issue 19, Page B1.) Article about the recent rise in reporting of scientific misconduct and what educational efforts should be taken to counter this trend.
- Scientists Behaving Badly. Brian Martinson, et al.; Nature, June 9, 2005, Vol. 435: 737-38. A recent survey of self-confessed violations of scientific integrity which the authors argue requires us to look beyond the narrow definition of misconduct as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. See also summary of these findings by Meredith Wadman (One in three scientists confesses to having sinned. Nature 435, 718-719; 9 June 2005).
- Conduct, Misconduct and the Structure of Science (PDF). James Woodward and David Goodstein. American Scientist 84(5): 468-478. Discusses the importance of understanding how science actually operates for recommending ethical advice on what should count as misconduct.
- Scandal and the Competative Nature of Science. Arthur Caplan. Talk of the Nation (NPR audio), December 19, 2005. Caplan argues that a questionable research paper on stem cells points to a larger problem of ethics in the scientific community. Caplan, Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, authored an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News.
- Sense of Injustice Can Lead Scientists to Act Unethically, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 21, 2006.
- Rethinking Unscientific Attitudes About Scientific Misconduct. From The Chronicle of Higher Education , March 28, 1997. Challenges the claim that misconduct is a rare occurance and is due to defects in individual moral character, not the practice of science.
- Research Misconduct, Retraction, and Cleansing the Medical Literature: Lessons from the Poehlman Case, http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/144/8/609