How committed are paleontologists to objectivity (in questions of ethical conduct)?
Objectively judging facts? Objectively judging friends?Posted on February 23, 2008 4:03 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an assistant professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. Email her at dr.freeride@gmail.com.
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Institutional ethics:
Paleontologists behaving badly.
A recent news item by Rex Dalton in Nature [1] caught my attention. From the title ("Fossil reptiles mired in controversy") you might think that the aetosaurs were misbehaving. Rather, the issue at hand is whether senior scientists at the...Posted on January 31, 2008 12:51 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Is a fake university a step up or down from a diploma mill?
Saying you've seen everything is just asking the universe to do you one better. So I won't. Still, this story nearly required grubbing around the floor on my hands and knees to find the location to which my jaw had...Posted on January 10, 2008 2:10 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Why ethics matter to science.
A sermonette on the centrality of ethics to the project of science.Posted on January 8, 2008 3:56 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Does valuable information want to be free?
The November 5, 2007 issue of Chemical & Engineering News has an editorial by Rudy M. Baum [UPDATE: notbehind a paywall; apparently all the editorials are freely accessible online] looking at the "Google model" for disseminating information. Baum writes:...Posted on November 15, 2007 3:25 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Is the NCAA encouraging academic fraud?
I'm pretty sure the National Collegiate Athletic Association doesn't want college athletes -- or the athletics programs supporting them -- to cheat their way through college. However, this article at Inside Higher Ed raises the question of whether some kind...Posted on October 3, 2007 2:24 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Facebook needs to hire the ghost of Potter Stewart.
I know obscenity when I see it. Facebook is confused.Posted on September 20, 2007 12:51 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
If you pay us to put your name on our college, what are you expecting us to give up in return?
The Des Moines Register reports a bit of a to-do at the University of Iowa about whether the College of Public Health will be accepting a "naming gift" from Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Some objections have been raised...Posted on August 1, 2007 2:35 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Lab notebooks and graduate research: what should the policy be?
An earlier post tried to characterize the kind of harm it might do to an academic research lab if a recent graduate were to take her lab notebooks with her rather than leaving them with the lab group. This post...Posted on June 30, 2007 12:54 PM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Book review: Scientific Misconduct and Its Cover-Up - Diary of a Whistleblower.
I recently read a book by regular Adventures in Ethics and Science commenter Solomon Rivlin. Scientific Misconduct and Its Cover-Up: Diary of a Whistleblower is an account of a university response to allegations of misconduct gone horribly wrong. I'm...Posted on June 26, 2007 2:46 PM • 28 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Tenure-track faculty and departmental decision making.
Seven reasons tenure-track but untenured faculty should get to vote on new tenure-track hires in their department.Posted on June 25, 2007 4:02 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The death of an administrator.
Zuska reminded me that today is the one-year anniversary of the suicide of Denice Denton, an accomplished electrical engineer, tireless advocate for the inclusion and advancement of women in science and, at the time of her death, the chancellor of...Posted on June 23, 2007 3:36 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Independent confirmation and open inquiry (investigation? examination?): Purdue University and the Rusi Taleyarkhan case.
My recent post on the feasibility (or not) of professionalizing peer review, and of trying to make replication of new results part of the process, prompted quite a discussion in the comments. Lots of people noted that replication is hard...Posted on May 16, 2007 5:35 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I thought I understood the extent of the bureaucracy here.
Can we talk? Not so fast -- better ask the IRB first.Posted on April 27, 2007 7:34 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Probably not the approach to instilling ethics most likely to succeed.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the University of California is getting serious about ethics -- by requiring all of its 230,000 to take an online ethics course. Yeah, throwing coursework at the problem will solve it.*...Posted on January 18, 2007 2:34 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Why do scientists lie? (More reminiscing about Luk Van Parijs.)
Yesterday, I recalled MIT's dismissal of one of its biology professors for fabrication and falsification, both "high crimes" in the world of science. Getting caught doing these is Very Bad for a scientist -- which makes the story of Luk...Posted on October 31, 2006 10:32 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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