Ethical research
jstemwedel | September 9, 2008While other ScienceBlogs bloggers (notably Revere and Orac) post periodically on the state of the scientific evidence with regard to whether cell phones have biological effects on those using them, I've mostly followed the discussion from the sidelines. Possibly this is because I'm a tremendous Luddite who got a cell phone under protest (and who uses a phone with maybe three functions -- place a call, receive a call, and store phone numbers). Possibly it's because in my estimation the biggest health risk posed by cell phones is that they shift the attention of the maniac driver shifting…
jstemwedel | September 8, 2008Back in July, Science ran an interesting news article about an on again, off again clinical trial of chelation therapy in the treatment of autistic children. I found the story fascinating because it highlights some of the challenges in setting up ethical research with human subjects -- not to mention some of the challenges inherent in trying to help humans to make good decisions grounded in the best available scientific knowledge.
From the Science article:
Believing that mercury in vaccines triggers autism, thousands of parents, often at the advice of their physicians, have given their…
jstemwedel | September 5, 2008In a comment on another post, Blatnoi asks for my take on a recent news item in Nature:
An Italian-led research group's closely held data have been outed by paparazzi physicists, who photographed conference slides and then used the data in their own publications.
For weeks, the physics community has been buzzing with the latest results on 'dark matter' from a European satellite mission known as PAMELA (Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics). Team members have talked about their latest results at several recent conferences ... but beyond a quick flash of a…
jstemwedel | July 31, 2008In the July 18, 2008 issue of Science, I noticed a news item, "Old Samples Trip Up Tokyo Team":
A University of Tokyo team has retracted a published research paper because it apparently failed to obtain informed consent from tissue donors or approval from an institutional review board (IRB). Other papers by the same group are under investigation by the university. Observers believe problems stem in part from guidelines that don't sufficiently explain how to handle samples collected before Japan established informed consent procedures.
The samples in question were "legacy samples", samples…
jstemwedel | July 9, 2008Finally, here is the long awaited fourth part in my three part series examining the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology Ethics Education Committee response to the allegations of scientific misconduct against Spencer Lucas and co-workers. Part 3 was a detailed examination of the "best practices" document (PDF) issued by this committee. In this post, I make a brief foray into the conversations paleontologists have been having online about their understanding of the accepted practices in their field.
As these conversations are ongoing (and some of them are happening on listservs to which I do…
jstemwedel | June 10, 2008As promised, in this post I'm examining the "best practices" document (PDF) issued by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Ethics Education Committee in the wake of the "Aetogate" allegations. Here, I'll discuss the specific recommendations made in that document. And in an upcoming post, I'll turn to some of the discussions paleontologists are now having (through the magic of the Internet) on the accepted practices in their field, in hopes of gaining some insight to the fit between actual practices and the "best practices" described by the SVP Ethics Education Committee.
The first section…
jstemwedel | June 3, 2008Because Abi asked me to, I'm going to discuss the fascinating case of the Hellinga retractions. Since this is another case where there is a lot to talk about, I'm going to take it in two parts. In the first part, working from the Chemical & Engineering News article by Celia Henry Arnaud (May 5, 2008) [1], I'll focus on the common scientific activity of trying to build on a piece of published work. What happens when the real results seem not to fit with the published results? What should happen?
In part 2, drawing from the Nature news feature by Erika Check Hayden (May 15, 2008) [2], I…
jstemwedel | June 2, 2008Following up on the post in which I examined how the SVP Ethics Education Committee responded to the allegations of unethical conduct that have come to be known as "Aetogate," this post will discuss what the committee identifies as the "lessons learned" from this investigation. Once again, I'll be drawing from the Statement from the Executive Committee (PDF). The third post will consider the "best practices" (PDF) proposed by the committee.
The Statement from the Executive Committee enumerates seven "lessons learned," couching these in terms of ways "these conflict might have been avoided…
jstemwedel | May 30, 2008A week ago, while I was busy grading and being tenured, the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology released its report on the allegations that have come to be known as "Aetogate" (about which I've posted here, here, here, and here). ReBecca was kind enough to forward the Statement from the Executive Committee (PDF) and the accompanying "Best practices" document (PDF). Also, you should read what Brian and Chris have to say about the decision.
Since I'm finding myself with a lot to say about these documents, I'm going to break it up into more digestible pieces. This post will examine how the…
jstemwedel | May 29, 2008In today's Chronicle of Higher Education there's an article about the methods journal publishers are deploying to detect doctored images in scientific manuscripts. From the article:
As computer programs make images easier than ever to manipulate, editors at a growing number of scientific publications are turning into image detectives, examining figures to test their authenticity.
And the level of tampering they find is alarming. "The magnitude of the fraud is phenomenal," says Hany Farid, a computer-science professor at Dartmouth College who has been working with journal editors to help…
jstemwedel | May 1, 2008This post is standing in for a lecture and class discussion that would be happening today if I knew how to be in two places at once. (Welcome Phil. 133 students! Make yourselves at home in the comments, and feel free to use a pseudonym if you'd rather not comment under your real name.)
The topic at hand is the way relationships in research groups influence the kind of science that comes out of those groups, as well as the understanding the members of the group have of what it means to do good science. Our jumping off point is an article by Vivian Weil and Robert Arzbaecher titled "…
jstemwedel | April 12, 2008Brian reminds us not to mistake the lull in the action in "Aetogate" (the charges of unethical conduct by Spencer Lucas and colleagues) for a resolution to the matter. We're still waiting for the ruling from the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology ethics committee. In the meantime, here are a few thoughts on the "verdict" from the inquiry conducted by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science and by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. (There is a 40+ page PDF of Spencer Lucas's written responses to the allegations and of the inquiry's findings here.)
1. As I've noted…
jstemwedel | April 8, 2008One of the key requirements that researchers conducting studies with human subjects must meet is that they obtain the informed consent of the participating subjects (or of a parent or guardian, if the subject is not able to give informed consent himself or herself). However, there are particular instances where giving the subjects complete information about the study at the outset may change the outcome of the study -- namely, it may make it practically impossible to measure what the research is trying to measure. If these studies are not to be ruled out completely, doing them necessitates…
jstemwedel | March 3, 2008A colleague of mine (who has time to read actual printed-on-paper newspapers in the morning) pointed me toward an essay by Andrew Vickers in the New York Times (22 January 2008) wondering why cancer researchers are so unwilling to share their data. Here's Vickers' point of entry to the issue:
[A]s a statistician who designs and analyzes cancer studies, I regularly ask other researchers to provide additional information or raw data. Sometimes I want to use the data to test out a new idea or method of statistical analysis. And knowing exactly what happened in past studies can help me design…
jstemwedel | February 23, 2008There's another development in Aetogate, which you'll recall saw paleontologists William Parker, Jerzy Dzik, and Jeff Martz alleging that Spencer Lucas and his colleagues at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science (NMMNHS) were making use of their work or fossil resources without giving them proper credit. Since I last posted on the situation, NMMNHS decided to convene an ethics panel to consider the allegations. This ought to be good news, right?
It probably depends on what one means by "consider".
On Thursday, February 21, the Albuquerque Journal reported that this ethics…
jstemwedel | February 19, 2008Yesterday I published a post with suggestions for ways junior scientists could offer some push-back to ethical shenanigans by senior scientists in their field. While admittedly all of these were "baby-steps" kind of measures, the reactions in the comments are conveying a much grimmer picture of scientific communities than one usually gets talking to senior scientists in person. For example:
[N]one of your suggestions above would work. Those are all things that we tried. But when the people in a position to do something about it are being rewarded either by their silence or by their…
jstemwedel | February 18, 2008In the aftermath of my two posts on allegations of ethical lapses among a group of paleontologists studying aetosaurs, an email correspondent posed a really excellent question: what's a junior person to do about the misconduct of senior people in the field when the other senior people seem more inclined to circle the wagons than to do anything about the people who are misbehaving?
That's the short version. Here's the longer version from my correspondent:
I am and have been outraged by the blatant corruption in my field for a couple of decades, and one of the "stars" in my field was my first…
jstemwedel | February 16, 2008
Allegra Goodman's novel Intuition was published in 2006, and although I heard very good things about it, I was busy enough with other stuff that I didn't chase down a copy to read it. Finally, last November, my department chair lent me her copy, insistent that I had to read it when I got a chance -- not for any academic purpose, but to do something nice for myself. Between semesters, I finally got a chance to read it.
I have a really good department chair.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I think that part of why I enjoyed it so much is that I came to the book without having read…
jstemwedel | February 11, 2008I'm passing on information about a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation for graduate students. The program, organized by the University of Montana Center for Ethics, is called Debating Science 2008, and here's how it's described on the announcement:
We are looking for graduate students who are inspired by their own research, but who are also interested in exploring the social, political, and philosophical context of that work, and who are committed to sharing science with nonscientists, in a genuine hope for a better world...
To solve the toughest problems of the modern…
jstemwedel | February 4, 2008As I was weighing in on aetosaurs and scientist on scientist nastiness, one of the people I was talking to raised the question of whether careerist theft and backstabbing of professional colleagues was especially bad in paleontology. (Meanwhile, a commenter expressed surprise that it wasn't just biomedical researchers who felt driven to cheat.)
I don't know. So I figured I'd put it to my readers:
In your experience, which scientific discipline seems most prone to fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and generally nasty business between its members?
Do you have any hypotheses as to why…