institutional ethics
jstemwedel | March 16, 2006My post a couple days ago about Laurentian University's lock-out of researchers from their animal care facility sparked some heated discussion in the comments. Also, it sparked an email from someone close enough to the situation to give me an update on the situations since December. The issue of how, ethically, to use animals in research, and of how the interests of animals and the interests of students should be balanced, seems to have touched a nerve. So, we're going back in.
First, here's the update, with thanks to my email correspondent:
End of December: they approved our protocols…
jstemwedel | January 24, 2006Via Evolgen, an article by Nicholas Wade on tools to recognize doctored images that accompany scientific manuscripts. Perhaps because "seeing is believing," pictures (including visual presentations of data) have been a favored weapon in the scientist's persuasive arsenal. But this means, as we know, that just as images can persuade, they can also deceive.
The deceptions Wade discusses in the linked article rely primarily on using Photoshop to cover up inconvenient features (like bands on gels), to resize isolated parts of images, to rotate things, and the like. Wade writes:
At The Journal…
jstemwedel | January 22, 2006Silly human nature, getting scientists into trouble. Until the robots are ready to take the reins of the scientific enterprise (and personally, I have my doubts that this is first item on the robots' to-do list), we're faced with the practical problem of figuring out how to keep human scientists honest. Among the broad strategies to accomplish this is reducing the potential payoff for dishonesty compared to honesty (where, as we know, doing honest science is generally more labor-intensive than just making stuff up).
I take it that this piece by David S. Oderberg is a variation on the theme…
jstemwedel | January 19, 2006Via Inside Higher Ed comes news that the Food and Drug Administration has changed its mind (do administrative bodies have "minds"?) about rules it recommended on how scientists get approval for their research projects from IRBs (institutional review boards). In particular, the rules were intended to head off abuses of the approval system that might come from "shopping around" for the IRB most likely to respond favorably to one's research proposal. From the IHE article:
[The FDA] announced in the Federal Register that it would withdraw a 2002 plan that would have required scientists seeking…