I’m not sure I realized it while I was writing it, but my last post (on whether scientific knowledge about the benefits of breast-feeding imposes any particular obligations) has me thinking about another kind of case where scientific knowledge might — or might not — bring ethical consequences.
That case? Global warming.
My big question, thinking about these two instances where scientific knowledge, individual decisions, and public policy all coalesce, is what the relevant differences are.
Category Archives: Ethics 101
Just because they’re out to get you doesn’t mean they don’t have a point. (One from the vault.)
Wrestling overgrown rose bushes out of the ground may be harder than wrestling gators. (At the very least, it seems to take longer, while provoking less sympathy).
Anyway, while I’m recovering from that, here’s a “classic” post from the old location. It was originally posted 5 January 2006, but the ethical issues are still fresh.
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Since I’m in the blessed wee period between semesters, it’s time to revisit some “old news” (i.e., stuff that I had to set aside in the end-of-semester crush). Today, a story from about a month ago, wherein the Rick Weiss of the Washington Post reports on the University of North Carolina’s troubles obeying animal welfare regulations in its research labs.
Authorship and plagiarism: an object lesson.
Even though it’s outside the realm of science, given its relevance to recent discussions here, I just can’t leave this story alone:
Via Nanopolitan, the latest on the sad case of Harvard sophomore and author(?) Kaavya Viswanathan, whose situation keeps unravelling. Viswanathan got herself a book contract while still a high school student, and then wrote (maybe) the young adult novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. Recently, it has come to light that dozens of passages in that novel bear an uncanny resemblance to passages in two novels by Megan McCafferty. Some seem to have been lifted word for word, while others seem to have modified just enough not to be immediately detectable with Google.
In the business, we’re accustomed to calling this plagiarism. The only complication here is whether Viswanathan is the one who committed the plagiarism here.
Hierarchies of misconduct.
In response to some interesting discussions with my students, I’m gearing up for a longish post on plagiarism’s place in the pantheon of scientific misconduct. To the extent that scientists can provide a clear definition of misconduct, it’s usually FFP: fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. So, plagiarism is in there, but there’s frequently a sense that it’s not the same kind of ethical violation.
Before launching into my take on the issue, I thought it might be good to canvas the readership:
Plagiarism is bad.
My students know that plagiarism is bad. You’d think a major wire service would know it, too.
But it would seem that maybe the Associated Press doesn’t know that failing to properly cite sources is plagiarism. Or perhaps the AP does know, but doesn’t care. When your business is built on the premise that you are a reliable source of information, it seems to me that this is a very bad strategy.
What do publicly-funded scientists owe the public?
Yesterday, I discussed what scientists supported by federal funds do, and do not, owe the public. However, that discussion was sufficiently oblique and ironic that the point I was trying to make may not have been clear (and, I may have put some of my male readers at greater risk for heart attack).
So, I’m turning off the irony and giving it another try.
The large question I want to examine is just what publicly-funded scientists owe the public. Clearly, they owe the public something, but is it the thing that Dean Esmay is suggesting that the public is owed?
Advice for job seekers
Many a time, in the course of doing these memoirs, I have wished that I were writing fiction. The temptation to invent has been very strong, particularly where recollection is hazy and I remember the substance of an event but not the details … Then there are cases where I am not sure myself whether I am making something up. I think I remember but I am not positive.
–Mary McCarthy, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
Given the perhaps inevitable comparisons between memoirist-turned-novelist (all in the same book!) James Frey and recently resigned NASA press office operative George Deutsch, I think it’s worth taking a quick look at the relevant differences: