I heard a piece by David Kestenbaum on NPR’s “Morning Edition” that hasn’t been sitting right with me. You, dear readers, get to help me figure out what’s bugging me about the story, a profile of 16-year-old climate skeptic Kristen Byrnes.
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Honesty, diplomacy, independence, and solidarity in public discussions about science.
At DrugMonkey, PhysioProf explores the rules of engagement between grad students in journal club and seminar presentations (building off of interesting explorations of this question from A Lady Scientist, Dr. Jekyll & Mrs. Hyde, and Acmegirl — all of which you should click through to read in their entirety). I’m late to the party, but I wanted to share some thoughts on the balance here between the intellectual aspects and the human aspects of questioning within the tribe of science.
Some thoughts on ‘Aetogate’
Brian 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.)
Friday Sprog Cephalopod
Sometimes a kid grabs the colored pencils and ends up with a picture of an octopus.
Judging by its color, the octopus is not angry.
This unsolicited picture may be foreshadowing. Younger offspring recently got a chapter book about giant squids and may be working up to dictating a review of it. Maybe next Friday.
Friday Sprog Blogging: veterinary medicine.
The Free-Ride offspring have been considering careers. This past week, they both got excited about the prospect of becoming veterinarians.
Elder offspring: I think I might want to be a veterinarian when I grow up.
Dr. Free-Ride: You could do that. You like science, you like animals, you like solving puzzles. I think you might be really good at it.
Younger offspring: I could be a veterinarian, too! I really like dogs and cats and rodents and birds.
Elder offspring: I think I might want to be a veterinarian at a zoo … but maybe not for the zebras. I heard that they can kick and bite, and really hurt the zoo keepers, and then I might need a doctor myself.
Trying to understand framing (III): the example of stem cell research.
I haven’t given up yet. You know I’m still looking for more clarity on the basic premises of framing. I tried to work out what does and does not fall within the framing strategy in a flowcharted example and (again) came away with a bunch of unanswered questions.
This round, I’m going to look at an example from the Nisbet and Scheufele article in The Scientist (a link to the PDF given here. I’ll confess that I’m still confused, but I think I’m getting closer to identifying precisely what I’m confused about.
Here’s what Nisbet and Scheufele say in The Scientist article about communication about stem cell research:
A few observations on the difference between ethics and the law.
There is a rather vigorous exchange (although one that fails my test for a “dialogue” in a number of ways) going on in the comments on my post about Kay Weber’s efforts to keep going forward with her lawsuit against Fermilab. Since this particular ethics blog is my ethics blog, I’m taking this opportunity to butt in with some comments of my own.
What kind of deception of human subjects is acceptable?
One 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 some amount of deception or concealment, which seems to be at odds with the need to establish informed consent.
Of course, there are ethical guidelines for dealing with studies that require deception. But recently a reader emailed me about a particular study where there might have been concealment that was an impediment to informed consent rather than a methodological requirement of the study. Here are the broad details*:
Faculty members are solicited to participate in a sociological study of networking within their academic departments. Indeed, a university administrator strongly encourages faculty members to participate in the research by noting that the data it collects is expected to bolster a grant application geared toward funding “institutional transformations”.
The information provided to prospective subjects on the consent form makes no mention of using the results of this study to secure further grants. Some of the faculty who are being solicited to participate in the present study have objections to the sorts of “institutional transformations” promoted by the grant program mentioned in the administrator’s encouragement to participate.
Is the failure to mention this intended use of the study results in the consent forms a violation of informed consent?
Silly hypothesis, meet snarky retort.
In case those readers trained in analytic philosophy managed to miss it, this comment at A Philosophy Job Market Blog gave me the giggles while striking me as an entirely appropriate response (given the audience) to a lazy reliance on speculative evolutionary psychology to justify the status quo (in this case, the lopsided gender split of folks pursuing philosophy in their studies and as a career). The italicized portion is quoted from the earlier (ev-psych-loving) commenter:
Maybe, just maybe, philosophy is something “inherently more valuable” to men qua hunters
Because chasing down those non-existent unicorns painted to look like zebras in fake barn country required the ability to discern whether one was a brain in the vat before throwing a spear?
Anonymous commenter, I think I love you.
Help Kay Weber continue to pursue her case against Fermilab.
You may already have seen this at Absinthe or Zuska’s — if so, consider this post a friendly nudge to move beyond your good intentions toward action.
Kay Weber, who is pursuing a lawsuit against Fermilab for (the details of which sound pretty horrific), has come to a point where the expense of moving the lawsuit forward is personally insurmountable. With a little help from others who support her fight for fair treatment, however, it can be done: