As 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.
Category Archives: Professional ethics
SVP Ethics Education Commitee statement: lessons learned from ‘Aetogate’.
Following 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.” I’ll take each of them in turn.
SVP Ethics Education Commitee conclusions on ‘Aetogate’.
A 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 SVP Ethics Education Committee responded to the two sets of allegations it was considering. A second post will discuss what the committee identifies as the “lessons learned” from this investigation. A third post will then consider the “best practices” proposed by the committee.
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.)
How committed are paleontologists to objectivity (in questions of ethical conduct)?
There’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”.
Senior scientists, give us some good news!
Yesterday 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 complicity, all of the things you suggest have effects ranging from nothing to career suicide.
My experience, sad as it sounds, is that as a junior person in a corrupt research area has two choices: accept the fact that they’re going to get screwed, or find a different field.
So now, I’d like to have a word with the senior scientists.
Where the hell are you?!
Ask an ethicist: How can I stand up to misbehavior in my field?
In 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:
A tangle of controversy — and a plea to start untangling.
You’ve probably heard that UCLA scientist Edythe London, whose house was earlier vandalized to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars by animal rights activists, has once again been targeted. This time an incendiary device was left on her front door.
Abel and Mark weighed in on this appalling use of tactics to terrorize a scientist doing work on approved protocols — protocols that had to meet the stringent standards imposed by federal regulations. But while the NIH and the odd newspaper columnist stands up to make the case for animal use in medical research and against the violent intimidation of medical researchers, there seems not to be much in the way of public outcry.
Do people really feel like firebombing is a legitimate means of persuasion?
My guess is that they don’t. However, some of the details of the situation as described in a recent article in the Los Angeles Times may explain why the public is conflicted. Beyond animal use, the area of London’s research and the source of her funding seem to be raising discomfort, creating a tangled knot of controversy that’s begging to be untangled.
The project of being a grown-up scientist (part 2).
In my earlier post, I described the feeling I had as I started my graduate training in chemistry that there was a huge pile of knowledge I would need to acquire to make the transition from science student to grown-up scientist. I should make it clear (in response to JSinger’s comment that I seemed to be reserving the “grown-up” designation for principal investigators) that the student versus grown-up chasm was one that I thought of primarily in terms of how much I felt I’d have to learn by the time the Ph.D. hit my hand in order not to feel like a total impostor representing myself as a chemist. This was the biggest, scariest to-do list I had ever imagined, but I also couldn’t imagine that it was possible to be a successful academic chemist without being to put check marks next to most of the items on it. There were some grad students in the cohorts a few years ahead of me who seemed to be making good progress with that to-do list. And, there were some PIs who clearly hadn’t done so well with it … but none of them were “successful” in the way I wanted to be (although some were officially quite successful in terms of funding and publications).
For all the talk of extended sojourns in grad school or postdoctoral positions infantilizing trainees, I wouldn’t want to claim that trainees are intellectually or emotionally immature. But that kind of maturity isn’t what’s at the heart of being a scientific grown-up. Rather, it’s about a certain kind of facility in navigating your professional environment — from the lab or the field, to the hunt for funding, to the communication of your results and insights to other scientists, to the other sorts of interpersonal negotiations that make the science happen. It’s being a full member of a professional community, taking your responsibilities to that community seriously, and being invested in the direction that community goes and how well it functions.
I wanted all that — plus, to get my experiments to work, so I could actually write a dissertation and get my degree in a reasonable number of years. But it didn’t take long at all to discover that most advisors don’t talk with their trainees about the arcane knowledge the grown-ups seem to have. Obviously, this would make getting that knowledge much harder.
Why aren’t there regular discussions between advisor and advisee about how to be a grown-up scientist?
The project of being a grown-up scientist (part 1).
I’m writing this post (and the posts following it, so the bites are of reasonable size) at the urging of Bill Hooker, with whom I’ve talked about these issues in real life.
The idea of becoming a grown-up in the scientific community is a thread that runs through a lot of my posts (and also guides my thinking as I teach my “Ethics in Science” class), but it turns out I hadn’t written a proper post to explain the idea. This set of posts will at least serve as a first attempt.