You may remember my post from last week involving a case where a postdoc sued her former boss for defamation when he retracted a couple of papers they coauthored together. After that post went up, a reader helpfully hooked me up with a PDF of District Judge Joseph M. Hood’s ruling on the case (Chandok v. Klessig, 5:05-cv-01076). There is a lot of interesting stuff here, and I’m working on a longer examination of the judge’s reasoning in the ruling. But, in the interim, I thought you might be interested in the statements made by the defendant in the case, Dr. Daniel F. Klessig, that the plaintiff in the case, Dr. Meena Chandok, alleged were defamatory.
In the longer post I’m working on, I’ll dig in to Judge Hood’s arguments with respect to what elements a plaintiff must establish to prove defamation, and what particular features of the scientific arena were germane to his ruling in this case. For the time being, however, I’m interested to hear what you all think about whether the 23 allegedly defamatory claims quoted below tend “to expose the plaintiff to public hatred, contempt, ridicule, or disgrace.” (13) As well, given that one element of defamation is that the defamatory statements are factually false, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the evidentiary standard a scientist should have to meet before making claims like these to other scientists.
Here, quoted from the ruling, are the 23 allegedly defamatory statements:
Category Archives: Reader participation
Great moments in scientific reasoning.
In my philosophy of science class yesterday, we talked about Semmelweis and his efforts to figure out how to cut the rates of childbed fever in Vienna General Hospital in the 1840s. Before we dug into the details, I mentioned that Semmelweis is a historical figure who easily makes the Top Ten list of Great Moments in Scientific Reasoning. (At the very least, Semmelweis is discussed in no fewer than three of the readings, by three separate authors, assigned for the course.)
But this raises the question: what else belongs on the Top Ten list of Great Moments in Scientific Reasoning?
Halt! Identify yourself!
Ed Yong and DrugMonkey have dusted off the invitation (seen here last summer) for readers to take a moment to introduce themselves in the comments.
It seems like a good idea to me, so I’m going to play along:
How to discourage scientific fraud.
In my last post, I mentioned Richard Gallagher’s piece in The Scientist, Fairness for Fraudsters, wherein Gallagher argues that online archived publications ought to be scrubbed of the names of scientists sanctioned by the ORI for misconduct so that they don’t keep paying after they have served their sentence. There, I sketched my reasons for disagreeing with Gallagher.
But there’s another piece of his article that I’d like to consider: the alternative strategies he suggests to discourage scientific fraud.
Gallagher writes:
Question for the commentariat about the goal of science education.
This just came up in a plenary session I’m attending, looking at how best to convey the nature of science in K-12 science education (roughly ages 5-18).
It’s not really a question about the content of the instruction, which people here seem pretty comfortable saying should include stuff about scientific methodology and critical testing, analysis and interpretation of data, hypothesis and prediction, what kind of certainty science can achieve, and so forth. Rather, it’s a question about how that content is organized and framed.
Location, location, location: ethical considerations in where to run a clinical trial.
A day later than promised, let’s kick off our discussion of “Research Rashomon: Lessons from the Cameroon Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Trial Site” (PDF). The case study concerns a clinical trial of whether tenofovir, an antiretroviral drug, could prevent HIV infection. Before it was halted in the face of concerns raised by activists and the media, the particular clinical trial discussed in this case was conducted in Cameroon. Indeed, one of the big questions the activists raised about the trial was whether it was ethical to site it in Cameroon.
From the case study:
Wifi in the Boston area?
I have a quick question for the hive-mind:
Where are good places with free wifi in Boston, Cambridge, and Wellesley?
Coming Monday: our discussion the case of a halted international clinical trial in Cameroon.
Almost a month ago, I told you about a pair of new case studies released by The Global Campaign for Microbicides which examine why a pair of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) clinical trials looking at the effectiveness of antiretrovirals in preventing HIV infection were halted. In that post, I also proposed that we read and discuss these case studies as a sort of ethics book club.
Next Monday, June 15, we’ll be kicking off our discussion of the first case study, “Research Rashomon: Lessons from the Cameroon Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Trial Site” (PDF).
Like sugar packets in a diner.
The Free-Ride family enjoyed a late breakfast (although you better believe that if either of the Free-Ride offspring claims to be hungry in the next two hours, I’m calling it an early lunch) at a local diner.
While there, the elder Free-Ride offspring struggled to eat an omelette off an unstable plate. Any attempt at cutting, spearing, or spooning sent the plate a-spinning.
Two new case studies on international clinical trials (and a plan to read them together).
Earlier this week, I found out about a pair of new case studies being released by The Global Campaign for Microbicides. These cases examine why a pair of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) clinical trials looking at the effectiveness of microbicides antiretrovirals in preventing HIV infection were halted. Here are some details: