Earlier this week, Ed Yong posted an interesting discussion about psychological research that suggests people have a moral thermostat, keeping them from behaving too badly — or too well:
Category Archives: Tribe of Science
Framing and ethics (part 3).
In a pair of earlier posts, I looked at the ethical principles Matthew C. Nisbet says should be guiding the framing of science and at examples Nisbet discusses of ethical and unethical framing. Here, consider some lessons we might learn from the framing wars. I’m hopeful that we can gain insight about the folks interested in communicating science, about the various people with whom they’re trying to communicate, and perhaps even about the approaches that might be useful (or counterproductive) in trying to sell scientists on the utility of the framing strategy.
This post is not so much a response to Matt’s recent post on the ethics of framing as it is to the multi-year brouhaha over framing and its discontents in the science blogosphere.
The lessons I’m taking away from all of this are more along the lines of bite-sized nuggets than a Grand Unified Moral of the Story (although it’s quite possible that someone with more patience or insight than I can muster could find the grand unifying thread in these nuggets):
Framing and ethics (part 2).
In my last post, I looked at a set of ethical principles Matt Nisbet asserts should be guiding the framing of science. In this post, I consider the examples Matt provides as the “DO” and “DON’T” pictures for the application of these guiding ethical principles.
First, Matt examines an example of framing done well:
Circumstances under which it is OK for scientists to pull numbers out of thin air?
Some commenters on my last post seem to be of the view that it is perfectly fine for scientists to pull numbers out of thin air to bolster their claims, at least under some circumstances.
I think it’s a fair question to ask: In which circumstances are you comfortable giving scientists the go-ahead to make up their numbers?
A habit that never ceases to amaze me.
When scientists make claims with numbers they have clearly pulled out of thin air. For example:
Book review: Everyday Practice of Science.
Everyday Practice of Science: Where Intuition and Passion Meet Objectivity and Logic.
by Frederick Grinnell
Oxford University Press
2009
Scientists are not usually shy when it comes to voicing their frustration about the public’s understanding of how science works, or about the deficits in that understanding. Some lay this at the feet of an educational system that makes it too easy for students to opt out of science coursework, while others blame the dearth of science coverage in our mass media.
Rather than casting about for a villain, cell biologist Frederick Grinnell has written a book that aims to help the non-scientist understand what scientific practice looks — and feels — like to the scientists. This description of scientific activity connects the dry textbook accounts of scientific method to the vibrant, messy, frustrating yet invigorating terrain scientists inhabit as they try to build new knowledge. Grinnell’s book also connects the scientists’ world to the vibrant, messy, frustrating yet invigorating world they share with non-scientists as he considers ethical and societal dimensions of scientific practice.
Is being a scientist something you do, or something you are?
Over at Neurotopia, SciCurious has a fabulous post on the question of who is a scientist. Her discussion really teases out a lot of important nuances, and I think her analysis is spot on.
I’m going to add my two cents simply to connect Sci’s discussion with an issue I’ve pondered before: the boundaries (or lack thereof) between who we are and what we do.
For better communication in lab groups, clearer expectations.
I’ve been watching an interesting discussion unfolding at DrugMonkey, prompted by a post at Science Bear’s Cave, about whether not irritating your lab group’s principal investigator ought to be your highest priority. As DrugMonkey notes, such a strategy can have bad consequences:
If there is a scientific trainee who fears to mention to the Boss that the printers aren’t working, this trainee sure as hell isn’t going to mention “Oh gee, I think that figure you are so amped about from that other postdoc is totally faked”. And who knows how far this PI-pleasing attitude might carry one.
Is the desire to keep the boss PI happy greater than any affection for, say, genuine data?
The discussion in the comments covered some familiar ground about the general unpleasantness of the experience of science as gladiatorial combat, the relative powerlessness of the scientific trainee relative to the PI or even the most favored postdoc, the need to believe in your own results (even if, objectively, you should not) in a climate of shrinking funding, whether science is or is not a tea party peopled with Care Bears (and if so, what exactly that would entail) …
For some reason, reading this exchange, I slipped into my committee-chair mindset. (Of course, this is very odd, seeing as how my current sabbatical has included a break from committee service. Could it be that I miss it?) I thought to myself, “The people here have rational reasons for the ways they’re behaving, even if those behaviors lead to predictably bad results. Are there any easy-to-implement changes that would make it rational for them to behave in ways that probably bring about better results?”
Then, I slipped into pedagogy mode (since I’m also on a hiatus from teaching) and thought, “Students focus on learning the things you test them on, not the things you say are important for them to learn. And when you don’t give them any sensible information about what you’re evaluating, or about the basis for evaluation, they will become bundles of hate, fear, and frustration.”
At this point, I had a flash of insight to a change that I think has potential. I can’t guarantee that it would work, but I think it would be foolish not to try it.
Mentoring ethics and authorship ethics.
One of my correspondents told me about a situation that raised some interesting questions about both proper attribution of authorship in scientific papers and ethical interactions between mentor and mentee in a scientific training relationship. With my correspondent’s permission, I’m sharing the case with you.
A graduate student, in chatting with a colleague in another lab, happened upon an idea for an experimental side project to do with that colleague. While the side project fell well outside the research agenda of this graduate student’s research group, he first asked his advisor whether it was OK for him to work on the side project. The advisor was reluctant to allow the student to work on the project, but agreed to give him a relatively short window of time (on the order of weeks, not months) to work on the side project and see if he got any results.
Profiles in mentoring: Dr. James E. LuValle.
(Written for the inaugural edition of the Diversity in Science blog carnival, with big thanks to DNLee for launching it.)
Back in the spring and autumn of 1992, I was a chemistry graduate student starting to believe that I might actually get enough of my experiments to work to get my Ph.D. As such, I did what senior graduate students in my department were supposed to do: I began preparing myself to interview with employers who came to my campus (an assortment of industry companies and national labs), and I made regular visits to my department’s large job announcement binder (familiarly referred to as “The Book of Job”).
What optimism my successes in the lab giveth, the daunting terrain laid out in “The Book of Job” taketh away. It wasn’t just the announcements of postdoctoral positions (which, I had been told, were how one was supposed to develop research experience in an area distinct from the one that was the focus of the doctoral research) that listed as prerequisites 3 or more years of research experience in that very area. The very exercise of trying to imagine myself meeting the needs of an academic department looking for a certain kind of researcher was … really hard. It sounded like they were all looking for researchers significantly more powerful than I felt myself to be at that point, and I wasn’t sure if it was realistic to expect that I could develop those powers.
I was having a crisis of faith, but I was trying to keep it under wraps because I was pretty sure that having that crisis was a sign that my skills and potential as a chemist were lacking.