ETHICS IN SCIENCE

 ETHICS IN SCIENCE

 ETHICS IN SCIENCE

 ETHICS IN SCIENCE

 Ethics in Science
Definition
 Ethics is the accommodation of the “me”
with the “them”

 Ethics is the optimization of individual

activity within Society
The Ethical Question
 The ethical question is one of individual
behavior with respect to the social
structure

 An isolated person has no need for ethics

Ethics is Utilitarian
 The ethical question asks,”does it work?”

 “does it work” implies pragmatism and

utilitarianism; i.e.,is the ethical decision
realistic and useful
Origin of ethics
 Ethics arises out of competition between
individual values within a society
 Values are what is important to the
individual
 Groups have no values per se. The
values of a group is a compromise taken
over the values of group members
Modern Values
 Modern science, Modern art, and modern
society arose when individual values were
recognized as valid and not subservient to
the group
 Group science and group art is dreadful,
political, and programmatic
 Only individuals are creative. Society
benefits from individual creativity
Pre-Renaissance
 during the pre-renaissance, the social
structure, the church, or state claimed
hegemony over the individual. Such
things happen today in totalitarian states
Groups and Individuals
 Groups are not creative

 Groups provide resources

 Groups invest in individuals seeking a

return on the investment both fiscally and
culturally
Reward
 Individuals are seldom rewarded by the
group in true proportion to their
contribution
 The group most of the time doesn’t
understand the investment and generally
undervalues it and over values the group
contribution
Edison
 Thomas Alva Edison’s greatest invention
was not the phonograph, or light bulb,or
Edison effect (which he did not
understand or appreciate) or the
multiplexed stock ticker. His greatest
contribution was the modern research
organization
 Edison founded General Electric and their
famous Knolls laboratory
Thomas Alva Edison
Modern Research Laboratory
(MRL)
 MRL resembles the pre-renaissance world in
that the individual is less important than the
team
 Individual expression is suspect and subsumed
by team expression
 Team player trumps the individual player
 MRL occurs both in the academic and business
worlds
Entrepreneurship
 In opposition to the Edison model for
Research is Entrepreneurship

 Entrepreneurship is an attempt by the

individual to obtain a larger”piece of the
pie”
Ethical Choices of the Scienctist
 What is an ethical choice?
 What is an ethical goal?
 Can one have non-ethical choices and an
ethical goal? This is Sophie’s Choice
 Can one have ethical choices and a non-
ethical goal? Means justify the ends
Sophie’s Choice
Her choice, Sophie’s
choice given to her
by a Nazi medical
doctor was to choose
which of her children
dies in concentration
camp gas chamber
Choice Definition
 Choice is the path one takes to the goal
 There are multiple paths
 The are multiple goals some patent, some
recondite
 Ethical responsibility and choice are a
canonical couple
Game of Choices
Choices

start finish
Ignorance of a Choice or Goal
is no Excuse
 List and know all possible choices both ethical
and non-ethical
 List and know consequences of Choice
 Know thy goal or goals
 List and know consequences of obtaining or not
obtaining goal
 Make choice
 Take responsibility for choice
Limitation of free Choice
 Choices are limited by perception

 If I see an armed man receiving money

from another, am I perceiving a robbery or
am I perceiving Brink’s officer taking
money off to a vault?
 Taking action on the former perception
especially If I’m armed could be a disaster
Ethics of Science
 Below is a list of ethical guidelines
 We shall take these guidelines and apply
them to case histories
 We shall examine the whether guidelines

 Work in a modern research laboratory

Guidelines
 Honesty
 Careful experimental technique
 Non-manipulation treatment of data
 Continual development of knowledge and skills
 Willing to change hypothesis in face of new evidence
 Willing to challenge ones hypothesis through falsifiation
 Avoids intimidation, rhetoric, propaganda, and misrepresentation
 Does not appeal to authority
Guidelines
 Recognizes the consequence of ones research
 Communicates through peer reviewed journals of meetings
 Need to unify disparate data
 Forms hypothesis consistent with existing body of knowledge
 Avoids conflict of interest
 Provides experimental details so work is reproducible by others
skilled in the art
 Assigns credit where credit is due
 Does not falsify or manipulates data
 Does not plagiarize works of others or claims as own
 Socially aware
Application of Guidelines to
MRL
 Most patents written today are not full or honest
disclosures. SOP
 Many MRL’s do not patent but keep information as
trade secrets
 Claims form any drugs’ effectiveness overstated;
e.g., vitamins
 Often electronic products introduced into market with
the intension to allow the end-user identify the “bugs”
 MRL makes little provisions for scientist to keep up
with new knowledge
Application of Guidelines to
MRL
 MRL are authority based
 MRL make few real world provisions to reward
inventors
 Frequently inventions are appropriated by
others allowing the court to decide ownership
TB, Japan
 80% of patents and publication are fabrications
Case histories
 You are a graduate student working for a leading astronomer.
Your job is to use a sophisticated radio telescope the
astronomer designed for observing variable radio sources in
the universe. After several weeks of analyzing data, you
realize you have discovered a totally new kind of star -- one
that provides evidence for the origin of the universe. Your
boss congratulates you for your fine work, writes a major
report on it, and wins a Nobel Prize. What should you do?
Case histories
Being Scooped by Your Own Work

 You are a young scientist who recently sent a paper based on your
research in adolescent anorexia to an important scientific journal to be
considered for publication. As is the custom, the journal's editor sends the
paper out for review to other experts in the field. After several weeks he
returns the paper to you, rejecting it because he claims that its reviewers
found that "it contains several major errors and misinterpretations." Then,
several months later, in another journal you find an article containing data
almost identical to your own, and using sentences and descriptions similar
to yours. What should you do?
Case histories A "Doctored" Doctorate?

 You are a graduate student working on a Ph.D. in chemistry

at a prestigious university. A good friend of yours who is a
graduate student in the same lab reveals to you that he hasn't
done all the experiments he said he did, and that a substantial
part of his data has been doctored to make it look like it is
based on original work. What should you do?
Case histories Preempting Theft
 A scientist doing research on sickle cell disease finds a way to produce a
chemical from genetically changed mice that reduces the symptoms of
sickle cell disease in many of its victims. Because he recognizes that he
could earn a lot of money if the chemical is produced commercially, he
does not want to reveal some of the details of the procedure for
production. He submits a paper for publication in which he deliberately
includes an incorrect gene sequences. The paper is well written and
plausible, and unless the referees attempt to clone the gene themselves,
they would have no way of knowing of the deliberate error. When the
paper is accepted for publication, the scientist will correct the error. Is the
scientist justified in misrepresenting his data? --What if he withholds the
proper sequence from the final publication?
Case histories Editorial Responsibility
 You are editor of a prestigious scientific journal that is respected around
the world for its timely, accurate reporting. A story is "leaked" to you by
a confidential source that provides strong evidence that a major scientist
working on HIV (the AIDS virus) has reported false data in his
experiments. What should you do?
Case histories Science for Who?
 You are a scientist at a major university who has
discovered a chemical broth that makes it easy to
grow the virus that causes AIDS in a laboratory
flask. What will you do? --share the recipe
immediately with all laboratories that need it for
AIDS research? --or publish first? --or solicit offers
from pharmaceutical companies who might want to
market the broth?
Case histories Using Nazi Data
 During the early part of World War II the Nazi's lost many pilots during the Battle of Britain
in the icy waters of the English Channel. On land large numbers of Germans froze on the
Russian front.
 The Nazi's decided to start cold experiments at Dachau concentration camp in mid-August of
1942. They conducted about 400 different experiments using approximately 300 prisoners.
 The experiments involved leaving the people in vats of icy water for hours or in the freezing
outdoors. The Nazi's measured their changes in blood, urine, spinal fluid, muscle reflexes,
heart action and body temperature.
 When the patients' temperatures dropped below 79.7 degrees F, various ways of rewarming
were tried. Rapid rewarming proved most effective. Slow rewarming was not very effective
and alcohol actually hastened cooling. Up to 100 prisoners died during these experiments.
 Approximately 1000 people die of exposure to cold in the U.S. every year. No current data is
available as complete or as accurate as that of the Nazi's. It was determined that the Nazi
method of rapid rewarming in hot water be used as the treatment of choice by the Air-Sea
Rescue Services of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Case histories Renegade Research?
 Thomas Creighton, a 33-year-old mechanic, was dying of heart disease. The
surgeons at the University of Arizona performed a heart transplant on him, but the
new heart was rejected.
 Instead of waiting two hours to use the approved Jarvik-7 artificial heart, they
implanted an unauthorized artificial heart.
 Two hours after the surgery, the doctors removed the artificial heart and
implanted a second human heart. This second heart transplant also failed. Mr.
Creighton died forty-six hours after the first surgery. The Food and Drug
Administration investigated, but took no action against the surgeons involved.
 If the doctors were found guilty of performing an unauthorized experiment on a
patient, what action should be taken against them? Would the action be the same
if the patient had not died?
Case histories
To Medicate or Not to Medicate

 Terry Kelly received a National Institute of Mental Health grant for research in the Western
Tropics. As part of her personal gear, she took along a considerable amount of medication,
which her physician had prescribed for use, should Kelly find herself in an active malaria
region. Later, after settling into a village, Kelly became aware that many of the local people
were quite ill with malaria.
 Kelly's Dilemma: Since she had such a large supply of medication, much more than she
needed for her personal use, should she distribute the surplus to her hosts?
 Kelly's Decision
 Kelly decided not to give any medication to the villagers who were exhibiting symptoms of
malaria, even though she had a considerable surplus in her personal supply. She reasoned
that since the medication did not confer permanent immunity to the disease and because she
would not be present to provide medication during future outbreaks of the disease, it was
more important to allow affected villagers to develop their own resistance to malaria
"naturally.
Case histories
INDUSTRIAL SPONSORSHIP OF ACADEMIC
RESEARCH

 Sandra was excited about being accepted as a graduate student in the

laboratory of Dr. Frederick, a leading scholar in the field, and she embarked
on her assigned research project eagerly. But after a few months she began to
have misgivings. Though part of Dr. Frederick's work was supported by
federal grants, the project on which she was working was totally supported
by a grant from a single company. She had known this before coming to the
lab and had not thought it would be a problem. But she had not known that
Dr. Frederick also had a major consulting agreement with the company. She
also heard from other graduate students that when it came time to publish
her work, any paper would be subject to review by the company to determine
if any of her work was patentable.
Case histories
A CONFLICT OF INTEREST

 John, a third-year graduate student, is participating in a

department-wide seminar where students, postdocs, and
faculty members discuss work in progress. An assistant
professor prefaces her comments by saying that the work
she is about to discuss is sponsored by both a federal
grant and a biotechnology firm for which she consults. In
the course of the talk John realizes that he has been
working on a technique that could make a major
contribution to the work being discussed. But his faculty
advisor consults for a different, and competing,
biotechnology firm.
Case histories The Selection of Data
 Deborah, a third-year graduate student, and Kathleen, a postdoc, have made a
series of measurements on a new experimental semiconductor material using an
expensive neutron source at a national laboratory. When they get back to their
own laboratory and examine the data, they get the following data points. A newly
proposed theory predicts results indicated by the curve.
 During the measurements at the national laboratory, Deborah and Kathleen
observed that there were power fluctuations they could not control or predict.
Furthermore, they discussed their work with another group doing similar
experiments, and they knew that the other group had gotten results confirming
the theoretical prediction and was writing a manuscript describing their results.
 In writing up their own results for publication, Kathleen suggests dropping the
two anomalous data points near the abscissa (the solid squares) from the
published graph and from a statistical analysis. She proposes that the existence of
the data points be mentioned in the paper as possibly due to power fluctuations
and being outside the expected standard deviation calculated from the remaining
data points. "These two runs," she argues to Deborah, "were obviously wrong."
A Selection of Data