Ethics & Scientific Research October 2014

1. Ethics & Scientific ResearchOctober 2014 Clark Wolf Iowa State University jwcwolf@iastate.edu

2. Ethics in Science? • Macro-Ethics: Social/Ethical issues in research and the development of new technologies…

3. Ethics in Science? • Ethical issues in the uses of new technologies…

4. Ethics in Science? • Ethical issues involved in the policies that regulate the uses of new technology…

5. Many moral objections to science and technology are silly. • Does this mean that it’s silly to consider ethical issues in science and technology?

6. Ethics in Science? • Ethical issues in the practice of scientific research… (RCR)

7. I. Ethics in Life Science Research 1) Why should you Care? 2) Standards for Scientific Research: FFP & MIM 3) Ethics, Values, and Choices 4) Controversial Case: Arsenate Bacteria 5) Risk Factors for Research Misconduct? 6) Case Studies and Questions

8. Why should you be interested? • Good science requires ethically responsible research practice. • There are good reasons behind the rules governing the responsible conduct of research. • Within the scientific community, ethical misconduct is taken very seriously. Misconduct can be a career-ending disaster.

9. MRS Bulletin, Feb 2002 From Comstock ppt: “What is Ethics?”

10. From Comstock ppt: “What is Ethics?”

11. Goodwin Case

13. Question: • Why would a smart person do something so stupid?

14. “What is ‘Responsible Research?” “What are the Standards of Research Ethics, Where do they Come From, and Why Should Anyone Comply with them?”

15. The standards of research ethics are rules and principles of conduct that apply to scientists engaged in the practice of research. They include conventional standards, professional codes, legal rules, and requirements of morality.

16. Standards of Scientific Misconduct Charles Babbage, 1830 Reflections on the Decline of Science in England: Trimming: Removing data that fails to conform to one's hypothesis. Cooking: Making many measurements and only reporting those deemed satisfactory. Forging: Recording fictitious results.

17. Standards of Scientific Misconduct • "FFP" Standard: "Scientific misconduct means fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the scientific community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research. It does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretation or judgments of data."

18. Standards of Scientific Misconduct MIM: Misappropriation, Interference, and Misrepresentation • "Research misconduct means significant misbehavior that improperly appropriates the intellectual property or contributions of others, that intentionally impedes the progress of research, or that risks corrupting the scientific record or compromising the integrity of scientific practices. Such behaviors are unethical and unacceptable in proposing, conducting, or reporting research, or in reviewing proposals or research reports of others." • Ryan Report, 1995

19. What’s Missing? FFP and MIM each capture some important categories of scientific misconduct. But they are inappropriately focused only on issues of intellectual property and the protection of the integrity of research itself. There are other aspects of scientific practice that should be subject to standards of proper conduct…

20. Categories of Scientific Misconduct: 1.0 Truth Telling 1.1 In research (Ex: Accurate reporting of research results) 1.2 In self-representation (Ex: Resume’s and Credentials) 2.0 Prohibition on Intellectual Theft: 2.1 Plagiarism 2.2 Citation Ethics 2.3 Authorship Credit 3.0 Conflicts of Interest: Funding Sources, bias 3.1Concealment of Relevant Data 3.2 Requests for Misrepresentation 3.3 Funding-Source Interests Entering the Research Process 4.0 Treatment of Research Subjects 4.1 Informed Consent and Human Subjects 4.2 Humane and Appropriate Treatment of Animal Subjects 5.0 Conflicts between scientific aims and other ethically relevant aims. 5.1 Imposition of social or environmental risks 5.2 Sexism or Racism in the sciences 5.2 Student/Mentor relations 6.0 ???

21. Upshot: • In the context of scientific research, it is important to understand the principles that govern the proper conduct of research. • You should critically and reflectively consider the basis for these principles, and the reasons behind them. • When people fail to abide by them, the consequences are drastic and often disproportional.

22. How could Smart People do something so Stupid? • Ethical choices often arise in the process of scientific research. • When people are not ready, if these issues catch them by surprise, they sometimes make terrible mistakes. (Even intelligent and well-meaning people!)

23. Ethics and the Responsible Conduct of Research • One aim of this session is to prepare you for choices that you will surely face in the course of your career as a student, researcher, scientist, or engineer.

24. Ethics and the Responsible Conduct of Research Example: Plagiarism and Authorship. When, and in what form, is it permissible to use the work of others in one’s own research? *Plagiarism Hand-Out *Bloggs Hand-Out

25. Bloggs Case #1

26. Bloggs Case #1 • “Utilitarianism”: The ethical thing to do is whatever will maximize aggregate benefit for everyone. • “The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number” (GHGN)

27. Bloggs Case #2

28. Rights: • Would slicing and dicing Bloggs violate his rights? (What are rights?)

29. Rights? • Response: Slicing and dicing Bloggs would violate his rights. • A moral right is a justified claim that an individual (or group) may make to certain objects or certain treatment by others. • Bloggs’s right to X may take the form of: • A claim that Bloggs may make to a particular object (e.g., his kidneys) • A constraint on how Bloggs should be treated (e.g., he shouldn’t be killed for his organs) • An obligation on others not to interfere with Bloggs’s doing X (e.g., his continuing to live)

30. Ethical Theory • Immanuel Kant: Categorical Imperative: • “Act only such that you could will the maxim on which you act as a universal law.” • “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, always as an end in itself, and never as a means only.” • Would ‘slicing and dicing’ Bloggs for his organs involve treating him as a mere means?

31. Ethical Theory: • Killing v. Letting Die: It has sometimes been argued that we have a moral duty not to kill, but no moral duty (or a lighter moral duty) not to let people die. • Does this distinction explain why we shouldn’t kill Bloggs for his organs?

32. Bloggs Case #3

33. Bloggs Case #3 • The ethics of acts vs. omissions • The greater good vs. “clean hands”

34. We reveal our ethical views when we explain or justify our choices and behavior to others. Ethical views can be thoughtless and unreflective, or thoughtful and reflective. To the extent that we’re thoughtless and unreflective, our value system will lack integrity and depth. If our values are shallow and incoherent, we will make bad decisions, …and we will be shallow and incoherent. (?) Ethical Theory:

35. Ethics in Science • No one (?) pursues a career in science planning or expecting to perpetrate scientific misconduct. • By considering the motives and pressures that lead people to perpetrate misconduct, we can prepare ourselves in advance to make good decisions.

36. Hard Cases • Fraud and misconduct are in one sense easy cases: people know they’re doing the wrong thing when they fake the data. • Are there ethically problematic cases at the margin where people can fall into misconduct without realizing that this is what they’ve done?

37. A Story: The Baltimore Case April 1986: Publication by David Baltimore, Thereza Imanishi-Kari, et al. of a paper titled: "Altered Repertoire of Endogenous Immunoglobulin Gene Expression in Transgenic Mice Containing a Rearranged Mu Heavy Chain Gene" The article appeared in the journal Cell.

38. The Baltimore Case May 1986: Margot O'Toole, Imanishi-Kari's postdoctoral assistant at MIT, found that she could not duplicate Imanishi-Kari's data. O’Toole wasted(?) a year demonstrating that important experiments in the paper were wrong.

39. The Baltimore Case Frustrated, in May 1986 O’Toole decided to “blow the whistle.” She took the facts to her thesis adviser. She also contacted two scientists at Tufts University, which was about to hire Imanishi-Kari. COMMENT: What should you do if you suspect misconduct on the part of someone in your lab? It is important to insure that the rights of those you suspect are protected, even if you know them to be guilty of misconduct. “Due Process” rights.

40. The Baltimore Case The hiring committee at Tufts was concerned enough to ask Imanishi-Kari for proof of the work she'd done. On perusal of her notes they did not decide to act on O'Toole's concerns. Tufts hired Imanishi-Kari. (US Secret Service later said that these notes were “fabricated” just before the meeting.)

41. The Baltimore Case June 1986: O'Toole confronted Imanishi-Kari. According to O'Toole, Imanishi-Kari admitted that some of the work cited in the paper was not done, and other work got different results than what was reported.

42. The Baltimore Case O'Toole asked that the paper be withdrawn. David Baltimore replied that such problems with accuracy are not unusual and need not be corrected. “A startling new standard for scientific inquiry?” --Elliot & Stern, p. 46.

43. The Baltimore Case September 1986: Dean at MIT assigned Herman Eisen to look at the case. Eisen noted that there were errors in the Cell paper but that this was "the stuff of science" and not misconduct. (E&S p. 46)

44. The Baltimore Case Eisen received a letter from David Baltimore: "The evidence that the Bet-1 antibody doesn't do as described in the paper is clear. Thereza [Imanishi-Kari]'s statement to you that she knew it all the time is a remarkable admission of guilt... Why Thereza chose to use this data and to mislead both of us and those who read the paper is beyond me.”

45. The Baltimore Case “All authors do have to take responsibility for a manuscript, so all of us are in some sense culpable, but I would hate to see David [Weaver]'s integrity questioned for something he accepted in good faith... The literature is full of bits and pieces now known to be wrong, but it is not the tradition to point each one out publicly." He went on to say that no correction should be published but that he would privately let others know that Imanishi-Kari's data "are not reliable, and I for one, will be skeptical of Thereza's work in the future.“ (E&S p. 47.)

46. The Baltimore Case Questionable standards represented in Baltimore’s letter to Eisen? (Attitudes concerning misconduct were different at the time when Baltimore wrote this letter. Does this mitigate the fault he might incur from involvement in a cover-up?)

47. The Baltimore Case • July 1986: Walter Stewart and Ned Feder at NIH started examining the case, and spoke to John Dingle, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. [There is no one whose job it is to investigate possible cases of scientific fraud.] • NIH appointed a special committee to investigate the matter.

48. The Baltimore Case Summer 1986: Baltimore took steps to mobilize the scientific community to defend Imanishi-Kari against the NIH investigation. He mobilized colleagues to write op-ed pieces and to join the fray. A large group of distinguished scientists went to Washington on his behalf. Baltimore "cast the conflict as one of outsiders invading the sanctuary of science.“ --E&S, p. 48

49. The Baltimore Case • October 1994: NIH Office of Research Integrity (ORI) ruled that Imanishi-Kari falsified data and should be barred from receiving NIH grants or contracts for a 10 year period. • Secret Service experts provide evidence that notebooks provided by Imanishi-Kari's as evidence of her innocence were, some of them, prepared shortly before being given to the ORI.

50. The Baltimore Case • There is evidence that: • Imanishi-Kari threw out data that did not conform to her hypothesis • that the dates on the lab notebooks were wrong: they have Imanishi-Kari using equipment that was not yet in the lab, and have dates that do not conform to the radiation counter tapes fixed to her lab books. • Secret Service found that 20 percent of Imanishi-Kari's material showed evidence of being faked.