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Data ethics. Section 6.3. What is ethics?. Turn & talk. What do you know about…?. Article. Read the article independently. Choose a partner and discuss the questions below. You will have 10 minutes. Do you agree with the author’s last statement that “Everything has to matter?”
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Data ethics Section 6.3
What is ethics? • Turn & talk.
Article • Read the article independently. Choose a partner and discuss the questions below. You will have 10 minutes. • Do you agree with the author’s last statement that “Everything has to matter?” • Did the author point out things you had not thought about before? • Is ethics black and white or are there gray areas? Why do you say this?
Why does this matter? • No state standard on “ethics” for statistics. • There is more to the story than the numbers. • Sham surgeries
Let’s Move it! • #1: A promising new drug has been developed for treating cancer in humans. Researchers want to administer the drug to animal subjects to see if there are any potentially serious side effects before giving the drug to humans.
#2: Are companies discriminating against some individuals in the hiring process? To find out, researchers prepare several equivalent resumes for fictitious job applicants, with the only difference being the sex of the applicant. They send the fake resumes to the companies advertising positions and keep track of the number of males and females who are contacted for interviews.
#3: Will people try to stop someone from driving drunk? A television news program hires and actor to play a drunk driver and records the behavior of individuals who encounter the driver on hidden camera.
Basic data ethics • Institutional review board—committee that reviews all planned studies in advance to protect subjects from harm • Exempt, expedited, full review • http://orc.research.sc.edu/irb.shtml • Informed consent—subjects must agree to participate • Assent—for minors • Confidentiality—data is kept private, only summary data is made public • Anonymity—names are not known
Clinical trials • “The interests of the subject must always prevail over the interests of science and society.” • Dr. Charles Hennekens: “There is a delicate balance between when to do or not do a randomized trial. On the one hand, there must sufficient belief in the agent’s potential to justify exposing half the subjects to it. On the other hand, there must be sufficient doubt about its efficacy to justify withholding it from the other half of subjects who might be assigned to placebos.”
Behavioral & Social science experiments • Famous shock study