Ethics
in Science
reading
schedule
Date |
Reading |
Location |
Comments |
| M
1/27 |
Kenneth
D. Pimple, “The ten most important things to know about research
ethics” |
distributed | Click here for the PDF |
| Muriel
J. Bebeau, “Developing a Well-Reasoned Response to a Moral Problem
in Scientific Research” |
distributed | Click here for the PDF | |
| Case
Study: “The Jessica Banks Case” |
distributed | Click here for the case. | |
| W
1/29 |
On
Being a Scientist |
WWW | |
| Peter Godfrey-Smith, Merton’s norms of science | CR | ||
| The Story Collider podcast, "Cather Simpson: The Bright Light of Fame" | CR | ||
| Recommended: Fred Grinnell, "Doing Science" | CR | ||
| M 2/3 | Aristotle, “Happiness, Function, and Virtue” | CR | Focus especially on pp. 41-43. |
| Immanuel Kant, “Good Will, Duty, and the Categorical Imperative” | CR | Focus on pp. 46-51; the key concept is the categorical imperative, which Kant sees as the underpinning of all morality. | |
| John Stuart Mill, “Utilitarianism” | CR | Focus on pp. 52-55 ("What Utilitarianism Is"). | |
| Entry on “relativism” | CR | ||
| W 3/5 | Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, “The Mind of a Con Man” | CR | |
| Mieke Verfaellie and Jenna McGwin, “The Case of Diederik Stapel” | CR | ||
| M 2/10 | Chapter 2, “Professional Codes and the Duty to Do Scientific Research” ** | CR | The most controversial claims are pp.23-25 ("Research-Related Duties and the Public Good"). |
| Chapter 4, “Basic Principles: Promoting the Public Good” | CR | Be sure to notice the third principle of research ethics. | |
| W 2/12 | Philip Kitcher, “Subversive Truth and Ideals of Progress” | CR | Kitcher's argument is worked out pp. 152-166. It's pretty detailed; you may find it helpful to make a diagram or flowchart of the options he considers. |
| Khor Kok Peng, “Science and Development: Underdeveloping the Third World” | CR | ||
| Michael Dummett, excerpt from “Ought Research to be Unrestricted?” | CR | ||
| Trisha Kehaulani Watson-Sproat, “Why Native Hawaiians are fighting to protect Maunakea from a telescope” | CR | ||
| Janet D. Stemwedel, “The Thirty Meter Telescope Reveals Ethical Challenges for the Astronomy Community.” | CR | ||
| M 2/17 | Donald L. Pavia, Gary M. Lampman, and George S. Kriz, Jr., “Advance Preparation and Laboratory Records” | CR | Think about how these standard instructions might head off data management problems ... |
| Barbara Mishkin, “Urgently Needed: Policies on Access to Data by Erstwhile Collaborators” | CR | ||
| Daniel J. Kevles, "The Assault on David Baltimore" | CR | ||
| John Dingell, "The Elusive Truths of the Baltimore Case" | CR | ||
| Open Notebook Science Network, "What is Open Notebook Science?" | CR | ||
| Open Notebook Science Network, "Why Should You Keep an Open Notebook?" | CR | ||
| W 2/19 | Bruce Bower, “Objective Visions: Historians track the rise and times of scientific objectivity” | CR | |
| Helen Longino, "Values and Objectivity" ** | CR | ||
| Alison Coil, "Why Men Don't Believe the Data on Gender Bias in Science" | CR | ||
| Recommended: Helen Longino, "Gender and Racial Biases in Scientific Research" | CR | ||
| M 2/24 | National Academy of Sciences, “Methods and Values in Science” | CR | |
| Pamela J. Asquith, “Japanese Science and Western Hegemonies: Primatology and the Limits Set to Questions” ** | CR | Think about the differences between the Western and Japanese primatologists' ideas of the proper methodology, and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. | |
| Recommended: Donna Haraway, “The Bio-politics of a Multicultural Field” | CR | What cultural assumptions does Haraway think are at play in the kinds of knowledge Japanese and Western primatologists are looking for? | |
| Recommended: Vandana Shiva, “Modern science as patriarchy’s project” | CR | ||
| Recommended: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, “Making black women scientists under white empiricism: The racialization of epistemology in physics.” | CR |
|
|
| Tu 2/24- F 2/28 | Case Study 1 | CR | Click here for the case. You
should also read this
supplementary information about the case. Discuss case with your classmates on Canvas. Take Case 1 Quiz on Canvas by 11:59 pm Fri. Feb. 28. |
| M 3/2 | Susan Dominus, “When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy” |
CR | |
| Recommended: Daniel Engber, “The Trials of Amy Cuddy” |
CR | ||
| W 3/4 | Flash Forward podcast, “Bodies: This is not a test” | CR | |
| Speaking of Research, “The Animal Model” ** | CR | ||
| Speaking of Research, “Animal Welfare and the 3 Rs” ** | CR | ||
| David Grimm, “Opening the Lab Door” | CR | ||
| Janet D. Stemwedel , “Impediments to Dialogue about Animal Research” | CR | ||
| Recommended: Janet D. Stemwedel, “Impediments to Dialogue about Animal Research” | CR | ||
| M 3/9 | The Holocaust Encyclopedia, “Nazi Medical Experiments” | CR | |
| Eva Mozes-Kor, “The Mengele Twins and Human Experimentation: A Personal Account” | CR | ||
| John C. Fletcher, “A Case Study in Historical Relativism: The Tuskegee (Public Health Service) Syphilis Experiment” | CR | The discussion of (changing) core values of society in evaluation the syphilis study (pp. 287-292) is quite good, as is the discussion of how the institutional structure of NIH and PHS contributed to the ethical problems. | |
| Evelynn M. Hammonds, “Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Nurse Rivers and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study” | CR | ||
| Charles C. Mann, “Radiation: Balancing the Record” | E&S (307-316) | ||
| Recommended: Telford Taylor, "Opening Statement of the Prosecution, December 9, 1946," "Judgment and Aftermath" | CR | Especially interesting is the argument (pp. 91-92) that the Nazi experiments were not just ethically bad, but also scientifically bad. | |
| W 3/11 | The Nuremberg Code | E&S (300-301) | |
| World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, 1989 Version | E&S (302-306) | ||
| The Belmont Report | WWW | ||
| Carl Elliott, "Guinea-Pigging" ** | CR | ||
| Recommended: Wendy K. Mariner, "AIDS Research and the Nuremberg Code" | CR | ||
| M 3/16 | Case Study 2 | CR | Click here for the case. You should also read this supplementary information about the case. |
| W 3/18 | Marcia Angell, “The Ethics of Clinical Research in the Third World” | CR | |
| Harold Varmus and David Satcher, “Ethical Complexities of Conducting Research in Developing Countries” | CR | ||
| Janet D. Stemwedel, “Research with Vulnerable Populations: Considering the Bucharest Early Intervention Project” | CR | ||
| Kelly Hills and Nicholas Evans, “Paternalism, Procedure, Precedent: The Ethics of Using Unproven Therapies in an Ebola Outbreak” | CR | ||
| Recommended: E. Emanuel, “Fair Benefits for Research in Developing Countries” | |||
| M 3/23 | John Carreyrou, “A New Look Inside Theranos' Dysfunctional Corporate Culture” | CR | |
| The Dropout podcast, “The Whistleblower” | CR | ||
| John P.A. Ioannidis, “Stealth Research and Theranos: Reflections and Update 1 Year Later” | CR | ||
| CR | |||
| W 3/25 | Stephanie J. Bird and David E. Housman, “Reporting and Funding Research” | E&S (120-140) | |
| Patricia K. Woolf, “Pressure to Publish and Fraud in Research” | E&S (141-145) | ||
| International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, “Guidelines on Authorship” | E&S (146-147) | ||
| Ivan Amato, “Rustum Roy: PR Is a Better System Than Peer Review” | E&S (148-150) | ||
| Charles W. McCutchen, “Peer Review: Treacherous Servant, Disastrous Master” | E&S (151-164) | ||
| Recommended: Christine Wennerås and Agnes Wold, “Nepotism and sexism in peer-review” | CR | ||
| Recommended: Carlos Galindo-Leal, “Explicit Authorship” | CR | ||
| M 4/6 | Vandana Shiva, “The Role of Patents in History” | CR | |
| Vandana Shiva, “The Myth of Patents” | CR | ||
| Vandana Shiva, “Biopiracy” | CR | ||
| Open Notebook Science Network, "Intellectual Property and Open Notebook Science" | CR | ||
| W 4/8 | Sharon Traweek, “Kokusaika, Gaiatsu, and Bachigai: Japanese Physicists’ Strategies for Moving into the International Political Economy of Science” | CR | Within the Japanese physics community, what are the advantages and disadvantages of being bachigai? |
| Sharon Traweek, “Border Crossings: Narrative Strategies in Science Studies and among Physicists in Tsukuba Science City, Japan” ** | CR | Read pp. 446-458; skim or skip the rest. Pay special attention to the discussion of the choice of what language to present a finding in, and if what language. | |
| M 4/13 | Case Study 3 | Click here for the case. You should also read this supplementary information about the case. | |
| W 4/15 | Dana Goodyear, “The Stress Test” | CR | |
| David Cyranoski, “Stem-cell pioneer blamed media 'bashing' in suicide note” | CR | ||
| M 4/20 | Edward S. Herman, “Corporate Junk Science in the Media” | CR | |
| Mark Dowie, “What’s Wrong with the New York Times’s Science Reporting?” | CR | ||
| Matt Shipman, “Why Reporters Don't Let Scientists Review Their Stories” | CR | ||
| Recommended: Janet D. Stemwedel, “#overlyhonestmethods: Ethical implications when scientists joke with each other on public social media.” | CR | ||
| W 4/22 | Vivian Weil and Robert Arzebaecher, “Relationships in Laboratories and Research Communities” | E&S (69-90) | |
| Recommended: Steven Fuller, “How Japan Taught the West the Secret of Its Own Success” | CR | ||
| M 4/27 | Vivian Weil, “Mentoring: Some Ethical Considerations” | CR | Is mentoring a duty? Does a trainee have a right to be mentored? |
| Carl Djerassi, Cantor’s Dilemma ** | This is 227 pages long, but it's a novel. It's a reasonably quick read, but you shouldn't leave it till the night before! | ||
| W 4/29 | Francis L. Macrina, "Collaborative Research" | CR | |
| David Blumenthal, "Academic-Industrial Relationships in the Life Sciences" | CR | ||
| Annetine C. Gelijns and Samuel O. Thier, "Medical Innovation and Institutional Interdependence: Rethinking University-Industry Connections" | CR | ||
| M 5/4 | Jennifer Couzin, “Truth and Consequences” | CR | |
| W 5/6 | Donald E. Buzzelli, “The Definition of Misconduct in Science: A View from NSF” ** | E&S | |
| Wayne Leibel, “When Scientists are Wrong: Admitting Inadvertent Error in Research” | CR | ||
| Charles J. List, “Scientific Fraud: Social Deviance or Failure of Virtue? | CR | Pay special attention to List's recommendations for combatting fraud (pp. 33-34); these connect in an interesting way to Aristotle's approach to ethics. | |
| Michael J. Zigmond and Beth A. Fischer, “Beyond fabrication and plagiarism: The little murders of everyday science” | CR | ||
| Recommended: C.K. Gunsalus, “How to Blow the Whistle and Still Have a Career Afterwards" | CR | ||
| Recommended: Howard K. Schachman, “What is Misconduct in Science?” | E&S | ||
| Recommended: David Goodstein, “Scientific Fraud” | CR | ||
| Recommended: Janet D. Stemwedel, “Life after Misconduct: Promoting Rehabilitation while Minimizing Damage” | CR |
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