OVERVIEW

1
Scientific Ethics Issues and Case Studies
Lance Cooper and Celia Elliott
Each physicist is a citizen of the community of
science. Each shares responsibility for the
welfare of this community.
- Statement by the APS
http//www.aps.org/statements/02.2.html
2
Scientific progress relies on

• Truthfulness and full disclosure
• Accurate and complete record-keeping
• Free and open exchange of data and
  interpretations
• Skepticism

but honest error is inevitable
3
Everyone recognizes that deliberate dishonesty
is wrong

• Forged or fabricated data
• Falsified or invented results

Well, practicallyeveryone
J. H. Schön, et al., Ambipolar Pentacene
Field-Effect Transistors and Inverters,
Science 287, 1022 (2000).
J. H. Schön, et al., A SuperconductingField
Effect Switch, Science 288, 656(2000).
http//www.lucent.com/news_events/researchreview.h
tml
4
But, apart from obvious ethical violations such
as data fabrication, what more subtle ethics
situations might you encounter early in your
career?

• Referencing and using scholarly work
• Data selection and interpretation
• Intellectual property ownership
• Authorship
• many other topics to deal with next semester
  and throughout your career

5
Ethical considerations usually fall into four
major categories
Integrity of research results
Publication and authorship issues
Integrity of peer review
Conflicts of interest
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Plagiarism is another form of scientific
dishonesty
Submitting anothers published or unpublished
work, in whole, in part, or in paraphrase, as
ones own without properly crediting the author
by footnotes, citations, or bibliographical
reference
Submitting material obtained from an individual
or agency as ones own original work without
reference to the person or agency as the source
of the material
Submitting material that has been produced
through unacknowledged collaboration with others
as ones own original work without written
release from collaborators
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But sometimes the lines may appear hard to draw

• At first, it seems straightforward

Using another author's ideas or words without
proper documentation representing someone else's
creative work (ideas, words, images, etc.) as
one's own, whether intentional or not.
Now, lets look at a real example
M. C. Escher
8
Plagiarism Case Study
While classical melting in two-dimensional
systems is reminiscent of the phase behavior
observed as a function of pressure in this
material, an important qualification should be
made with respect to this comparison. In contrast
to the examples described above, the melting
process observed in 1T-TiSe2 is quantum
mechanical in nature, in that it is driven near T
0 K by pressure tuning the competing
interactions in this system. To understand the
nature of this competition, note first that the
zero-pressure charge density wave (CDW) state in
1T-TiSe2 is unconventional, as it arises from an
indirect Jahn-Teller interaction that splits and
lowers the unoccupied conduction band. As a
result of the electron-hole interaction between
the conduction and valence bands, the lowering of
the split conduction band repulses and
flattens the valence band, resulting in a
lowering of the systems energy, and the
formation of a small gap CDW state. From C.S.
Snow et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 136402 (2003)
9
Plagiarism Case Study
Edited
Original
The phase behavior observed as a function of
pressure in 1T-TiSe2 is similar to classical
melting in 2D materials. However, in
contrast to classical melting, the melting
process seen in 1T-TiSe2 is governed by quantum
mechanics, as it the result of tuning the
competing quantum mechanical interactions with
pressure near T 0 K. An examination of
the unconventional charge density wave (CDW) in
1T-TiSe2 state helps elucidate this
competitionthe CDW state in 1T-TiSe2 is caused
by an indirect JahnTeller interaction that
lowers the unoccupied conduction band relative to
the filled valence band. Because there is
a strong electron-hole interaction between the
conduction and valence bands in this material,
this lowering of the conduction band causes a
repulsion and flattening of the valence band,
which results in a lowering of the systems
energy and the formation of a small CDW small
gap.
While classical melting in two-dimensional
systems is reminiscent of the phase behavior
observed as a function of pressure in this
material, an important qualification should be
made with respect to this comparison. In
contrast to the examples described above, the
melting process observed in 1T-TiSe2 is quantum
mechanical in nature, in that it is driven near T
0 K by pressure tuning the competing
interactions in this system. To understand
the nature of this competition, note first that
the zero-pressure charge density wave (CDW) state
in 1T-TiSe2 is unconventional, as it arises from
an indirect Jahn-Teller interaction that splits
and lowers the unoccupied conduction band.
As a result of the electron-hole interaction
between the conduction and valence bands, the
lowering of the split conduction band
repulses and flattens the valence band,
resulting in a lowering of the systems energy,
and the formation of a small gap CDW state.
All sentences are changed and the passage is
reorganized!!
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Is this an example of plagiarism?
YES IT IS!
Although the words and ordering have been
altered, the essential meaning remains the
same Credit has not been given to the original
author of these ideas
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Tips for avoiding plagiarism

• Study the original text until you fully
  understand its meaning
• Set aside the original and write a summary of the
  text in your own words
• Check your version with the original to ensure
  that the meaning has been retained
• Enclose any text or phrase that you have borrowed
  exactly in quotation marks
• Cite the source!

12
Data fabrication is clearly wrong what about
more-subtle data selection?
In 1910, R.A. Millikan measured the charge e of
the electron in his famous oil drop experiment
and published his results in a number of papers.
In 1923, he won the Nobel Prize in physics for
this work.
In his 1913 paper, the most complete account of
his measurements of e, Millikan stated, It is
to be remarked, too, that this is not a selected
group of drops but represents all of the drops
experimented upon during 60 consecutive days.
emphasis added
Millikans own notebook appears to contradict
this statement. Of 175 observations during the
period in question, only 58 are reported in the
paper.
On the Elementary Electrical Charge and the
Avogadro Constant, Phys. Rev. 2, 109 (1913).
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Marginalia from Millikans notebooks
Good one. Keep this! Publish. Fine for
showing two methods Wont work
In science, it is generally accepted that certain
data may be rejected, but under what conditions?
Reality of the experimental method Things go
wrong equipment malfunctions people make
mistakes.
Was Millikans data selection blatantly unethical
data manipulation or the application of good
scientific intuition?
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Data may be excluded for several reasons, but
they must be sound!

• Use accepted statistical tests, but data
  exclusion must be disclosed in reported results,
  for example
• Chauvenets criterion the outlier is more than
  ts from the mean of N measurements
• Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, designed to compare
  runs against a standard data set in a
  result-independent manner
• Decide before the experiment what your criteria
  are for accepting or excluding data. Make sure
  all collaborators know and are in agreement with
  these criteria.
• Result-unbiased algorithm
• More difficult after the experiment you
  discover biases based on something you monitored
  but you did not pre-reject data. Now what?
• Ideal, and gaining popularity, cast analysis in a
  result-blind manner. Then, make cuts without
  physics implication.

J.R. Taylor, An Introduction to Error Analysis
(Mill Valley CA, University Science Books, 1982).
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Record everything!

• Make a permanent recordin a bound log book, in
  ink, as the data are being taken
• Record everything that could affect the
  measurement (temperature, humidity, ambient
  light, exhaust hood open or closed, power surges,
  diagnostic drift)
• Record data electronically if at all possible to
  minimize bias or human error
• Keep raw data intact you may have to reanalyze
  it or refer to it later

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Although possibly less reprehensible, equally
damaging are faulty bricks arising from
negligence

• Failure to follow established protocols
• Failure to provide proper oversight of students
  and colleagues
• Rush to publish
• Preconceptions and bias
• Failure to document results

Pons and Fleischmann,Cold Fusioneers
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Pressures on scientific integrity arise from a
variety of sources

• Hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions
• Publish or perish may lead to hasty work or
  SPU publishing
• Competitiveness of grant support
• Nearly 95 percent of U.S. physics research is
  paid for by federal a shrinking pie
• Professional or economic gain
• Desire to pursue hot topics
• Cold fusion
• Organic transistors

Smallest publishable unit
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Ethics in collaborations

• Must facilitate internal communication
• All authors must have access to and be aware of
  all facets of the work
• Must have a mechanism to respond to questions
  about the joint work and share information with
  other scientists
• All members of the collaboration should be fully
  apprised of the process

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Ethics associated with authorship

• Each person who contributed to the work should be
  offered authorship
• Credit should always be given for others work
• Every co-author should have an opportunity to
  examine a manuscript prior to publication
• Each author is obligated to promptly disclose
  errors and provide corrections for published work

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Ethics associated with authorship

• Some coauthors are responsible for accuracy and
  verifiability of the entire paper
• Built the apparatus, recorded the data,
  analyzed the data, supervised junior researchers,
  wrote the paper
• Coauthors who make specific, limited
  contri-butions may have only limited
  responsibility
• Fabricated the thin films that others tested
• All collaborations should have a process for
  reviewing and ensuring the accuracy and validity
  of reported results
• Anyone unwilling or unable to accept appropriate
  responsibility for a paper should not be a
  coauthor

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Ethics associated with peer review

• Reviewers must provide thorough, fair, and
  objective evaluations based on requisite
  expertise
• Information and ideas obtained through peer
  review must be kept confidential and may not be
  used for personal gain
• Reviewers are obligated to disclose conflicts of
  interest and recuse themselves from serving as
  reviewers if such conflicts would compromise
  their objectivity
• Scientists have an obligation to the community
  to serve as reviewers

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Conflicts of interest

• A variety of activities and relationships in
  science may lead to conflicts
• Financial support of research
• Adviser/student, collegial, and collaborative
  relationships
• Competitive relationships
• Any professional relationship or action that
  might lead to a conflict must be fully disclosed
• Sources of funding should be disclosed in
  publications
• Activities that lead to repeated conflicts
  should be abandoned

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Be aware of your other ethical responsibilities
as a scientist

• Represent yourself as an expert
• Only in your field of competence
• Only to the extent that your formal
  qualifications, credentials, and relevant
  experience allow
• Do not engage in work or accept any gift or
  favor that could compromise (or appear to
  compromise) your integrity or intellectual
  independence
• Publish results promptly in the public domain
  (except where commercial or privacy constraints
  apply)
• Adhere to the professional standards of your
  discipline

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Many ethics resources are available

• APS Ask the Ethicist http//www.aps.org/publica
  tions/apsnews/features/ethicist.cfm
• Online Ethics Center for Engineering and
  Sciencehttp//onlineethics.org/
• Applied Ethics Case of the Month
  Clubhttp//www.niee.org/case-of-the-month/
• Engineering Ethicshttp//repo-nt.tcc.virginia.edu
  /ethics/home.htm
• Fundamentals of Ethics for Scientists and
  Engineers, E.G. Seebauer and R.L. Barry (Oxford,
  Oxford University Press, 2000).
• On Being a Scientist Responsible Conduct in
  Research, 2nd ed., NAS Presshttp//www.nap.edu/re
  adingroom/books/obas/

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Some Case Studies