Honestly, I didn't know ... Now, can I have more money?

I ran across this interesting and disturbing article on Slashdot.com the other day. The topic is quite disturbing, Ethical Lapses and Misconduct by scientists. The article, published by the Washington Post, runs down the most common lapses and some of the worst. The accompanying graph summarizes the categories of misconduct.

What I find interesting in the article, is how scientists rationalize their misconduct. Some state that science has become big business, others claim they need to "beef up their resume's" Regardless, this is disturbing.

What I view more disturbing is not the scientists actions, but the atmosphere in which science is performed. Yes, lately it appears to have become more business like, and less science like. Money for your next project can be dictated by how your last project went. And, with limited dollars out there, your previous projects better be darn good. (Hmm... lets just ignore these results, that way "insert drug company" will give us more money. We will report the correct results when the study is done. Honest!)

Another view of success in the science world is how many papers you publish. Some scientists have been known to take one project, break it up 2 or 3 times, for you guessed it, 2 or 3 papers. Oh, and if results need to be carried over, oh well, nobody reads all the different journals. Promotions can be based on how many times you publish. If you only did 10 projects, but managed 3 papers for each, thats 30 papers. Compare that to the honest scientist had 15 projects, but ethically published 1 paper per project. Just counting, it looks like the unethical guy gets the promotion. Poor honest schlub.

Another one that I find interesting is, "Circumventing minor rules protecting human subjects." Now, on the surface, that may seem outrageous. There need to be rules to protect people from us crazy scientists. However, there is a lot of red tape out there regarding human subjects. Most of it (the red tape), is there because a few scientists (presumably a number well under 20, but that's just a guess), in the last hundred years, have inappropiately put people in harms way, intentially. (Darn Milgram, ruining it for everyone.) As a result, other scientists, in order to preform their "safe" research, have had to break some rules. (I wonder how someone who wanted to repeat Milgram's experiment would approach the Internal Review Board. Just curious. For an explaination of his experiment, click here.)

Yes, some of the rules may be stupid, but when people start breaking the rules, the rules in general won't be respected. The, some stupid idiot scientist will break the rules and really hurt either some one or the field of study. Imagine, 10 years of research and money down the drain.