Shawn Carlson on
Scientific Ethics
Forrest M. Mims III
A week doesn't pass without a revelation
of scientific fraud somewhere in the world. Consider
these very recent notices in the news:
This week's online version of Time
magazine features a story entitled, "Cloning
Controversy: Did the world's leading stem cell researcher
“fabricate” his data?" This ongoing controversy
has stirred so much debate, controversy and concern
that the journal Science has published a
special online section about it.
A clerk in the Massachusetts Department
of Education has been charged with selling fraudulent
teacher's licenses to applicants who couldn't pass the
test needed to earn their license to teach. The
applicants were charged with bribery. They included
a middle school math and science teacher and a high
school computer science teacher.
Dr. Thomas Butler, a former university
professor who was convicted of fraud after he falsely
reported missing plague bacteria from his lab, will
be released from a halfway house on 2 January 2006.
Butler had studied plague for more than 25 years, and
he is among the world's leading experts on the disease.
These are only a few recent examples
of scientific fraud. For the latest examples, see almost
any issue of Nature and Science, two
of the world's leading scientific journals. Or enter
"scientific fraud" in the google search engine.
When I tried this, google returned 97,700 hits!
So where does the amateur science community
stand on scientific fraud? Shawn Carlson is the founder
and Executive Director of the Society for Amateur Scientists.
Shawn holds a doctorate in physics, and he has strong
feelings about integrity in scientific research. So
I hope you will read the correspondence that follows.
The first e-mail is from a secondary
school student pleading for help from Shawn for a late
science project. Not only does the student want Shawn
to do all the work, the student also wants him to provide
fake data. Ordinarily these requests would seem astonishing,
but they seem almost routine in view of what is happening
in professional science. I hope you will read the student's
e-mails and Shawn's replies.
E-Mail
Asking Shawn Carlson to Provide Fake Science Data
Dear Sir
My teacher has said that Science Fair People want the
results by December 16 Friday of this week. He has asked
us to make up the results at this stage. Based on the
procedure if you can Kindly please I beg of you, If
you can please please help me set up a table of T test
results, with a null hypothesis by tommorow you would
certainly be of great help. Science Fair Management
has really demanded the resullts in Quickly now I can
make up the results, like everyone else by the time
the fair arrives I will change it. Thats my teachers
suggestion!!!! If you can Just email me a table like
this with the 4 categories, Dating Cartoons, Relationship
Cartoons, Sports CARTOONS, and Political Cartoons, I
would appreciate your help. The alpha value has to be
.001 or .01. If you can please just email me a t test
data table I would really appreciate your help. Please
also tell me the t values in the alpha of .01 and .001
for df=79. and df=76. Both. The null hypothesis is that
the mean funniness ratings for all cartoon categories
is the same. If you can just set up some kinda table
for this I would appreciate it. I know its very hard
to do but I am also going through it for the first time.
The science fair management should have kept it at Jan.
17 or sometime in Feb since the fair is actually on
March. Please PLease help me. I had also included inside
the previous emails the procedure so you can look through
it if you have to, for any necessary help. Please Please
help me. It is not my fault, if I knew about this earlier
that I Had to make it up I would have done it way before
the time.
Regards
[Name deleted; the e-mail has intentionally
not been corrected or edited. Editor.]
Shawn
Carlson's Reply
Dear [name deleted],
I can not do as you ask.
First, if I understand you correctly,
your teacher is asking you to invent data. Do I have
that right? Just invent a result and turn it in to the
science fair as if you had already done the experiment?
That goes against the fundamental ethic of science.
You never do that. Not ever. And if your teacher suggested
you do something that is so fundamentally dishonest,
then your teacher should, in my view, either re-direct
his or her moral compass, or leave the profession. Our
nation simply does not need people who teach our youth
that it is OK to take unethical shortcuts to solve life's
problems. And I certainly hope you will tell your teacher
that I said so.
I do not understand why you are so
short of time. I doubt very much that it is the fault
of the science fair competition's management. They can't
run a science fair if they change deadlines and expectations
half-way through the season. If they are indeed responsible,
then you and your instructor need to take this up with
them directly. Appeal to fair play. If the responsibility
is elsewhere, then you have to live this the result
and learn from it--next year make sure this does not
happen again. In any event, cheating is NEVER the answer.
As to the T test...If your teacher
understands the T test then your teacher is the person
to advise you here. Since your teacher can work directly
with you, your teacher can instruct you how the test
works and help you derive the numbers you need. I would
have to know more about your experimental design to
work out the details. Besides, it would be irresponsible
for me to simply hand you the answers. You need to learn
this material so you can apply it to go do great things
now and in your future life.You won't learn it if I
do the work for you.
Best of luck,
Dr. Shawn
Second
E-Mail Asking Shawn Carlson to Provide Fake Science
Data
Mr. Shawn,
The deadline meaning not the final board but only the
raw data is due tommorow. Meaning I will have to just
make up the data, But on the final board it will be
something else. Once my experiment is complete. They
aernt going to find out according to me. Anyways for
the t Test I have used df= 78 since I have 80 people
and my null hypothesis is that The mean of the ratings
of all cartoon categories is not significantly different.
[Name deleted; the e-mail has intentionally
not been corrected or edited. Editor.]
Shawn
Carlson's Second Reply
Dear [name deleted],
DO NOT BECOME A LIER AND A CHEAT!!!
It is NEVER OK, absolutely NEVER OK, to lie or cheat
in life and it is the greatest possible sin that a scientist
can commit against science. Your plan is profoundly
unethical. You are about to violate the most fundamental
ethic of the scientist. There is no going back
from this path. If you get caught, you will be branded
a liar. But to get away with it you will have
to tall lie after lie after lie, until you forget where
you put the truth.
When lying becomes easier than telling the truth, you
are truly lost.
Consider this. When your actual data doesn't look
anything like your invented data (and I promise you
it won't) what are you going to do? Continue to lie
and present a completely fabricated experiment as truth,
or face the question as to how it is that your results
are inconsistent with your original data? If you
tell the truth at that point you will be reprimanded
for your original lie. You'll be thrown out of
the contest and everyone will know that you can't be
trusted. If you continue to lie, then you will slither
that much farther down the path of deceit. You
can't walk that path very far before you will trip and
fall very publicly on your face! Our jails are
full of liars
who were certain they would never get caught.
Experienced professional scientists, folks with far
more life experienced than you have, get fired from
their jobs every year because they lied about their
data. Some loose everything they have. You
don't want to be one of them.
I'm sure this seems like a small thing to you.
But it could lead to the utter ruination of your life!
I can't make the choice for you, but know this.
If you decide to go ahead with this terrible plan, don't
ever contact me again. I won't want to know you,
and I certainly won't ever help you on this or any future
project. And don't you dare think about lying
to me. I know what you are planning, and I can
very easily verify whether you are telling me the truth
or not.
The right path is often the harder path. But walking
the right path always has rewards that are far beyond
the quick and modest gains of the wrong path.
Remember what Ben Franklin once said "If rapscallions
understood the benefits of virtuous living, they would
become virtuous men out of rapscallionism."
Truer words were never spoken.
Choose virtue!
With best hopes that you will make the right decision.
Dr. Shawn
Reactions from the Citizen
Science Community?
As Shawn wrote in a note about this
correspondence above, "We need to shine a bright
light on this problem."
Readers, what are your thoughts about
the student's letter? Shawn's reply? Scientific fraud
in general?
Send your comments to Backscatter
(place "Science Fraud" in the subject line),
and we'll share them with readers of The Citizen
Scientist. 
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