Ethics in Science - Becoming a Food Scientist - page 99

￿ Slanting —emphasizing aspects of the data that support our conclusions while

ignoring those that do not support them

￿ Fudging —creating data points that help us make our point(s)

￿ Manufacturing —creating mythical data sets that clearly prove our hypotheses

The degree of culpability increases from massaging to manufacturing , but all
violations prevent us from adequately learning what is really happening. There
are times where we can discard data. For example, if a power failure occurs in the
middle of data collection, and the later samples are compromised, it may be
necessary to discard all the data collected in the whole session. Use of an incor-
rectly prepared reagent or batch of media would invalidate all data from tests
with that reagent or batch. Any clearly identified mistake constitutes a valid
reason for discarding data. The point is to determine what the data are telling us
NOT how to manipulate the data to tell us what we want to see. Note also that
there are statistical techniques to determine outliers (Mason et al., 2003 ) , but it is
important to follow all of the rules and to state what we did in any reporting of
the data.

Ideas

In science, we deal with ideas. Giving proper credit for an idea is part of the moral-
ity of a scientist. We shouldn't steal ideas from others. The scientific process is not
always crisp and clear. It may be difficult to trace the evolution of every idea that we
have had and to provide proper credit. It is even harder for those of us who are not
obsessive about keeping accurate records of every presentation at a meeting, article
we have read, or conversation we have had. Still, it is important that we find ways to
give proper credit for our ideas.
Sindermann ( 2001 ) also describes four ways that we can treat ideas unethically:

￿ Premature disclosure —publicizing someone else's ideas before they are prop-

erly credited

￿ Scienti fi c ectoparasitism —collecting other peoples ideas and developing then as

our own (such as stealing an idea given in confidence from someone else and
rushing out to write a grant based on that idea)

￿ Mirror writing —publishing another scientist's published ideas without proper

citation

￿ Plagiarism —direct copying of words or data from other publications without

credit

Once again the violations become more egregious as they proceed from prema-
ture disclosure to plagiarism , but the same warning holds. Any violation is a serous
breach of ethics. We have an obligation to be fair in the exchange of ideas.
Ethical concerns have resulted in several scientific disciplines including physical
chemistry. Rivalries between Arrhenius and Nernst, Nernst and Haber, as well as
Langmuir and Lewis all went back to real or perceived stealing of ideas (Coffey, 2008 ) .