Ethics
The purpose (at least my perception) of our ethics class is to teach us the professional ethics of physics, directed by Dr. Bruce Glymour of the KSU philosophy department. The REU is funded by the NSF and it would be in their interest NOT to raise up a generation of lying, cheating, data-fabricating cretin. We learned the ethics code presented by the APS (American Physical Society), the premier physics professional society. More interestingly, we learned about the philosophy behind the ethics code.
I hope I didn't forget any of the lessons...
First Lesson
The first lesson we learned about professional abuses and deontic and consequential perspectives. The two types of professional violations we talked about were falsification and fabrication. Falsification is when real measurements are changed, data is removed, there is an unlabeled interpolation, or an inference methods are misused. These types of falsification are not necessarily always falsification. Falsification is committed in dishonesty. Fabrication is simply made up data.
We also learned deontic and consequential moral perspectives. Deontics propose that there are absolute truths that should not be violated. Consequentialists propose that right actions are actions that benefit a particular end.
Second Lesson
This time, Bruce taught us about what an ethical theory is. He first gave a definition of what a scientific theory is as an example. He defined a scientifiic theory as something that can do three things. A scientific theory should be able to explain actual observations, predict events that were not observed, and events that have not happened but could happen. An ethical theory should work like a mathematical function. If the ethical theory is given an ethical situation, it should be able to consider the possible choices and judge which actions are good, bad, or neutral. Similar to a scientific theory, an ethical theory should be able to do three things. An ethical theory should be able to give explanations for past ethical situations, make explanations for ethical situations that were not observed, and make explanations for conceivable ethical explanations that could happen.
We also talked about three moral rules that have been nearly universal in human cultures. The three rules are save lives, do not kill, and be pious. What makes different moral codes is how the three rules are prioritized and when exceptions are appropriate.
Third Lesson
Bruce spoke on publication, advocacy, and science's communication with the public this lesson. Mostly what I remember involves who deserves authorship on publications and who is responsible when a publication violates ethical standards. Generally, authorship includes the people who actually wrote a paper, the people who made a significant or essential contribution, and whoever is awarded the grant that funds the research. We also discussed who is responsible for when papers have fabricated data, or some other ethical abuse. There are two main perspectives on the issue. One perspective is to simply blame everyone who is an author. The other is to blame the perpetrators and the people who were supposed to be checking the work.
Fourth Lesson
This lesson, Amy lectured on responsible advocacy. Generally, there are four stances a scientist can take regarding advocacy. The first is to simply never advocate anything. The argument here is that scientists' responsibilities and skills all lie within science. The second stance is to advocate anywhere, anytime; even in scientific publications or on topics a scientist has not studied, a scientist can advocate. The third requires scientists to only advocate as citizens and not scientists. I find this position difficult to implement and furthermore, it ignores the possibility that a scientist may have a useful insight. The fourth position is the most appealing to me. It states that scientists may advocate anywhere, as long as values and advocacy positions are obviously not science. For example, it makes sense to me that a paper on global warming could reasonably suggest some course of action. As long as things that are not science are plainly not science, it should be permissible to advocate.
We were assigned to take an advocacy stance. Here is a paper establishing and defending my advocacy position.
Fifth Lesson
Amy led a discussion about sticky situations in science. We would consider a scenario; then, we thought about what appropriate actions could be taken. For example, we considered a situation where a graduate student had a scholarship that gave them funding for two years. He was ability to join a research group. However, when he ran out of scholarship funding, his advising professor refused to fund him. The class discussed what the graduate should do as well as what might motivate the professor to not accept another student.