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A Hippocratic Oath For Scientists 366

grrlscientist writes "In response to what appears to be a growing problem of scientific misconduct, a group of people at the Institute of Medical Science at University of Toronto in Canada wrote a scientist's version of the Hippocratic oath. This oath (which is cited in the story) was recited by all graduate students in the biological sciences at the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year." This blogger argues that merely reciting an oath is not going to help much when "...the corruption in 'science' is systemic. It is due to corporate science being run according to a business model instead of in accordance to an educational paradigm. It is due to unrestrained corporate greed combined with a tremendous disparity in power and income..."
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A Hippocratic Oath For Scientists

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  • by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Monday June 23, 2008 @11:48PM (#23912631)
    seeing as how taking oaths has worked so well for doctors, lawyers and Presidents.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mrbluze ( 1034940 )

      seeing as how taking oaths has worked so well for doctors, lawyers and Presidents.
      Doctors by and large don't take oaths anymore. But actually people do take pride in certain things, such as plaques on their walls. If an oath/pledge meant the person was a member of a respectable society and was given something to hang upon the wall as a reward, then there is at least a better chance they might take such a thing more seriously.
      • by OeLeWaPpErKe ( 412765 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @05:09AM (#23914199) Homepage

        So you're saying we should replace the hippocratic oath with a pretty picture ?

        Perhaps we simply need criminal sentences for breaking any part of the hippocratic oath. There are obviously problems with that : the democrats will never agree. You cannot take the hippocratic oath and do an abortion or euthanasia, it's out of the question. So that would, by itself, criminalize (and I believe that in the original interpretation would make executing either abortion or euthanasia punishable by death by poisoning, at least that was the ancient Greek way of dealing with violations of the Hippocratic oath)

        Basically the problem is that today's scientists feel totalitarian : they feel entitled to push their view on the data. Obviously both abortion and euthanasia harm patients. You could perhaps defend stopping a treatment, ie disconnecting life-giving equipment as compliant with the hippocratic oath, but euthanasia by actively terminating someone's life does not qualify as "doing no harm".

        The problem is a lot more simple : it is simply not possible to agree on a moral standard with people who have no morals. Until we fix that "little issue", no oath, and certainly no pretty picture, will help.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by microbox ( 704317 )
          You cannot take the hippocratic oath and do an abortion or euthanasia, it's out of the question.

          Sometimes killing someone is "doing no harm", and hiding behind rigid ideas *is* harmful. Sometimes and abortion *is* the right thing to do. There is always a question - which involves engaging ones morale compass, and necessitates a cultivation of insight into who you are, and what life is.

          A follower of the hippocratic oath does not perform acts of euthanasia or abortion, and that's because the oath places
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by the phantom ( 107624 )

          A Modern Version of the Hippocratic Oath

          I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

          I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

          I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

          I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth

    • by D Ninja ( 825055 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:07AM (#23912773)

      Exactly. An oath does nothing if the person giving the oath has no morals to begin with.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @01:18AM (#23913149)

      You'd solve more problems by making MBAs take an ethics oath. It is usually these guys that are driving people to do unethical things in government, research, corporations, etc.

      • by mvdwege ( 243851 ) <mvdwege@mail.com> on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @05:54AM (#23914387) Homepage Journal

        You'd solve more problems by taking all MBAs and offer them a smoke.

        In front of a wall.

        Facing a firing squad.

        Mart
      • by knutkracker ( 1089397 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @06:20AM (#23914493)
        At the end of my Psychology degree, during our last module, they told us about studies which were generally critical of Psychology, which included the scientific integrity issue. I forget whose study it was (Williams?), but someone had gone to the trouble of contacting a large number of authors of academic papers and had asked for their original data to review it. About half had 'lost' it, and of the rest about 1/3 had made at least one significant error.

        I wondered at the time what could be done about this and whether it would help to write a small open source data-faking program, which would generate random results in line with the what the researcher wanted to find. By making it blatantly easy to massage/fake results (which was rife with the students writing their dissertations and faintly rumoured regarding certain staff), the problem would be hard to ignore as everyone would be under suspicion.

        Obviously this won't make it possible to spot essentially undetectable faked results, but it might place more pressure on scientists to make their results truly verifiable and start a (possibly panicked) discussion about how to maintain credibility, which seeems to currently be based largely on the assumption of good character.

        Or then again I may just be bitter about doing my research properly and not having taken the easy route like everyone else on the course.

        Aargh! Damn Psychology!
        [grasps head]
        Can't...
        stop...
        analysing....
        Gnnnh!
        • it's called peer review.

          If you hide the detail of your experiment, it's no good, if no one can reproduce your results, it's no good.
          If your day relies on a piece of evidence that has 'disappeared' it's called into question

          It works very well, and it's how frauds are caught.

          It's there because everyone knows there are biases, and the main think the scientific method does is weed out bias by showing it to many qualified people.

    • by special_agent ( 88338 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @02:28AM (#23913475) Homepage

      It was spoken: It is due to unrestrained corporate greed...

      There is no such thing as corporate greed. Just as there is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship of the proletariat. Rather, there are exploiters and vices which thrive in the vacuum created by weaknesses of the human soul. The belief that human greed in the world can be defeated by replacing corporations with other structures is fallacious.

    • by adisakp ( 705706 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @03:09AM (#23913687) Journal
      seeing as how taking oaths has worked so well for doctors, lawyers and Presidents.

      Hey now, the president has already taken a Hypocritic Oath or whatever that thingamaggie is called.
    • That's why they should rather spell it as such: Hypocritic Oath.
  • by Gyga ( 873992 ) on Monday June 23, 2008 @11:50PM (#23912639)
    When a doctor breaks their oath they can no longer practice medicine, what happens if a scientists breaks this oath. They can't study stuff?
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ScrewMaster ( 602015 )
      Let's face it, this is symbolic at best.
    • by wizardforce ( 1005805 ) on Monday June 23, 2008 @11:56PM (#23912677) Journal
      there are legal consequences as it is, a scientist's lab notebook is considered a legal document, fudging/lying in this case is already something that has legal consequences. I would imagine that any break of such an oath as the one mentioned in the article would at the least result in it being exceedingly difficult to publish in any journal the least bit reputable and possibly legal action.
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        there are legal consequences as it is, a scientist's lab notebook is considered a legal document,

        Not really. Just about the only time it becomes relevant is to establish patent ownership.

        fudging/lying in this case is already something that has legal consequences.

        I doubt it. Lying isn't illegal (in most cases). Lying on your government grant results is illegal in many jurisdictions. It's hard to prove the difference between fraud & error.

        I would imagine that any break of such an oath as the one mentioned

    • by Trogre ( 513942 )

      They have to give their card back.

    • by eli pabst ( 948845 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:45AM (#23912991)

      When a doctor breaks their oath they can no longer practice medicine, what happens if a scientists breaks this oath. They can't study stuff?

      Well currently you're likely to get banned from getting federal grant money and blacklisted with journals, so for all practical purposes you are totally screwed unless you have a few hundred grand lying around to fund your own work.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath [wikipedia.org]

      Although mostly of historical and traditional value, the oath is considered a rite of passage for practitioners of medicine, although it is not obligatory and no longer taken up by all physicians.

      I don't think that violating the actual oath means you can no longer practice medicine. However, there are some parts of it that may put your legal status at risk, as well as some things outside of it (like doctor-patient confidentiality).

  • by themushroom ( 197365 ) on Monday June 23, 2008 @11:52PM (#23912643) Homepage

    You will notice that the original Hipocratic oath was about serving the patient/sick, and didn't include anything about influence by outside parties. You will also notice that this oath is about influence of outside parties, and doesn't include anything about serving science.

    How times have changed.

    • by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:13AM (#23912799)
      In the old days the medics would have also understood poisons etc and they would have been prone to bribery or other influence to kill their patients (passively or actively).

      If you put your cause first (patients or science), then those external influences lose their power.

    • by drmerope ( 771119 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:36AM (#23912935)

      Personally, I was more caught by the blogger's throwaway remarks about "corporate science". The truth in my experience is that academics exaggerate to get grants and manipulate data to publish papers. For instance, a substantial fraction of chemistry research cannot be reproduced because the results shown are a fluke, and the applications of an idea are often grossly exaggerated. For instance, some scientists invented a new alloy [caltech.edu] which they suggest will revolutionize crumple-zones in cars. This alloy includes palladium, a rare-metal. Indeed so rare, if all the palladium on earth were to be used to make this new alloy, we'd get about a cubic meter of the stuff.

      You just don't get away with this sort of stuff in industry. For instance the famous Bell Labs scientist who falsified his nanotech research [wikipedia.org]. This was then discovered by a competing group at IBM. In industry, scientific fraud is hard b.c. the standards for research go beyond publishing a few page journal article.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        The whole "corporate science" rubbish... well, it has some truth to it, but the truth is a universal one--people everywhere lie for personal gain, corporations and individuals alike, whether for fame or profit.

        The finger-pointing to corporations is a political one. There's a political agenda here, one that is frighteningly enough taking hold of the entire world.

        The world is heading towards a collectivist mindset, and the idea of profit is increasingly being viewed as an evil, and of course individualism is

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by drmerope ( 771119 )

        Indeed so rare, if all the palladium on earth were to be used to make this new alloy, we'd get about a cubic meter of the stuff.
        Oops, that's off by a several orders of magnitude, but the point is correct... palladium is about $500/oz... making for some expensive crumple zones.
      • by SiriusStarr ( 1196697 ) <SumStultusSedEsQuoque.gmail@com> on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @01:47AM (#23913289)

        For instance, some scientists invented a new alloy [caltech.edu] which they suggest will revolutionize crumple-zones in cars. This alloy includes palladium, a rare-metal. Indeed so rare, if all the palladium on earth were to be used to make this new alloy, we'd get about a cubic meter of the stuff.

        What?? Global palladium production was 222 metric tons in 2006 (source [wikipedia.org]). According to the article, this alloy was light enough to float in water. Thus, its density must be less than that of water. Water has a mass of 1 metric ton per cubic meter. Thus, if the alloy were pure palladium, global production could provide for 222 cubic meters annually. I highly doubt that the alloy is pure palladium; in fact, it probably only accounts for a small percentage of the total mass. Do you have some source to cite in defense of your claim? While I agree with your point, I fail to see the reasoning behind this example...
        • I realized I had miscalculated after my post. See my reply to my own comment. You are essentially correct. However at $500/oz those would still be some expensive crumple zones.
      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Like those tobacco studies industry did in the 70s and 80s. Paragons of virtue, they are.

        I'm also sure nobody who cooks up something interesting in an industry lab has EVER suggested to their boss that it might be good for something without carefully considering every aspect of the claim. Certainly a corporation would never oversell or misrepresent a product or technique, either to the public or in an official document, like a patent application, for example.

      • Palladium isn't that rare...

        "The global production from mines was 222 metric tons in 2006 according to USGS data.[6] Most palladium is used for catalytic converters in the automobile industry."-wikipedia

  • by 4D6963 ( 933028 ) on Monday June 23, 2008 @11:54PM (#23912663)

    Where's the corruption in science besides when the government pays scientists to give them the desired bias in their research? Honest question, I just have no idea.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by edwebdev ( 1304531 )
      Companies pay "research" labs to provide favorable results all the time. They do this to defend their products and profits, to satisfy government regulatory bodies, and to be evil and immoral.
    • by FlyByPC ( 841016 )
      As a wild guess, scientists fudging results that sound good, in order to gain recognition. Remember the whole "cold fusion" thing? Perhaps they believed they really had something -- but it's also quite possible that they fudged their statistics a bit (or created outright fabrications) for publicity.

      Personally, I'd rather be an unknown but ethical scientist than release sensational results, claiming more statistical confidence than I was certain of. You sleep better at night knowing that if anyone checks u
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by edcheevy ( 1160545 )

        I wonder how many people went down the same path, realized they did NOT have cold fusion, and (ethically) didn't fudge results to make it look like they did? As with anything else, it's the bad seeds that drag everything down for the majority. And as with anything else, the protections (e.g. a silly oath) will only matter to the people who are already telling the truth.

        So in short, I agree. :p

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Where's the corruption in science besides when the government pays scientists to give them the desired bias in their research? Honest question, I just have no idea.

      When corporations use NDAs to suppress findings that threaten their business model.

      The scientists of the Big Tobacco corporations knew long ago just how toxic their products were, but they didn't publish those findings. That way the corps got to keep raking in the cash, while thousands of families lost their loved ones early to an incredibly painful and quite avoidable ailment.

      You seem to suffer from an ideological position that governments are always bad, and private enterprises are always good. Please ad

  • I would think that a professional oath for computer scientists / programmers / code monkeys (choose whichever term you prefer; I've considered myself an amateur at all three) would be helpful. Something along the lines of:

    I pledge to not release any code which I have not tested or have reason to believe is incorrect and/or incomplete, unless such code is clearly marked as "Alpha." I further pledge not to use such unreliable and untested code in any projects for public consumption, without ensuring that th
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by eggman9713 ( 714915 )
      We have one for engineering. http://order-of-the-engineer.org/oblig.htm [order-of-t...gineer.org]
      • I joined the order of the engineer. We also took a pledge at graduation that was based on the Engineer's Creed. Engineers also have state licenses which can be revoked for bad practices.

    • well, making that a requirement would certainly take microsoft out of the equasion.

      comming soon, Windows: alpha

    • by mkcmkc ( 197982 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:11AM (#23912793)

      I pledge to not release any code which I have not tested or have reason to believe is incorrect and/or incomplete, unless such code is clearly marked as "Alpha."
      I once had thoughts like these and I think it's a nice sentiment. I'm convinced now, though, that we simply don't have enough control over our profession to make this fly. We pretty much serve at the whim of businessy/non-technical types that will come in and change our requirements/procedures/schedules/standards/etc at will, and there's really little we can do short of quitting. I thank my lucky stars that I've never worked on a software project that could lead to someone's death (even indirectly, I hope).

      [I once considered a "hobo code" for programmers--obscure symbols that you could mark code or an office with that would mean things like

      • this project is doomed,
      • this project is likely to incur a loss of $100 million as it fails,
      • this project will get people killed,
      • I would be fired if I told the truth about this project,
      • I would be killed if I told the truth about this project,
      • etc.,
      as a warning to other prospective programmers. And yes--I have worked on some really awful projects.]
  • Party on (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheModelEskimo ( 968202 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:06AM (#23912763)

    I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship.

    Observation: I am not involved in "ethical research."

    Hypothesis: The rest of that sentence does not apply to me.

    Conclusion: Never been a better time to be an evil scientist. >:-)
  • by Normal_Deviate ( 807129 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:10AM (#23912787)
    IMO, a much better oath would be "I pledge to face the truth and report it bluntly." The big problem in science is not the isolated cases of harming "the community" (whatever that means) or failing to do enough for your subjects. The big problem is the temptation to get funding and publications by ignoring data that don't fit what you think the editor or government grant committee wants to see. And yes, IAAS. I know of what I speak.
    • And me without mod points.

      Well-said. Anyone who thinks theirs is the only right and true and just cause, free from the stain of human fallibility, is setting themselves up for one heck of a fall. A better oath might go "I pledge to adjust my conclusions to fit the data, not the other way around, even when my funding's on the line."

      I doubt we'll have a stampede of scientists willing to follow that oath, though.

      Good science has *always* rocked the boat, forcing us to look at our world in new ways. It's not a

  • You can't be serious (Score:5, Interesting)

    by v(*_*)vvvv ( 233078 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:16AM (#23912811)

    FYI The oath:

    I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship. I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member.
    I love how this completely contradicts the basic principles of modern economics and government: The profit motive and market competition. This would make more sense:

    "I won't let profit cloud my judgement, even though profit is the foundation of my existence."

    • by Hal_Porter ( 817932 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:50AM (#23913019)

      The worst thing about it is that quite often the profit motive is what makes people's bosses call them out on their self serving bullshit. If you look at companies where people can't be fired their bosses have much less ability to do that. And the end result is that people can talk their way out of doing anything except for their pet project which doesn't have any customers, or any users except for them and their friends. Everyone knows that it's bullshit, but because they can't be fired people know it's a bad idea to say anything.

      Much like academia, really.

      Seriosly, I'm sick of Americans/Canadians and people from capitalist countries whining on about how the profit motive corrupts things without having experienced a world where it is severly attenuated. Move to Sweden, work in a company there for a while and see how well it works.

      • Seriosly, I'm sick of Americans/Canadians and people from capitalist countries whining on about how the profit motive corrupts things without having experienced a world where it is severly attenuated. Move to Sweden, work in a company there for a while and see how well it works.
        So true. Not necessarily the targeting of certain North American countries, but still true nonetheless.
    • by topham ( 32406 )

      If you can't find the line between financial gain, competitiveness and clouding of your judgement you have a problem with ethics.

      A lot of people seem to have a problem with ethics.
      Ethics are about making the right decision, even when it hurts. It isn't about making an easy decision at a convenient time.

  • by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:20AM (#23912845)

    I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition

    >> ambition is what drives a lot of scientists. I want to do this first, not second.
    >> of course many scientists want financial gain. I want to be frikkin rich just like anyone else that works their tail end off for 20 years. Why should a scientist be uniquely sacrificial of their personal well-being. At the least, their professors and universities expect to be paid back the up to 400,000 dollar tuitions.

    cloud my judgment in the conduct of

    >>ethical: This word is very hard to define in a stable fashion. Things that were ethical only 20 years ago are now unethical. Things that were unethical 20 years ago became ethical (in part because people just kept doing them)

      research and scholarship. I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good,

    but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars

    >> Scientists have forever competed. Hmm I've discovered a new truth that will absolutely destroy an entire wing of science. I better not let that out since I don't want to do something to the detriment of those guys.

    of which I am now a member.

    ---

    Pointless and even harmful to those fools who might be tricked into following it.

    The only statement I might take out of it is..

    I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good.

    But "greater good" is still a little hard to define.
    Different societies have wildly different definitions of what constitutes the greater good (along "do we consider clan/family/individual most important" and along other lines as well.

    ---

    And not to sound like a republican, but the entire thing sound a bit communistic too- especially the part about financial gain.
    So it is couched in communistic/left leaning values to begin with.

    • I don't think the oath precludes one from pursuing financial gain. It seems to state that one would not abandon their ethics in that pursuit. There's nothing in that part that would contravene capitalism, unless you only think capitalism can survive in the most primitive, barbaric, dog-eat-dog environment.

      The rest of it is poorly worded, though, I'll grant you that. I'd be curious if they meant "detriment" to mean only "physical" detriment; eg, they wouldn't participate in the Tuskegee experiment.

  • by Fractal Dice ( 696349 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:31AM (#23912905) Journal
    Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
  • Thoughtless article. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by missing_boy ( 627271 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @12:52AM (#23913033)
    I am a scientist, and I know a lot of scientists. The majority of them are hard-working people who love what they do - they are fun, interesting, intelligent and very motivating people. I find that they have more integrity that your average joe, they are ethically concerned about what they do, and they're not in it for the mighty $ (trust me on this one). Go watch yourself in the mirror before you throw another hurtful comment out about something which you know very little. Sheesh.
  • by bornwaysouth ( 1138751 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @01:01AM (#23913073) Homepage
    The summary implies a major problem, although the term 'growing' was used.

    1. No evidence of substantive misuse exists. There is substantive proof of bias (particularly against women succeeding.) This is not scientific fraud. Just scientists being arseholes and using their power to diminish the lives of others.

    2. More reporting of fraud is likely these days. More reporters, and lots of web search engines for them to use. But consider the activity base. Back in the days when I was a scientist, there were about 1 per 1000 of the population. At a guess then, say 2 million scientists in the world right now. (The definition of one will vary, so no exact number is possible.) Even at a absurdly low rate of 1 per 1000 being crooked, that's 2000 bent scientists. Get real. Of course there are a whole bunch of them out there. So what. Do you expect them to be inhuman. Not that would be really horrible.

    3. The oath is a wishy washy load of idealistic crap. "I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship. I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member." What species do they think scientists belong to. The astonishing thing in my experience was that scientists were far more ethical than people had any right to expect. The oath allows you to be a complete bastard provided you are engaged in non-thical research and scholarship. It also expects a group driven above all by curiosity to instead be driven by the 'common good'. Well, the atomic bomb was invented for the common good. (Albeit, the common good of one side in a war, but the majority of both sides of the war agreed with having such a bias.)

    4. The oath will achieve nothing. There are already punitive measures in place. Get caught even mildly fudging you data and you cease to be a scientist. For ever. You may get a job washing glassware, but you can forget any position of authority.

    5. I do think the measures in place are inadequate. In the main, they rely on checking on how believable a submitted paper is (peer review), and then whether the science survives. The equivalent of an environmental impact report does not exist. The best you could hope for say, if someone discovered a simple way of isolating out uranium 235 for instance, would be for someone to exterminate the idiot. Do not expect the science community to do it for you. But scientists do have ethics committees, particularly governing the use of animals. They were really picky. (As I got older, I agreed with them.) It wasn't sufficient just to be treating your animals well. The requirement was that you interfere to the least extent possible. Considering science is agnostic, they were in the main, ethical.

    Excuse the rant. Science is about as safe as guns in the community. Strong opinions are not only expected, they should be expressed. But please get my key point. It is much safer having scientists being human than following 'the common good'. The common good will be defined by either a religious power group or a political one. I'd rather have scientists caring for the people around them, and being restricted in their ability to casually affect the lives of others.
  • Communist Rant (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mosb1000 ( 710161 ) <mosb1000@mac.com> on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @01:11AM (#23913119)
    What is this communist rant doing listed as news?

    The authors conclusion that corporate science should be modeled on academics to prevent corruption is patently absurd. There is plenty of corruption in academics, and it is exactly the same kind of corruption. Scientists will try to misrepresent the their data in order to gain publication, notoriety, and additional funding. This is exactly the same gamble that corporate scientists take, knowing that there is a possibility that further research will support their hypotheses, they would rather move forward than give up entirely. For the record, most corporate CEOs would probably rather have accurate data too. It's much more expensive to have a failed project than a thousand lawsuits. But no one wants to wake up one day and find out they've spent the last 5 years chasing a dead end.

    I agree that an oath won't help with the situation, but bizarre funding structures won't help wither, because the problem isn't the money, it's the nature of scientific investigation. Perhaps we should just be more diligent in the peer-review process.
  • An oath is a great idea. However, it should not be seen as a substitute for tackling with systemic causes of misconduct. Only real investment in science at the national and international level can start to do that.
  • by thermian ( 1267986 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @01:31AM (#23913213)

    What utter, utter politically correct (pc) bullshit. No really.

    Anyone who tries to adhere to an oath of this type will find themselves immediately at risk of following the pc trendies to mediocrity.

    Want to know how many of our most important scientists were unethical dicks at one time or another? Quite a few. Its just like in business, it's a rare mind that manages to reach the top of their field and leave no nastiness in their history.

    Even my hero, Feynman, worked on the atomic bomb. You can't get away from the fact that he helped kill two cities, and yet he was such a great bloke.

    Going back in history a bit, Newton was known for being a nasty piece of work at times.

    I know that lots of people will be thinking about the Nazi scientists, but if you believe for one second that an oath would have stopped them, I have one piece of information for you. Most of those scientists were medical doctors who'd taken the Hippocratic oath...

    Look, if your going to be a barstard, all an oath will do is make the pc crowd more easy to fool.

  • Priorities... (Score:2, Insightful)

    I'd put more effort in getting politicians and priests to have one.
  • surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lambent ( 234167 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @01:40AM (#23913251)

    I'm surprised i haven't seen a post about what should be so blindingly obvious ...

    A scientist's only oath need be the scientific method. If their behaviour or research can't stand up to that, then it's immediately suspect, invalid, unethical, and unscientific. Any other extraneous oath or pledge is just meaningless words, recited to make someone (who?) feel better. If a scientist won't live up to following through the scientific method, i fail to see how a silly bunch of (wow, overly-longwinded) words will make any difference.

  • The oath as presented in TFA sounds nice, but the purity of the hypothesis-theory-data relationship is really what most scientists already tacitly treat as oath-worthy. Scientists who violate this relationship (e.g. falsify data, make theories up with no basis, plagiarize, systematically fail to cite important references, etc.) are pretty much already dumped into the pariah bin, lose their jobs, their credibility, etc. A formal oath stating this is a nice idea, but I don't see it as really necessary. Th
  • by gorehog ( 534288 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @08:04AM (#23915001)

    This is horseshit. A very big pile.
    Quote from article: "I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member."

    That "never to the detriment of supervisors" has me stuck. What if you discover something that will unseat your supervisor. Sometimes science surprises you.

  • by MickLinux ( 579158 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @08:06AM (#23915013) Journal

    I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship. I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member.
    ROTFL!

    This oath itself is corrupt.
    And it is weightless.

    This kindof reminds the UN agreement on human rights, which states that no human rights need apply at all, if they conflict with the goals of the UN.

    In this case, knowledge should not be pursued if it is to the detriment of colleagues (how special they are)!

    This is a case of what G.K. Chesterton calls "professionalism" -- giving a pass in corruption to people of one's own profession, where it would never otherwise be acceptable in society.

    If anything, science is already far too professional (in the Chesterton sense). Theories that have good foundation are ignored if they aren't presented by a Ph.D. Papers that are utter nonsense or jargon are accepted to journals as academically acceptable. Nobel prizes (superconductivity, anyone?) are awarded to those who *did not* discover the science, because they happened to be on top of the local political structure at the time.

  • by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh.gmail@com> on Tuesday June 24, 2008 @09:31AM (#23915793) Journal

    1. Truth comes first.
    2. Everything else comes second.
    3. When in doubt, return to Rule 1.

    No need to talk about corporations, financial gain, competition, and all that other crap. Use these three rules and you're golden.

"I am, therefore I am." -- Akira

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