Physics 578A Some Suggested Readings Spring 2003

Professional conduct, ethics and values

Guidelines for professional conduct, American Physical Society, November 2002. http://www.aps.org/statements/02.2.html
On being a scientist: responsible conduct in research, National Academy of Sciences. 1995. http://stills.nap.edu/html/obas/
Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science at Case Western Reserve University. http://www.onlineethics.org
APS STATEMENT ON IMPROVING EDUCATION FOR PROFESSIONAL ETHICS, STANDARDS AND PRACTICES. http://www.aps.org/statements/02.4.html
Integrity in Scientific Research: Creating an Environment That Promotes Responsible Conduct, publsihed by Institute of Medicine, 2002. You can read on line at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10430.html.

Authorship and responsibility

APS Guidelines for professional conduct
Physics Today, January 2003, pp 21-22
E. Tarnow. Authorship in Physics. Science and Engineering Ethics 8, 175-190 (2000). This is on the ereserve site.
Read before you cite, M. V. Simkin and V. P. Roychowdhury, LANL preprint cond-mat/0212043. I do not find their methodology compelling.

Intellectual property

UW policy on intellectual property. http://www.washington.edu/research/guide/intellectual.html
Researcher acquitted of lab theft charge Science 297, 1463 (Aug. 30, 2002)
Postdocs get primer on how to survive abroad (this means in the USA). Science 298, 951 (Nov. 1, 2002)

Releasing or withholding information

Data Sharing: Clear-cut publication rules prove elusive. Science 295, 1625 (Mar. 1, 2002).
Medical funding group call for clamp-down on hype. Nature 419, 769 (October 24, 2002)
Rosalind Franklin and the Double Helix, by L. O. Elkin, Physics Today, March 2003, p. 42

Ethics in an industrial environment

William F. Brinkman. Integrity in industrial research. Physics Today , March 2003, pp 56-7.

Financial responsibility

General conditions for NSF grants. This covers a lot more than financial matters, including sharing of results (and the use of seat-belts).
Cut Throat Justice. This is a story from the British newspaper The Guardian, August 24, 2002, about a scientist who let his business manager run his finances, and who is now serving a prison sentence for embezzlement. This is on the ereserve site.

Professional Misconduct

UW PROCEDURAL GUIDELINES ADDRESSING ALLEGATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC AND SCHOLARLY MISCONDUCT. http://www.washington.edu/faculty/facsenate/handbook/04-09-01.html
APS STATEMENT ON POLICIES FOR HANDLING ALLEGATIONS OF RESEARCH MISCONDUCT. http://www.aps.org/statements/02.3.html
FEDERAL POLICY ON RESEARCH MISCONDUCT. http://www.aps.org/statements/federalpolicy.html
New York Times, Tuesday, October 15, 2002, pages D1 and D4. Good surveys of the Ninov and Schön cases. This is on the ereserve site. The article about Ninov is called Scientific Fakery, and the article primarily about Schön is called Taken for a Ride.
Bell Labs fires star physicist found guilty of forging data Science 298, 30-1 (Oct. 4, 2002)
Lucent Technology's report on the Schön case. http://www.lucent.com/news_events/researchreview.html
Retraction of 8 papers in Science by Schön and 8 other authors. Science 298, 961 (Nov. 1, 2002)
Nature 413, 264 - 265 (20 Sep 2001) News and Views. Comment on Schön, Kloc and Batlogg's claim of 117 K superconductivity in carbon nanotubes. This is an enthusiastic report on one of the papers in Science since withdrawn.
Donald Kennedy's view on scientific misconduct and failure of professional responsibility. Science 298, 495 (Oct. 18, 2002). There are some readers' responses to this in Science 298, 1554 (Nov. 22, 2002).
Falsified data in a grant application, D. Malakoff, Science 300, 40 (2003).
Planned misconduct surveys (by Office of Research Integrity) meet stiff resistance. Science 298, 1549 (Nov. 22, 2002).

Reflection

What ethical decisions can cost. The story of Hussain Al-Shahristani, from Science 298, 1543 (November 22, 2002).