In answer to the question, “Who needs research ethics?” many of us might answer, “I don’t need it, but
that guy over there certainly does.” The situations related in Section 1 indicate that at least some “of
those guys over there” could profit from an opportunity to discuss ethical problems that arise during
their research.
The vast majority of scientists doing research have had no formal training in research ethics. If Judith
Swazey’s data are correct, students have been poorly mentored in research ethics, and faculty who were
trained by the same methods may themselves be lacking an ethics education. Conventional wisdom that
may or may not be handed down from mentor to student probably differs widely from laboratory to
laboratory. Scientists generally operate under the faulty assumption that everyone agrees about what
constitutes reasonable conduct.
During our faculty University Seminar in Research Ethics we found that nearly every issue engendered
lively debate. Nearly every point discussed became a point of contention. As an exercise at one of the
University Seminars, we had participants evaluate a series of case vignettes. Scenarios included funding,
collaboration, publication, sexual relationships between mentors and students, fabrication, and
maintaining lab notebooks. The responses made clear that there was little agreement between scientists
on some fundamental issues. There was no agreement, for example, on who should keep lab notebooks
and on how long they should be kept. There was little agreement on who should be first author on a
paper from a collaborative project. Faculty differed widely on perceived appropriateness of studentmentor
sexual relationships and on what constituted an appropriate response to reports of data
fabrication.