Promoting Ethical Conduct in Science
Many of you may be wondering why you are required to have training in research ethics. You may believe that you are highly ethical and know the difference between right and wrong. You would never fabricate or falsify data or plagiarize. Indeed, you also may believe that most of your colleagues are highly ethical and that there is no ethics problem in research.
If you feel this way, relax. No one is accusing you of acting unethically. Indeed, the best evidence we have shows that misconduct is a very rare occurrence in research, although there is considerable variation among various estimates. The rate of misconduct has been estimated to be as low as 0.01% of researchers per year (based on confirmed cases of misconduct in federally funded research) to as high as 1% of researchers per year (based on self-reports of misconduct on anonymous surveys). See Shamoo and Resnik (2009), cited above.
Clearly, it would be useful to have more data on this topic, but so far there is no evidence that science has become ethically corrupt. However, even if misconduct is rare, it can have a tremendous impact on research. Consider an analogy with crime: it does not take many murders or rapes in a town to erode the community's sense of trust and increase the community's fear and paranoia. The same is true with the most serious crimes in science, i.e. fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. However, most of the crimes committed in science probably are not tantamount to murder or rape, but ethically significant misdeeds that are classified by the government as 'deviations.' Moreover, there are many situations in research that pose genuine ethical dilemmas.
Will training and education in research ethics help reduce the rate of misconduct in science? It is too early to tell. The answer to this question depends, in part, on how one understands the causes of misconduct. There are two main theories about why researchers commit misconduct. According to the "bad apple" theory, most scientists are highly ethical. Only researchers who are morally corrupt, economically desperate, or psychologically disturbed commit misconduct. Moreover, only a fool would commit misconduct because science's peer review system and self-correcting mechanisms will eventually catch those who try to cheat the system. In any case, a course in research ethics will have little impact on "bad apples," one might argue. According to the "stressful" or "imperfect" environment theory, misconduct occurs because various institutional pressures, incentives, and constraints encourage people to commit misconduct, such as pressures to publish or obtain grants or contracts, career ambitions, the pursuit of profit or fame, poor supervision of students and trainees, and poor oversight of researchers. Moreover, defenders of the stressful environment theory point out that science's peer review system is far from perfect and that it is relatively easy to cheat the system. Erroneous or fraudulent research often enters the public record without being detected for years. To the extent that research environment is an important factor in misconduct, a course in research ethics is likely to help people get a better understanding of these stresses, sensitize people to ethical concerns, and improve ethical judgment and decision making.
Misconduct probably results from environmental and individual causes, i.e. when people who are morally weak, ignorant, or insensitive are placed in stressful or imperfect environments. In any case, a course in research ethics is useful in helping to prevent deviations from norms even if it does not prevent misconduct. Many of the deviations that occur in research may occur because researchers simple do not know or have never thought seriously about some of the ethical norms of research. For example, some unethical authorship practices probably reflect years of tradition in the research community that have not been questioned seriously until recently. If the director of a lab is named as an author on every paper that comes from his lab, even if he does not make a significant contribution, what could be wrong with that? That's just the way it's done, one might argue. If a drug company uses ghostwriters to write papers "authored" by its physician-employees, what's wrong about this practice? Ghost writers help write all sorts of books these days, so what's wrong with using ghostwriters in research?
Another example where there may be some ignorance or mistaken traditions is conflicts of interest in research. A researcher may think that a "normal" or "traditional" financial relationship, such as accepting stock or a consulting fee from a drug company that sponsors her research, raises no serious ethical issues. Or perhaps a university administrator sees no ethical problem in taking a large gift with strings attached from a pharmaceutical company. Maybe a physician thinks that it is perfectly appropriate to receive a $300 finder’s fee for referring patients into a clinical trial.
If "deviations" from ethical conduct occur in research as a result of ignorance or a failure to reflect critically on problematic traditions, then a course in research ethics may help reduce the rate of serious deviations by improving the researcher's understanding of ethics and by sensitizing him or her to the issues.
Finally, training in research ethics should be able to help researchers grapple with ethical dilemmas by introducing researchers to important concepts, tools, principles, and methods that can be useful in resolving these dilemmas. In fact, the issues have become so important that the NIH and NSF have mandated training in research ethics for graduate students.
ส่งเสริมจริยธรรมในวิทยาศาสตร์หลายท่านอาจจะสงสัยทำไมคุณจำเป็นต้องมีการฝึกอบรมจริยธรรมการวิจัยในการ คุณอาจเชื่อว่า คุณมีจริยธรรมสูง และทราบความแตกต่างระหว่างขวาและไม่ถูกต้อง คุณจะไม่เคยปั้น หรือปลอมแปลงข้อมูล หรือขโมยคัดลอกผลงาน แน่นอน คุณยังอาจเชื่อว่า เพื่อนร่วมงานมีจริยธรรมสูง และมีปัญหาจริยธรรมในการวิจัยถ้าคุณรู้สึกวิธีนี้ ผ่อน ไม่มีใครจะกล่าวหาคุณเพื่อ unethically แน่นอน เรามีหลักฐานดีที่สุดแสดงว่าประพฤติเกิดขึ้นยากในการวิจัย มีความผันแปรมากในการประเมินต่าง ๆ มีการประมาณการอัตราการประพฤติจะต่ำสุด 0.01% วิจัยต่อปี (ตามกรณียืนยันเกี่ยวกับการกระทำผิดในการวิจัยสนับสนุนเต็ม) จะสูงถึง 1% ของนักวิจัยต่อปี (ตามในตนเองรายงานเกี่ยวกับการกระทำผิดกับการสำรวจแบบไม่ระบุชื่อ) ดู Shamoo และ Resnik (2009), อ้างถึงข้างต้นชัดเจน มันจะมีประโยชน์เพื่อให้ข้อมูลเพิ่มเติมในหัวข้อนี้ แต่ไกลไม่ว่า วิทยาศาสตร์เสียหายอย่างมีจริยธรรม อย่างไรก็ตาม ถ้าประพฤติหายาก มันได้ผลกระทบอย่างมากในการวิจัย พิจารณาการเปรียบเทียบกับอาชญากรรม: ไม่ใช้ฆาตกรหรือ rapes จำนวนมากในเมืองการกัดกร่อนความรู้สึกของชุมชนความเชื่อถือ และเพิ่มความกลัวและทโปของชุมชน ไม่ มีสุดร้ายแรงอาชญากรรมในวิทยาศาสตร์ เช่นประดิษฐ์ falsification และโจรกรรมทางวรรณกรรม อย่างไรก็ตาม ส่วนใหญ่ของอาชญากรรมที่มุ่งมั่นในวิทยาศาสตร์อาจไม่ tantamount to ฆาตกรรม หรือการข่มขืน แต่การกระทำผิดตามหลักจริยธรรมสำคัญที่จัด โดยรัฐบาลเป็น 'เบี่ยงเบน' นอกจากนี้ มีสถานการณ์หลายงานวิจัยที่ก่อให้เกิดจริยธรรม dilemmas แท้Will training and education in research ethics help reduce the rate of misconduct in science? It is too early to tell. The answer to this question depends, in part, on how one understands the causes of misconduct. There are two main theories about why researchers commit misconduct. According to the "bad apple" theory, most scientists are highly ethical. Only researchers who are morally corrupt, economically desperate, or psychologically disturbed commit misconduct. Moreover, only a fool would commit misconduct because science's peer review system and self-correcting mechanisms will eventually catch those who try to cheat the system. In any case, a course in research ethics will have little impact on "bad apples," one might argue. According to the "stressful" or "imperfect" environment theory, misconduct occurs because various institutional pressures, incentives, and constraints encourage people to commit misconduct, such as pressures to publish or obtain grants or contracts, career ambitions, the pursuit of profit or fame, poor supervision of students and trainees, and poor oversight of researchers. Moreover, defenders of the stressful environment theory point out that science's peer review system is far from perfect and that it is relatively easy to cheat the system. Erroneous or fraudulent research often enters the public record without being detected for years. To the extent that research environment is an important factor in misconduct, a course in research ethics is likely to help people get a better understanding of these stresses, sensitize people to ethical concerns, and improve ethical judgment and decision making.Misconduct probably results from environmental and individual causes, i.e. when people who are morally weak, ignorant, or insensitive are placed in stressful or imperfect environments. In any case, a course in research ethics is useful in helping to prevent deviations from norms even if it does not prevent misconduct. Many of the deviations that occur in research may occur because researchers simple do not know or have never thought seriously about some of the ethical norms of research. For example, some unethical authorship practices probably reflect years of tradition in the research community that have not been questioned seriously until recently. If the director of a lab is named as an author on every paper that comes from his lab, even if he does not make a significant contribution, what could be wrong with that? That's just the way it's done, one might argue. If a drug company uses ghostwriters to write papers "authored" by its physician-employees, what's wrong about this practice? Ghost writers help write all sorts of books these days, so what's wrong with using ghostwriters in research?Another example where there may be some ignorance or mistaken traditions is conflicts of interest in research. A researcher may think that a "normal" or "traditional" financial relationship, such as accepting stock or a consulting fee from a drug company that sponsors her research, raises no serious ethical issues. Or perhaps a university administrator sees no ethical problem in taking a large gift with strings attached from a pharmaceutical company. Maybe a physician thinks that it is perfectly appropriate to receive a $300 finder’s fee for referring patients into a clinical trial.If "deviations" from ethical conduct occur in research as a result of ignorance or a failure to reflect critically on problematic traditions, then a course in research ethics may help reduce the rate of serious deviations by improving the researcher's understanding of ethics and by sensitizing him or her to the issues.Finally, training in research ethics should be able to help researchers grapple with ethical dilemmas by introducing researchers to important concepts, tools, principles, and methods that can be useful in resolving these dilemmas. In fact, the issues have become so important that the NIH and NSF have mandated training in research ethics for graduate students.
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..