It is worth considering how these arguments relate to
the justification of research involving human subjects.
All research involving human subjects involves costs,
ranging from the use of participants’ time to the risk
of harm, and it would be hard to justify this unless
the research was worthwhile in some way. This raises
a question about whether research ethics committees
should have a role in ensuring that research is not just
ethically sound but also scientifically sound. There is
some debate about this question, since the operating
principles for many RECs discourage them from looking
at methodology as it is felt that they are not well
constituted to make this judgement in relation to the
wide range of projects that they assess. (4
) On the other
hand, given that both of the arguments in favour of
allowing research depend on the research having some
chance of successfully reaching its objectives, it would
seem that research needs to be methodologically
sound to be ethical – especially when it involves risks
to the participants. (5
) It seems, therefore, that there is some reason for research ethics committees to ensure
that research is methodologically rigorous, but this
does not necessarily require them to review the quality
of the science themselves, as they can rely on other
methods of ensuring this, such as requiring independent
peer review reports evaluating the methodology
of the research project