Should you publish a paper with a potential error? DISCUSSION
Significant paper - foundation for further error
Application - incorrect assumptions
Risk - might not be an error
Further personal papers - second one to correct the first one as to not waste the first bit of research but open up the fact there may be an error
Frank Kelly FRS, University of Cambridge: “Science stands at the edge of error and the nature of the scientific endeavour at the frontiers means there is always uncertainty” - “Errors are part of the business”, Mark.
EXAMPLES: Daniel Bolnick retraction, Jan Schön scandal (Nobel Prize contender right after PhD but others found duplication/inconsistencies suggesting fabrication/falsification), Elisabeth Bik finding duplicated images (links to Schön).
Ethics & Science: process of producing science, effects of science on society, ethics considers human conduct in terms of “rightness” or “wrongness” underpinning “goodness” or “badness”.
Fabrication and falsification of data undermines scientific integrity, wastes public funds, damages public trust, derails careers of young scientists, and highlights weaknesses in peer review.
Theories:
Kanitan ethics: we have certain duties and must conform our actions to the moral law. Society determines rules that must be followed, i.e. about what you put in.
Utilitarian ethics: we must calculate the benefits and costs of proposed actions. Actions are evaluated methodically, i.e. about what comes out.
Virtue ethics: values and character. People are evaluated subjectively, i.e. the principle of what happens.
More accepted, probably because it’s more generic and informal.
Combining society, actions, and people: a somewhat accurate model of ethics.