Instructions for Research Papers
The suggested length is 8-10 pages but shorter papers are acceptable
if they are well-written and cover the topic adequately.
For this paper, a list of at least 3 references is required and
you must put citations in the body of the paper using one of the
styles listed on the library home page (either MLA or APA).
It is quite acceptable to take a rough draft to the Writing Tutorial
Services center in Ballantine 206 (855-6738) and ask them for
suggestions.
It is quite acceptable to "ask a librarian" for help
in finding sources.
Various Types of Research Topics
I will now describe various strategies for finding a topic and
the general requirements on a paper of that type.
If you re interested in doing a paper on something that doesn
t seem to fit my typology, please talk to me about its suitability.
As you will see, the domain of possible subjects to research is
quite broad.
A.Famous Cases in Research Ethics
You could choose a famous historical episode that has generated
lots of discussion of issues in research ethics. If we have studied
the case in class you would need to go beyond our class discussions.
Here are some interesting cases:
Tuskegee syphilis study
Millikan's and Mendel's reporting of data
Approval of thalidomide in various countries
Joseph Ellis' fabricated war stories
The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy
"Newton and the Fudge Factor"
The Patchwork Mouse
The Baltimore Case
Reporting of cold fusion experiments
The discovery and debunking of "N-rays"
Victims of Memory (a case involving "recovered
memories" of child abuse
The Lysenko affair
The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead
The Apotheosis of Captain Cook
Darkness in Eldorado
Doing Research on a Case Study
The first thing to do is to try to establish the basic facts about
the alleged misconduct.
You then need to lay out exactly what the ethical issues are and
decide which one(s) you will focus on. (For example, issues about
whistle blowing may be more interesting than the original fraud.)
In real life cases there is often controversy about what exactly
happened and the ethical conclusion one draws may just depend
on what you think the facts are. But there may also be disagreements
about which values are more important.
Now you can revert to the format of earlier essays - give arguments
on both sides, etc.
B. Ethical Issues not Discussed in Class
There are many additional standard issues in research ethics:
When should research results be kept secret?
What if the people paying for the research want
to "see it" before it is published?
How much responsibility should a scientist take
for the dissemination of results in the popular media?
Are the results of some kinds of research so
likely to be misused that it is unethical even to undertake the
study in the first place?
Should scientific societies prohibit their members
from undertaking such research?
It is wrong to force prisoners to take part
in experiments. But when does rewarding them (say with release
time) become coercive?
In a similar vein, what about paying research
subjects in underdeveloped countries or homeless people sums of
money which are large by their standards?
Who owns scientific data before it is published?
The funding agency, the university, the person who did the data
collecting, the laboratory supervisor?
What issues arise in deciding who should be
included amongst the authors of a scientific paper? Should the
computer consultant s name appear?
Articles submitted for publication undergo a
process of "peer review". Should this be anonymous?
What if a referee unconsciously picks up a good idea, publishes
it and then gets the credit?
- What about the patenting
of "life forms"?
- What issues arise when the
scientists doing the research also own a company that will profit
from new discoveries coming out of that research?
- A basic traditional value
of science is open communication of results. What problems about
secrecy arise in wartime? In business?
Doing Research on a New Issue
What you will need to do first is to convince the reader that
there is an issue here for which there is not an obvious, simple
answer.
Motivate it as a real issue by giving some examples (real life
ones or made up ones) that illustrate the conflicting responses
that people might have to the dilemma.
Clarify exactly what the issue is and then deal with it as in
the essay.
C. Ethical Codes and Regulations
Many professions and disciplines have responded to the ethical
dilemmas faced by their practitioners by drawing up codes of professional
ethics.
The government, universities and funding agencies also regulate
academic research.
A possible topic for a research paper is to look at such formalizations
of ethical conduct in detail. How complete are they? How practical
are they?
Were they developed primarily to protect the profession or university
from lawsuits and outside criticism or do they appear to stem
from genuine ethical concern?
Doing Research on Codes or Regulations
In most cases in order to get enough material for your paper you
will need to do some of the following:
Trace the history of how the rules arose and
how they changed over time
Look at controversies within the profession
about the specifics of the code
Do a comparative analysis. For example, compare
codes for psychologists in different countries. Or compare what
medical researchers say about the proper treatment of human subjects
with what psychologists or anthropologists say.
Make sure your paper contains a lot of analysis and argumentation.
It shouldn't just be a catalogue of who forbids what.
D. Philosophical or Theoretical Issues
In our class discussions we have sometimes just taken as
a premise that deception is dubious (although it sometimes may
be permissible) or that harming animals unnecessarily is heinous
or that we shouldn't do use people for our research without asking
consent.
But we haven't spent as much time probing more deeply by asking
exactly why such things are counter indicated.
To do so leads us into moral philosophy and ethical theory.
So one might decide to explore the foundations of some of the
slogans we have been developing, such as the importance of informed
consent.
A Few Possible Topics
With these kinds of topics it is especially important to have
a good jumping off source. Here are a couple:
For issues about deception, see Sissela Bok s book
Lying.
For animal rights, see works by Tom Regan, especially
the article in the 2nd edition of the Encyclopedia of Ethics.
For informed consent, a useful philosophical keyword
would be autonomy.
As usual you should look for a variety of views, such as different
ways of justifying an ethical slogan.
The Role of Hoaxes in Research
We have seen that the fabrication of data is one of the biggest
ethical breaches in science.
Yet people sometimes deliberately put out fake data or
fake artifacts in order to expose the sloppy standards of other
people in the field!
The way fakes are exposed can tell us a lot about the quality
control mechanisms operating within various disciplines.
Locating Hoaxes/Frauds (sometimes the distinction
is not clear)
Donald Simanek, a retired physicist, has compiled a useful web
site:
www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/skeptic.htm#mistakes
Another useful site is:
http://whyfiles.org/084hoax/biblio.html
Hoaxes pose all sorts of ethical issues:
Is it ever legitimate to deceive your colleagues
even though you will eventually "debrief" them?
Are hoaxes an efficient way of improving standards
in a field?
Are hoaxes usually perpetrated by central figures in the field
or people on the fringe?
Laundry List of Hoaxes/Self-Deceptions
Alan Sokal (see his web site)
Kensington runestone and Kari Ellen Gade (Lexis-Nexis)
Paul Kamerer (A. Koestler, Case of the Midwife Toad)
Polywater (Wm. McKinney s Ph.D. thesis)
Piltdown Man (essay by Stephen Jay Gould)
Cases in Mismeasure of Man
Samuel George Morton
Broca and phrenology
* Sir Cyril Burt
Frauds in Science
Sir Cyril Burt represents a typical cause of fraud - the scientist
sincerely believes that data will eventually turn out to support
their hypothesis. It starts out more like "floating"
a check than forging a check, but then gets out of hand.
Museum displays offer an interesting borderline case:
Keith Parson s Drawing Out Leviathan tells about the dinosaur
with the wrong head.
Dubious Science Inspired by Religion or Ideology
The interpretation of data and the evaluation of theories is sometimes
explicitly influenced by religious or political convictions. Examples:
Islamic Science (critiqued by Pervez Hoodbhoy)
Hindu/Vedic Science (critiqued by Meera Nanda)
Creation Science (critiqued by Philip Kitcher and Michael
Ruse)
Afrocentric Science (critiqued by Bernard Ortiz de Montellano)
Multicultural Mathematics (defended by Jphn Kellermeier)
How to Focus Discussion of Such a Broad Topic
Pick a specific bone of contention.
Try to sort out exactly what values/beliefs are in conflict in
this instance.
Can people with certain sorts of religious beliefs ever be accepted
into the scientific community as it is presently constituted?
Do such people contribute anything to science? Do their alternative
suggestions orsceptical disclaimers ever help science or are they
almost always a hindrance?
Lots of Topics in Archeology
Kenniwick man (constraints on scientific research from Native
American religious/political beliefs)
Who do artifacts belong to? Should cultures with good museums,
etc. protect them for peoples at war or lacking in good facilities?
Karen D. Vitelli, ed., Archeological Ethics
Revisiting a Topic Discussed in Class
It is perfectly OK to discuss in more detail material that was
assigned for class.
However, if you do so you will be expected to go just as
far beyond the class discussion as if you were to choose an entirely
new topic.
So be sure you know of some really good new material on the subject
before deciding on going in this directions.
If you heard other students mention something that sounded interesting
you may do independent research on that same topic.
Pick something interesting!
Most Important!
Start early!
Ask for suggestions if you're stuck!
Polish your final draft!