Responsible scientific research

On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research

Maybe a copy should be given to all science graduates.

About the book...

The scientific research enterprise is built on a foundation of trust. Scientists trust that the results reported by others are valid. Society trusts that the results of research reflect an honest attempt by scientists to describe the world accurately and without bias. But this trust will endure only if the scientific community devotes itself to exemplifying and transmitting the values associated with ethical scientific conduct.

On Being a Scientist was designed to supplement the informal lessons in ethics provided by research supervisors and mentors. The book describes the ethical foundations of scientific practices and some of the personal and professional issues that researchers encounter in their work. It applies to all forms of research--whether in academic, industrial, or governmental settings-and to all scientific disciplines.

This third edition of On Being a Scientist reflects developments since the publication of the original edition in 1989 and a second edition in 1995. A continuing feature of this edition is the inclusion of a number of hypothetical scenarios offering guidance in thinking about and discussing these scenarios.

On Being a Scientist is aimed primarily at graduate students and beginning researchers, but its lessons apply to all scientists at all stages of their scientific careers.

Here is a free copy...

On Being a Scientist

Rusi Taleyarkhan will fight

I suppose if you believe you are right, then fight. Stay tuned to As The Bubble-Fusion Turns.

"Bubble-fusion scientist to appeal over misconduct charge"

by

Peter Gwynne

July 23rd, 2008

physicsworld.com

Lawyers for the "bubble-fusion" researcher Rusi Taleyarkhan have told physicsworld.com that he will appeal over the findings of a panel that last week found him guilty of two charges of scientific misconduct. Taleyarkhan, a nuclear engineer at Purdue University in the US, was charged by a six-member internal committee, which concluded that he had cited a paper by researchers in his own lab as if it were an independent confirmation of his alleged discovery of bubble fusion in 2002.The committee also found him guilty of adding the name of a student who had not contributed to that paper as an author.

The current controversy began in 2002 when Taleyarkhan, who was then working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, co-authored a paper in Science in which he reported firing a barrage of ultrasound waves into a liquid mixture of benzene and acetone (Science 295 1868). He claimed that bubbles of gas, which emit flashes of light when the sound waves force them to expand and collapse, could reach such high temperatures and pressures that during this process fusion reactions are initiated.

Several groups, however, failed to replicate the research, while two other Purdue engineers — Lefteri Tsoukalas and Tatjana Jevremovic — complained that Taleyarkhan had tried to prevent them publishing their negative results. An internal investigation last year cleared Taleyarkhan of that charge, but when critics argued that the panel had not taken their views into account, Purdue began a second investigation. Although the committee completed its work in April, Purdue did not issue the report until the Office of Naval Research, which funded Taleyarkhan’s research, had accepted it.
'Research misconduct'

The panel examined two papers, stimulated by Taleyarkhan, that reported successful replication of his original results — one from 2005 in Nuclear Engineering and Design (235 1317) and the other in a Festschrift to Taleyarkhan’s PhD supervisor Richard Lahey. Taleyarkhan’s postdoc Yiban Xu and graduate student Adam Butt were named as coauthors of the papers, even though Butt had allegedly only checked Xu’s data. "[T]he weight of the evidence shows that Dr Taleyarkhan compelled the addition of Mr Butt’s name as an author…knowing that Mr Butt had not substantively contributed…in order to create an appearance of collaboration between Dr Xu and Mr Butt," the committee concluded. "This is research misconduct."

The panel then looked at a paper from 2006 in Physical Review Letters (Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 034301), in which Taleyarkhan cited the NED paper by Xu and Butt to support his assertion that his results had been independently confirmed. However, that claim, the committee concluded, is "simply not supported by the weight of the evidence of his extensive involvement in the…research and publication. The assertion of independent confirmation…is falsification of the research record and thus is research misconduct."

Purdue gave Taleyarkhan 30 days to appeal the committee's verdict. According to his lawyer, he plans to do so. "There are a number of facts and issues that were not allowed in the inquiry, and the other nuclear engineers involved are all in complete support for Taleyarkhan," John Lewis of the Indianapolis law firm Lewis and Wilkins told physicsworld.com. "Xu maintains to this day that Butt's involvement was his choice. But that part of Xu's testimony was completely ignored."

Kenneth Suslick, a chemist at the University of Illinois and long-time critic of bubble fusion, says the report is some kind of vindication. However, he complains that "committee members were not given the charge of investigating the veracity of Taleyarkhan’s research". But Colin West, a former colleague of Taleyarkhan's at Oak Ridge, regards the investigation as a "witch hunt". He told the Lafayette Journal and Courier that the committee’s findings "have no relevance at all to whether his research is correct and his results are valid".



Rusi Taleyarkhan--falsified research?

Rusi Taleyarkhan--falsified research?

Rusi Taleyarkhan

Ah, a revival of those old TV Saturday night fights. In this corner Rusi Taleyarkhan claiming he is innocent of fraudulent scientific reports on cold fusion and in this corner the Purdue committee claiming his papers were fraudulent. Makes one wonder what happened to the solid peer review process even before the papers were published in Physical Review Letters journal.

"Purdue Panel Finds Misconduct by Fusion Scientist"

by

Malcolm Ritter

Associated Press

July 18th, 2008

The New York Times

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A Purdue University panel has found two instances of misconduct by a researcher who claims he produced nuclear fusion in tabletop experiments.

Rusi Taleyarkhan made headlines in 2002 when he published a paper in the journal Science claiming that he had produced nuclear fusion by making tiny bubbles collapse in a liquid. The new report found misconduct in subsequent papers.

The Purdue committee, which includes representatives from other schools, said that in a follow-up paper published in 2006 in Physical Review Letters, Taleyarkhan falsely claimed that his 2002 work had been confirmed independently. In fact, Taleyarkhan was extensively involved in the work he claimed was done independently of him, the committee found.

The panel also found that in a pair of 2005 papers, Taleyarkhan added another person as an author even though that researcher did not substantially contribute.

The committee did not investigate the 2002 paper itself, in which Taleyarkhan and colleagues reported signs of nuclear fusion in a small laboratory device. Scientists have long sought a simple way to produce fusion in hopes of harnessing it as an energy source.

The original paper six years ago was met with widespread skepticism. In an unusual move, Science published a companion piece from two researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee -- where Taleyarkhan worked at the time -- that said they could not reproduce the result.

Other scientists, including some at Purdue, where Taleyarkhan now works, have tried without success to independently reproduce his results.

A spokeswoman for Science said Friday that the journal ''will consider the implications'' of the new report's findings for the 2002 paper.

In a statement released Friday by his attorney, Taleyarkhan said he will take the time to review his options.

Taleyarkhan has contended that other scientists have replicated his work and has accused his critics of conflict of interest, jealousy and other motives. He filed a defamation lawsuit this year accusing two Purdue professors of trying to destroy him and his reputation.

The Purdue committee submitted its findings in April to the Office of Naval Research, which funded some of Taleyarkhan's research. Purdue said Friday the naval office accepted the report, calling it prompt, thorough and objective.

''From small beginnings there developed a tangled web of wishful thinking, scientific misjudgment, institutional lapses and human failings,'' the committee wrote. ''Each strand could have been resolved separately, but knitting them together produced a crisis.''

University policy includes a 30-day appeal process for Taleyarkhan. Purdue said it will not comment on the report's content during that period, but David J. Williams, who leads the Purdue University Senate's Faculty Affairs Committee, said the document is an unflinching look at the case.

''Issues of research integrity are of the utmost importance to the university,'' Williams said.

Any decision on sanctions by the university would come after the appeals process is over.

Gene Sprouse, editor-in-chief of the American Physical Society, which publishes Physical Review Letters, said the society would also take no action before the appeal period has expired.

Scientific bias...a real problem

An epistemological question: Is there personal bias by scientists in analyzing a set of experiments? There is a recent book review [The Evidence for the Top Quark: Objectivity and Bias in Collaborative Experimentation by, Kent W Staley] at "physicsweb" by Bill Carithers discussing the interesting search for the sixth component of the Standard Model of particle physics at Fermilab.

"I was particularly interested in Staley's examination of possible bias in the methodology and how the CDF collaboration dealt with it. When particle physicists try to find a particular set of events among the trillions of collisions that occur in an accelerator, they have to focus their search by ignoring data outside a certain range. In the case of the top quark, the CDF physicists knew that they could select their data in two different ways. Although both approaches were valid, the one they chose turned out to produce a stronger signal."--Bill Carithers

"The top quark: an unbiased tale"

Book:

The Evidence for the Top Quark: Objectivity and Bias in Collaborative Experimentation by, Kent W Staley

ISBN: 0521827108

And, in October of 2005 to cite one of many recent instances of scientists doing bad science was the dismissal of Luk Van Parijs of MIT who admitted "...to fabricating and falsifying research data in a published scientific paper and several manuscripts and grant applications."

"Five experts were asked to view results from some of these papers, which cast light on the detailed signals that prompt cells of the immune system to commit suicide. While they emphasise the need to see the underlying raw data, they say they have sufficient doubts about the authenticity of specific figures within the papers to merit an independent investigation into their authenticity."

Peer review is worthwhile and a necessary part of sound scientific methodology.

"MIT professor sacked for fabricating data"

Species "Truths"

Is there a clear distinction or some vague gray area between theology and philosophy in the postulation of "truths"...not necessarily the "universal truths" of strictly science of another topical discussion, but the epistemology of sentient beings embracing phenomena that science cannot explain: Those insights in the nature of individuals, beings as a whole, and the structure of the universe as a species relates. Is it possible that, as Stephen Weinberg states, that science is non-sympathetic when it comes to species interactions; that "truths" are nothing but the execution of science laws and it is specifically the practices of theology/philosophy to add the ethical concepts--to add the dimension of the meaning of life? Is it really that mutually separate? Can there be a bridge between the two areas of "truth"? Consider Einstein's statement: "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.'' Granted that is a focused statement regarding just one aspect of a "theology and philosophy"; that the existence of a supreme being is an integral element of "theology and philosophy"--active or not. But it does embrace something that science can neither prove or disprove. As a species that is aware of our environment and others and realizing that science is a descriptive function of the way that this species understands the universe independent of ethics do the two disciplines have equal and separate or overlapping status and a legitimate right to a comprehensive epistemology?

As an example of the sterility and lack of passionate feelings of science consider the August 25th, 1955 broadcast of Tom Goodwin's short story entitled "Cold Equations" [August 1954 issue of Astounding Science Fiction] on NBC's X Minus One science fiction radio series [episode #15] whereby the relevance of a person's life is impossible to successfully balance with the mathematics and physics of a rescue mission. Granted there is more to the story than a simple equation that satisfies the balance of weight and fuel to complete the mission such as an ethical dilemma to decide the fate of one individual against the fate of several, but the fulcrum of the decision has to do with the stowaway and what the parameters of the physics of the mission supply. Here there is no ...superscience deus ex machina to produce a happy ending.

"In space, life becomes a cold equation, and the equal sign is often followed by ... death! I know, I'm the pilot of an EDS."

"The law of gravitation was a rigid equation and it made no distinction between the fall of a leaf and the ponderous circling of a binary star system. The nuclear conversion process powered the cruisers that carried men to the stars; the same process in the form of a nova would destroy a world with equal efficiency. The laws were, and the universe moved in obedience to them. Along the frontier were arrayed all the forces of nature and sometimes they destroyed those who were fighting their way outward from Earth. The men of the frontier had long ago learned the bitter futility of cursing the forces that would destroy them, for the forces were blind and deaf; the futility of looking to the heavens for mercy, for the stars of the galaxy swung in their long, long sweep of two hundred million years, as inexorably controlled as they by the laws that knew neither hatred nor compassion.

The men of the frontier knew -- but how was girl from Earth to fully understand. H amount of fuel will not power an EDS with a mass of m plus x safely to its destination. To himself and her brother and parents she was as sweet-faced girl in her teens; to the laws of nature she was x, the unwanted factor in a cold equation."

And from "The Ascent Of Wonder: The Evolution Of Hard SF":

"Here is one of the most popular and controversial hard sf stories of the last fifty years, a story that stacks the deck and then plays with the reader's emotions with carefully juxtaposed cliches that imply a deus ex machina - then frustrates that false expectation......Godwin's story angered many readers when it appeared in the fifties, nearly all of whom wanted the problem solved by violating some scientific principle or law."

Synopsis:

A simple plot with huge implications. On a distant planet are a group of men troubled with a killer disease who will perish unless life-saving medication is delivered promptly. Back on Earth a one man crew is established supplied with the medicine and calculated fuel for delivery--right down to the last molecule. There is no room for error or excess baggage. Meanwhile, there is a young lady on Earth whose husband is one of the infected men and decides to stowaway on the space ship to see her husband. In route and near the plagued planet the pilot discovers her presence and unfortunately informers her that the science of the expedition is unshakeable and that she must be eliminated. Thus she is jettisoned into space to satisfy the "Cold Equations".

"It was not yet time to resume deceleration and he waited while the ship dropped endlessly downward with him and the drives purred softly. He saw that the white hand of the supplies closet temperature gauge was on zero. A cold equation had been balanced and he was alone on the ship. Something shapeless and ugly was hurrying ahead of him, going to Woden where its brother was waiting through the night, but the empty ship still lived for a little while with the presence of the girl who had not known about the forces that killed with neither hatred nor malice. It seemed, almost, that she still sat small and bewildered and frightened on the metal box beside him, her words echoing hauntingly clear in the void she had left behind her: "I didn't do anything to die for - I didn't do anything.""

Streaming audio of "Cold Equations"