Ethics and legislation in science

A general reflection
First submitted on 12th of January 2011, adapted and extended on 27th of September 2015
Dr. Florian Neukart

Abstract
Ethics in science has not always been an issue for the
public or even scientists conducting research. In
former times, science was considered to be value-free
and a lot of research projects were conducted without
taking ethical aspects into consideration. At least
since was shown that scientific research does not
necessarily bear only good (i.e. the Manhatten
projects atomic bomb) the public not only began to
be interested in scientific methods and how results
are achieved, but also in the purpose of doubtful
projects. Since there is no blind trust in science any
longer and the one and only belief that science only
bears good is out dated, ethics in scientific research
is, in no case, de rigueur and has moreover become
something comparable to an instrument that
scientists can and have to use wisely in questionable
situations. One might argue that the reflection on
ethics is limited to researchers like physicians or
veterinarians as their actions directly affect living
beings. On closer examination the majority of
scientists work in several fields inflicts consequences
for third parties. Despite the generally admitted
position that ethics is inseparably bound to scientific
research, the science community still exhibits some
sort of incapability in dealing with ethically
significant situations.

I.

ETHICS IN SCIENCE

Till this day precious few of the science community

hold another opinion than the one that ethics is a
discipline that has to be segregated from science and that
a scientist shouldnt have to struggle with ethical aspects
at all. Those also argue that science has the one and only
goal to discover and provide knowledge, which it
indisputably has amongst others, and that the ones
applying this knowledge have to worry about ethical
aspects. One famous cite in this context comes from
James Wyngaarden, the director of the USA National
Institutes of Health until 1989, when he was asked about
ethical concerns in genetic engineering. He answered that
"Science should not be hampered by ethical
considerations" [1]. This highly controversial statement
has not been taken by some science student, but by a
leading and famous scientist of the USA, which has
strong explanatory power in terms of how ethics and
science in research collude and how the community deals
with the issue.
Anyway and as mentioned before, the public does not
blindly trust in science any longer and has started to
challenge scientists about their research methods and the
legitimateness of research in several areas itself. As a
consequence, this leads the scientific community to a loss
of explain and, by intention or not, to ethics in scientific
research. According to Bernard E. Rollin [2] we must fall
into a distinction among social ethics, personal ethics and

professional ethics. Rollin furthermore states that

primarily scientists are tempted to assert that unlike
scientific judgments, which are objective, ethical
judgments are subjective opinion and not fact, and thus
not subject to rational discussion and adjudication [2].
Especially for scientists, who are used to verify research
results by the conduction of experiments or evaluation of
data, the difficulty that ethics is something that cannot be
derived by such methods may become an obstacle.
Additionally, the thinking and deciding about ethics in
research is nothing that is just built on personal opinion
or, as stated above, even personal ethics itself. As
scientists and non-scientists do not differ in terms of
rights, their personal values differ with a high probability.
The difficulty is to indicate nominal values that can be
applied and followed by all scientists in research, or in
other words, universally binding, ethical rules within our
society. As stated above Rollin mentions, amongst two
others, social ethics. Social ethics are the ethical rules and
guidelines that account for a society. Those ethical rules
are commonly known, followed and often - not always settled by laws. In fact, the government of a society
usually becomes more complex, when it consists of
members of initially different societies with different
ethical rules. Either way, without social ethics or laws
governing everyone's behavior in a society, such a
society cannot persist. The guidelines of social ethics
therefore are the ones to be considered at first in
scientific research. It has to be stated at this point that if a
mixed society consists of big groups with different
personal ethics, this personal values might influence the
social ethics of the whole society. An example is
homosexuality, which in former times was a highly
controversial topic in western culture and is nothing
someone has to be afraid to admit nowadays.
What is more, scientists (and all other professionals)
are not only bound to the social ethics of their society,
but also by professional ethics. Professionals have,
during their education and work, gathered special and
broad knowledge about their field of interest, which goes

far beyond the knowledge of average people. Therefore

professionals frequently have to deal with situations
casuals never have to. As the society may roughly outline
what scientists do, they cannot define ethical rules for
scientists as the understanding of the scientific matter is
not given. As a matter of fact, scientists are indeed
guided by social ethics, but the society concedes them to
set up their own professional ethics. As already indicated,
ethics in research is nothing to be solely built upon
personal values; rather it is a mixture of social and
personal ethics. Like other human activities, the scientific
research enterprise is built on a foundation of trust [3].
Hence, society dictates professionals: "Regulate
yourselves the way we would regulate you if we
understood enough about what you do to regulate you"
[2].
This special situation highlights the importance of
ethics in science, as the society relies on scientists to
responsibly define their own codes of ethics based on
laws originating social ethics and social ethics itself as
well as personal ethics. Until nowadays an important fact
is that science students do learn about how to conduct
science or how to think about ethical aspects in science
on the one hand in courses, but on the other hand from
their mentors, in a manner of speaking, experienced
researchers. For sure, personal ethics always might have
an influence on how students develop their ability to
critically challenge methods or disputable courses of
action in research, but the ability to command over a
moral or ethical conscience is something that has to be
conditioned through training.
Another point to mention is that ethics in science does
not only depend on the consequent obedience of ethical
guidelines by the researcher as there are often several
parties with different interests involved when a research
project has to be conducted. A researcher therefore also
has to possess over a superior view on the overall goals
and each part of the research project she/he is working
on.

Although it will never be possible for a group, e.g. for

scientists in a research project, to completely agree upon
an acceptable code of professional ethics, it is not
unreasonable to assume that a group can reach a
consensus regarding an acceptable code of professional
conduct [4]. Thus, science in theory follows a kind of
scientific ideology, which does not always fit to scientific
practice.
As the term ideology indicates, ethical
scientific ideology is a set of ideals to aspire, and not
always fully applicable in governing actual scientific
behavior.
Albeit it is difficult for scientists to apply rules of
ethics as these cannot be derived from experiments or
data, ethics is nothing that can be segregated from
research. The constant reflection of what is right and
what is wrong, what is accepted and what is not, what
can be done and what not to conduct research results is
something that has to be permanently questioned.
Thitherto lots of scientists advance the view that science
has to be value-free, but then complain about paper
reviewers or colleagues that have stolen intellectual
property. If science would be free of value and ethics,
also falsification of data or stealing of ideas would be
nothing worth to complain about.
In a nutshell, only when scientists permanently
question their methods and professional, personal and
also social codes of ethics and indicate upcoming
concerns, ethics in science will advance further. As one
can derive from numerous examples, the scientific
community has not always dealt with ethical issues and
public concerns in the best way. One of the best
examples is the communitys many dubious statements
about laboratory animals in the past. This, on the one
hand, resulted in an image loss of the scientific
community as a whole, but on the other hand led to strict
regulations and better care of laboratory animals and
better protection of animals by law.

II.

FROM ETHICS TO LEGISLATION

Given that scientists are ordinary human beings as

well and therefore not immune of human traits, the
legislative body cannot be put on the shelf. Although one
might argue that ethical rules or guidelines are obeyed by
the scientific community because they have been taught,
this might not always apply, so regulations by law are
inevitable. An example in this case is the Good
Laboratory Practice Act passed by the US government,
which made lots of presupposed things like data
preservation in science to law.
The reasons that led to the passage of The Good
Laboratory Practice Act, which introduced controls for
laboratories and research organizations to ensure the
consistency and reliability of results [8], were manifold.
The keeping of laboratory animals was bad, operations
on these animals were performed without administering
analgesics, data was often falsified etc. Those things
should not have happened as a matter of course, but
indeed they have. As stated above, scientists are, as all
other humans, not without weakening or failure, and one
of the reasons the act has been passed simply was
slothfulness. Nowadays the Good Laboratory Practice
does not only apply to medical research, but as well on
several other fields, such as Computer Science or
Physics. Related to computerized systems and data, i.e.,
the Good Laboratory Practice Principles define raw data
as being all original laboratory records and
documentation, including data directly entered into a
computer through an instrument interface, which are the
results of original observations and activities in a study
and which are necessary for the reconstruction and
evaluation of the report of that study [9].
Over and above, as scientists do not just live in
competition to other scientific institutions, but in some
sort also to each other, the right of intellectual property,
covered within the copyright, is a major aspect in
legislation scientists have to deal with sooner or later.
Social ethics in every culture dictates humans not to steal
property of others, which also is, at least in our culture

group, dictated by law. What holds for material property

holds for intellectual property as well and therefore it is
forbidden by law to steal ideas from others. As scientists
working on similar research projects oftentimes give
birth to similar ideas and come to similar or even the
same conclusions, who is on the burden of proof has to
be determined in such cases as well.
As a result of such situations it is clearly obvious that
although scientists often receive the best education in
how to think about ethics, regulations and restrictions by
law are inevitable. This is, on the one hand, because
personal opinions, and therefore personal ethics on
different subject matters among researchers differ, which
would, without regulations, lead to different behavior, as
well as the human blemish itself. On the other hand,
governmental regulations and restrictions are inevitable
because it is not unlikely that specialists working in same
or similar fields bear the same ideas at the same time,
which is a conflict potential.
About 2,500 years ago Plato already stated that ethics
is something that adults cannot be taught, but be
permanently reminded to think of until an ethical
conscience arises in them without saying. Additionally,
regulations by law provide strong vectors to encourage
behavior which is commonly regarded as ethically
correct.
III.

ETHICS REFLECTED IN SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES

Until these days, the reflection of ethics in articles has

not gained on importance for most of the researchers
composing publications, although public interest in how
results are achieved steadily increases. As latter-day
scientists are trained to remind ethics and to always
question their methods, one should think that ethical
concerns are something that has, as a matter of course, to
flow into scientific publications. However, researchers
often seem to fear to lose objectivity when expressing
ethical concerns as well as they might fear that the
scientific community declares their argumentation as
absurd. This is justified in their working methods, namely

the belief that everything has to be explained based on

experiments and derived from data. As a result, scientific
content reflected in articles often shows a lack of ethical
concerns and considerations. This does not necessarily
mean that scientists do not give ethical aspects emerging
during their research a second thought, but what it does
in fact mean is that ethics and science together are not
fully accepted as an inseparable couple by the scientific
community. If anything, then the buzzwords science and
ethics fall together when a researcher declares that ethics
has no business in scientific publications at all. Although
the latter-day's scientific community assuredly is
ethically concerned, the impossibility of deriving ethics
from facts and to shape a hundred-percent sharp rules is
possibly another major reason not to openly present it
along with new findings elaborated in an article.
Nevertheless and in all likelihood, the above
mentioned are assuredly not the only reasons why the
ethical aspect in scientific articles is neither paid justified
attention nor is remotely demanded in paper calls. As
science projects are, like projects in economy, very often
driven by investors funds and as project members have
to take care of keeping tight deadlines, they might not
find the time to think about the ethical consequences of
their doing. This trend has its seeds in the scientific
education of graduate students, when papers for
conferences have to be completed as quickly as possible
to keep deadlines and runs like a read thread through the
careers of skilled scientists, as the community tends to
measure quantity instead of quality of results. This
assertion does not mean that all scientists have
deactivated their ethical conscience to assure the quick
completion of their next paper is not at risk, but beyond
doubt strong pressures to be successful provide vectors
encouraging the community evolve into this direction.
Another serious issue related to ethics in publications
is the correctness of data a study is based upon. There are
several stories about scientists who were convinced of
their theories in such a way that data became irrelevant
and was therefore hypothesized or in another word,

falsified. A famous statement of a scientist being

convinced he was right (which he indeed was) was the
one of Albert Einstein, as Eddington verified relativity by
the observation of a solar eclipse. Einstein was asked
what his answer would have been if Eddington had
proved that relativity could not be verified through
practical observation: "So much the worse for the data the theory is correct" [5], was his confident answer.
Research, of course, is of no value to the researcher,
science, or society unless published. Although
professional publication reviewers are experts in the field
they provide reviews in they cannot verify if research
results have been conducted properly according to ethical
guidelines or rules. What they can verify is if the
methods, the material or the procedures to obtain a result
are appropriate [6], but not how, i.e., laboratory animals
have been treated or if the data a study is based upon is
correct or not. At least experimental results have to be
reproducible, as replication is a basic principle the
scientific ideology presumes. Anyway, some as Wade
and Broad go so far to say that "the notion of replication,
in the sense of repeating an experiment to test its validity,
is a myth, a theoretical construct dreamed up by the
philosophers and sociologists of science" [7]. An
example pretty well known is the cold fusion scandal of
1989, as Pons and Fleischmann appeared before the
public and announced that they experimentally verified
cold fusion. As this aroused the scientific community,
lots tried to repeat the described experiment, but to no
avail.
After all, although esteem and reputation of the scientific
community have already been suffering a lot through
falsification of data, stealing of intellectual property etc.
and although ethics and science should nowadays be seen
as inseparable couple and the topic is of greater interest
for the public than ever before, ethics still gets a raw deal
in scientific publications and research itself.

REFERENCES
[1]

Michigan State News (February 27, 1989); p. 8.

[2]

Rollin, Bernard E. (2006): Science and Ethics [Kindle version]; Chapter

3; Retrieved from Amazon.com

[3]

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND PUBLIC

POLICY (1995): ON BEING A SCIENTIST: RESPONSIBLE
CONDUCT IN RESEARCH, 4th ed.; Washington: National Academy
Press; p. 5

[4]

Hamner, Vincent N. (1992): Misconduct in Science: Do scientists need a

professional code of ethics?; URL: http://www.files.chem.vt.edu/chemed/ethics/vinny/ethix_4.html [2011-01-08]

[5]

Clark, Ronald W. (1994): Einstein: The Life and Times; New York:
Avon; p. 247

[6]

Rollin, Bernard E. (2006): Science and Ethics [Kindle version]; Chapter

10; Retrieved from Amazon.com

[7]

Wade, Nicholas, Broad, William. (1983): Betrayers of the Truth; New

York: Simon and Schuster; p.77

[8]

OECD: OECD Series on Principles of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP)

and Compliance Monitoring; URL:
http://www.oecd.org/document/63/0,2340,en_2649_34381_2346175_1_
1_1_37465,00.html [2011-01-12]

[9]

OECD (1995): THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF GLP

TO COMPUTERISED SYSTEMS; URL:
http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/displaydocumentpdf/?cote=ocde
/gd(95)115&doclanguage=en [2011-01-12]; p. 10

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Clark, Ronald W. (1994): Einstein: The Life and Times; New York: Avon
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND PUBLIC POLICY
(1995): ON BEING A SCIENTIST: RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT IN
RESEARCH, 4th ed.; Washington: National Academy Press
Hamner, Vincent N. (1992): Misconduct in Science: Do scientists need a
professional code of ethics?; URL: http://www.files.chem.vt.edu/chemed/ethics/vinny/ethix_4.html
Michigan State News (February 27, 1989)
OECD (1995): THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF GLP TO
COMPUTERISED SYSTEMS; URL:
http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/displaydocumentpdf/?cote=ocde/gd(9
5)115&doclanguage=en
OECD: OECD Series on Principles of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and
Compliance Monitoring; URL:
http://www.oecd.org/document/63/0,2340,en_2649_34381_2346175_1_1_1_3
7465,00.html
Rollin, Bernard E. (2006): Science and Ethics
Wade, Nicholas, Broad, William. (1983): Betrayers of the Truth; New York:
Simon and Schuster