Literature and editorials in popular journals on the subject of ethics have sparked tremendous debate about the ethical behavior of our peers and some have suggested implementation of ethics courses, computational techniques to root out fraud and even oaths to promote ethical behavior amongst newly minted scientists. While, at least in the case of the “Toronto Oath” vanity may be playing a larger part than practicality, it nevertheless establishes that high level debates are transforming into action on college campuses. Before people expand on this concept of an “oath” or other silly contrite devices which appear to be ineffective (at least for lawyers in any regard), it may be worthwhile to contemplate the issue in a far more philosophical context. Firstly, we must ask ourselves if loose ethics is a new phenomenon or if it is simply a constant which is just being promulgated by blogs (of which I would take some blame) and other traditional media in a flavor-of-the-week news cycle. While the tools may not exist to establish that fact, it may be worth considering that overzealousness on behalf of some bloggers and journal editors will only create problems and exasperate the lean patients of reviewers and readers alike. Thus, it is within this context that a division of ethical behavior by magnitude of import is devised, just as a division of moral transgressions was formed by the Catholic Church. Establishment of the Seven Deadly Sins in the Catholic tradition traces its roots to the 4th century where, at some point, it became necessary to distinguish sins which were trivial (venial) from those which were grave or mortal sins. The need for a distinction between being bad and being really, really bad seems odd given that in science, as well as (presumably) matters of the soul, we all strive to be perfect and any infraction is serious. Thus, just as it wasn’t the intent of Pope Gregory I to create two types of sin, one more permissible then the other, so it isn’t my intent to suggest that there exists a permissible type of fraud. There are cases, of course, where forgiveness may come easily and cases where forgiveness may not come at all. It also helps to put many people’s mind at ease that when they read documents most people will not have committed one of these more egregious transgressions and thus we, as readers, needn’t worry about questioning the truthfulness of the data but, rather, the competence of the scientist.

First, let me propose the Seven Deadly Sins of Science:

Plagiarism: The copying of other’s work and ideas as your own with the intent to deceive. Further defined as the intellectual theft of the ideas of others, even though they have not been published and publishing them as your own idea be they lifted from a conference, grant proposal or paper which you have been given to review. Additionally, the copying of one’s own work with the intent to provide the spurious impression of an extensive publication record is an egregious sin.

Fabrication: Inventing data which does not exist or suggesting procedures and experiments were preformed when they were not

Falsification: Altering, manipulating, distorting or skewing data. Disregarding data which conflicts with other data or not reporting data which might lead other’s to reasonably believe your conclusion is incorrect

Suppression: Not reporting or publishing data which may contradict your previous findings, assertions and assumptions.

Negligence: Failing in due diligence to ensure truthful and accurate reporting from subordinates or taking data and results from others known to have insufficient qualifications, suspicious motives or are known incompetent even though their results substantiate or further your claims.

Inhumanity: Performing experiments on living subjects which are not within the scope of sound science, do not have in place rigorous controls, have not been authorized by a veterinarian when necessary. More egregiously: from patients which have not given their express consent or from human subjects which cannot be reasonably expected to provide consent because they are subordinates, minors or mentally unfit. Most egregiously: publishing, acting upon, or providing easy access to those who would wish to use results for the sole purpose and intent to kill others.

Sabotage: Purposefully destroying others’ work, providing low grant application scores without merit, rejecting papers as a reviewer for trivial reasons, in an effort to slow or impede the work of others in your field.

In each of these cases, the intent is malicious or self promoting and ultimately results in the propagation of misinformation, harm to someone else’s career so that one’s own career may be advanced or deliberate cruelty, likely out of revenge. Violation of these boundaries are considered the most severe and violating them is almost certainly done willfully. Take a rather notorious case in point: Hwang Woo-Suk, who is guilty of multiple infractions: willful misrepresentation, fabrication, falsification and using ova from female subordinates are all cardinal sins and such gross levels of fraud are rare. Who could also forget Ms. Bengu Sezen, who’s obvious falsification and fabrication of data resulted in a stunning seven retractions by the group of Dalibor Sames, who himself has been accused of being complicit in his own willful negligence by failing to dutifully follow up when other researchers were piling on evidence that her results were not reproducible.

But it is with Dr. Sames I have drawn the line. As I have argued here before, I am neither convinced nor compelled to believe that Sames’ actions were indeed cardinal ethics violations but rather, a combination of his ego, youth and well played deception on the part of Bengu Sezen. Does that let him off too easily? And if so, what are the consequences of letting someone off easily? After all, punishing someone serves one of two basic functions: to correct and prevent behavior and/or to obtain a sense of revenge. If punishing someone only serves to make ourselves feel better (and thus has no higher purpose) then it’s merely revenge and a wasted effort. If anyone thought Sames were stupid enough to make the same mistake twice, maybe a serious consideration by granting agencies and the Office of Research Integrity would be in order. Then there is Leo Paquette who, by his own account inadvertently plagiarized material from two different sources on two different occasions. Such actions being unintentional yet repeated seems unlikely to an absurd degree, yet Dr. Paquette’s contributions to the field have been tremendous and, in light of that, even committing a cardinal ethical transgression such as blatant plagiarism can be forgiven though never really forgotten. Now, had Dr. Paquette fabricated the data (something that even very senior and respected scientists have been caught doing) then forgiveness may not have come at all. Thus, even within this series of seven transgressions, there are still shades of grayness.

[to be continued...]