VII Ethics considerations 鄭先祐(Ayo) 國立臺南大學 環境生態研究所 Japalura@hotmail.com

Ethics considerations Planning research Proposing research Presenting research Presenting scientific credentials Final comments

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadfull. ― Samuel Johnson (1709―84) Most scientific journals have explicit requirements regarding the originality of the work submitted, the consent of all coauthors, and the adherence to regulations regarding animal and human subjects. Rule: Honesty is still the best policy.

1. Planning research Originality of ideas A large part of planning scientific research involves the pursuit of new ideas that build on preexisting knowledge. But new ideas rarely if ever emerge in total isolation. More commonly, ideas emerge from exchanges with advisors, colleagues, and peers, or from an article or talk given by someone else. It is easy to acknowledge the sources of ideas in scientific proposals and publications.

Tip: keep a dated bound scientific dairy in which you write down ideas and their sources. People differ in how sensitive they are about sharing their ideas without credit.

Collaborations Rule: a person is a collaborator if you could not pursue your study without them or a resource they provide. Collaboration usually implies coauthorship. Discuss your professional relationship with potential collaborators at the time you are planning your research.

2. Proposing research Originality (原始性) Feasibility (可行性) Other funding (其他資助) Reviewing granting: confidentiality and conflicts of interest (利益衝突) It is unethical to co-opt the ideas an applicant proposes for one’s own research or even to talk about the ideas with others.

3. Presenting research Honesty equals accuracy Coauthors Dishonest researchers attempt to finesse their sample sixes and present invalid statistical analyses. Although you may escape public scrutiny, you are still misleading yur audience and there misrepresenting your data. Coauthors The most senior of the authors, usually listed last. All authors should be given sufficient time to review and make revisions on the manuscript.

Publishing non-redundantly Manuscripts submitted for publication are expected to represent original work that has not been submitted for publication or published elsewhere. Nonetheless, there is a growing trend in many fields to maximize the number of publications by breading down research results into what is commonly known as their “least publishable units”, or the smallest unit of data that will be accepted for publication.

Unethical authors, in order to increase their bibliographies, have been known to lift whole passages, and even major sections, from their previous publications as a mechanism for avoiding the tedium of new exposition. The phenomenon is called auto-plagiarizing (自我抄襲) and is definitely something to avoid.

Another kind of plagiarizing is publishing essentially the same paper in two different languages. Another obvious form of plagiarism is translating a paper and publishing it as your own.

4. Presenting scientific credentials Most reviewers will assume that an author was careless instead of dishonest about misrepresenting results in a manuscript, but the same cannot be said for reviewers of a c.v. Discrepancies, inaccuracies, or inflated representations of one’s scientific credentials will be readily interpreted as deliberate, thus tarnishing (玷污) your reputation and raising doubts about your overall integrity a scientist.

5. Final comments The importance of honesty and integrity at all stages of the scientific process. The most valuable attribute any scientist possesses is his or her credibility. Once your reputation is lost, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to recover it.

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