Since the whole South Korea stem-cell fiasco broke, there has been a lot of discussion about ethics in science. The discussion is certainly necessary, but it has a certain deja vu quality to it. Every few years, a high-profile case of cheating comes to light and science goes through another round of soul-searching. People complain that co-authors are asleep at the wheel and mull proposals for mandatory ethics training. They rush to the defense of peer review, pointing out that it is not intended to catch outright fraud, and remind everyone that scientists are merely human, so there will always be some bad apples. Ultimately, researchers reassure themselves and the public that science's inherent self-corrective mechanisms will reassert themselves -- that mistakes, honest and otherwise, will eventually out.
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Don't Forget About the Little Ethical Lapses
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Since the whole South Korea stem-cell fiasco broke, there has been a lot of discussion about ethics in science. The discussion is certainly necessary, but it has a certain deja vu quality to it. Every few years, a high-profile case of cheating comes to light and science goes through another round of soul-searching. People complain that co-authors are asleep at the wheel and mull proposals for mandatory ethics training. They rush to the defense of peer review, pointing out that it is not intended to catch outright fraud, and remind everyone that scientists are merely human, so there will always be some bad apples. Ultimately, researchers reassure themselves and the public that science's inherent self-corrective mechanisms will reassert themselves -- that mistakes, honest and otherwise, will eventually out.