Module #4: Physics
Leader: Michael Paesler, NC State
Members: Andrew Hirsch, Purdue; Bruce Harmon, ISU; Tom Jackson, UH; Karen Hornsby, NC A&T; Ignacio General, grad student; and Kate Kirby, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The module will focus on ethical issues confronting physics doctoral students anticipating careers as physics teachers. Several years ago, as team member Kirby explains, “the physics community was rocked by two highly publicized cases of data fabrication: one occurred at a prestigious government laboratory—Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; the other at a respected industrial laboratory—Lucent Technologies’ Bell Laboratories. (See Physics Today, Sept. 2002, p. 15 and Nov. 2002, p. 15). In each case, the fabricated data and resultant false claims appeared in multiple-author papers that had been subjected to peer review and published in respected journals.”
This module will deal with issues of data fabrication and include an introduction to the case of Jan Hendrik Schon at Bell Labs. As Kirby writes, “a ‘research system [that] stimulates continuously the competition in fashionable subjects in search of spectacular results,’ as one survey respondent wrote. Many junior members echoed one respondent's suggestion that "there is enormous pressure to do quality work in a short period of time" that is difficult or impossible to live up to. Some physicists may not be equipped to handle the pressure if they feel that their careers are at stake. Such pressure is, of course, not unique to the sciences. Stories of illegal dealings on Wall Street, journalistic fraud, and cheating in high schools to gain advantage for admission to prestigious colleges remind us that it has emerged in many parts of our society.”
- Kate Kirby and Frances A. Houle, “Ethics and the Welfare of the Physics Profession,” Physics Today, Nov. 2004, p. 42. http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-11/p42.html
See also:
Thomsen M and Resnik D. The effectiveness of erratum in reducing error propagation in physics. Science and Engineering Ethics 1 (1995): 231-240.
Resnik D. Philosophical foundations for an ethics for science. In Thomsen M (ed. ), Proceedings from the workshop on ethical issues in physics. Ypsilanti , MI : Eastern Michigan University , 1994.