Norman Edmund’s Educational Blog

The March 18, 2006 issue of New Scientist (page 7) has a news note that “journal editors and publishers are not doing enough to limit misconduct and fraud, according to a survey published by COPE, the U.K.s Committee on Public Ethics.”

It is difficult for editors to detect fraud, especially if the perpetrator is smart enough to hide it in various ways. The main solution is more education of researchers on integrity. Even then, the pressures on researchers these days are so great that more warnings to them on the consequences of fraud may be required.

Remember that the stages are the mental activity stages of the scientific method, often aided by physical activity. The stages are subject neutral. It is the supporting ingredients that are actually used at these stages to try to solve the problem.

Ingredient 12. Creative, Non-Logical, Logical, and Technical Methods. By encouraging the use of standard and miscellaneous methods, the accuracy of work at the stages is improved.

Ingredient 13. Procedural Principles and Theories. These encompass the culture, norms, and ethics of science and research. Violate some of these, and you have an integrity problem. They need to be presented in an easier to understand and learn manner. This would help researchers use self-correction to avoid integrity problems and do a better job of producing scientifically valid or based research.

Ingredient 14. Attributes and Thinking Skills. Attributes needed include the all-important one of honesty. Proper thinking will avoid self-delusion that can cause loss of integrity.

We have now been through the complete SM-14 formula. As you can see, there are many self-correction and guiding features in SM-14 that help the integrity of the research process. The scientific method is the greatest idea of all time, the idea that has resulted in tremendous benefits to humanity.

Stage 8 - Challenge the Hypothesis. This is a major self-correction feature. It requires careful research aided by testing and mathematics where possible. Not only do you accumulate evidence, but also attempt to falsify the hypothesis.

Stage 9 - Reach a Conclusion. This guides you to reach the best conclusion or solution based “on the evidence available today the balance of probability favors the view that…” No claims of arriving at the “truth” are made, because the truth is too hard (even impossible) to determine.

Stage 10 - Suspend Judgment. Cohen and Nagel (1934) describe the value of suspended judgment and the scientific method:

“The other methods discussed are all inflexible, that is, none of them can admit that it will lead us to error. Hence none of them can make provision for correcting its own results. What is called scientific method differs radically from these by encouraging and developing the utmost possible doubt, so that what is left after such doubt is always supported by the best available evidence. As new evidence or new doubts arise it is the essence of scientific method to incorporate them - to make them an integral part of the body of knowledge so far attained.”

Stage 11 - Take Action. Further self-correction is called for by submission of your research and conclusion for opinions of your peers and possible repetition of your results.

Realize the Value of Understanding the Stages. If questions of integrity arise, it is much easier to settle them by reviewing at what stages the trouble possibly occurred. Because of the self-correction features built into the method, there will be few cases of questionable integrity and few questions about the nature of scientifically valid research when the scientific method is followed.

Stage 1 - Curious Observation. Encourages a researcher to use all his or her senses and consider all angles.

Stage 2 - Is There a Problem? Presenting a question rather than a statement guides thinking in a skeptical rather than definite direction. Encourages proper definition of problems.

Stage 3 - Goals and Planning. Requires quality work rather than a careless approach.

Stage 4 - Search, Explore, and Gather the Evidence. Teaches doing a thorough job of gathering the evidence. One of the major defects in research in the social sciences has been ignoring contrary evidence.

Stage 5 - Generate Creative and Logical Alternative Solutions. Some critics of the scientific method claim that it is only a rational method. This stage illustrates the need to look for creative solutions. It makes researchers consider other solutions, not only their favorites, which may be insufficient to find a solution.

Stage 6 - Evaluate the Evidence. All tentative solutions or hypotheses are evaluated and possibly tested in relation to each other.

Stage 7 - Make the Education Guess - the Hypothesis. Following the previous stages has helped the researcher to self-correct and not present a favorite hypothesis. He or she has been guided to do high-quality research and help preserve the integrity of the research process. Statements such as “scientists follow the norms of the research community” are too vague to be of value.

Continued tomorrow.

The integrity of science is based on the method of science, for science is its method, and this constitutes the research process. It is the route to scientifically valid research.

If we understand the stages and ingredients of the scientific method and have a standard formula for them, it is much easier to teach and investigate integrity. Because the SM-14 formula has been intensively researched, I recommend it for study by an official body for adoption as a standard.

It is often mentioned that science is self-correcting. While peer review is a major contributor to such self-correction, there are many features at the stages of the scientific method and in the supporting ingredients that contribute as well.

From The Search by C.P. Snow:

“The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalise false statements made in error, we open up the way, don’t you see, for false statements by intention. And of course a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.”

The foundation that has made science so successful is the honesty of scientists in their search for truth as nearly as it can be ascertained. The pressures and difficulties of research may make some scientists fail to be honest, but their record, compared to those of other domains, is superior.

The fact that scientists are taught to follow a code of ethics helps to keep their work honest. A Gallup poll showed that 97% of people thought that honesty should be taught in schools. There has recently been a trend to teach ethics in more college courses.

It is easier to clearly define honesty by describing actions that are dishonest. Thus, many of my future pages on integrity will cover them.

References on integrity:

Honor in Science (1991). A pamphlet published by and available from Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, www.sigmaxi.org.

Responsible Science - Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process VI and VII (1992). Published by the National Academy of Sciences. Available from the National Academy Press, www.nap.edu.

A special issue of Science and Engineering Ethics - The Role of Scientific Societies in Promoting Research Integrity. Vol. 9, no. 2, 2003. Published by Opragen Publications, www.opragen.co.uk.

The integrity of the research process and the use of the scientific method are subjects of increased importance and interest. For a while, I will discuss various aspects of integrity in my daily blog.

Today we have a very competitive situation for government and foundation grants. This puts a great deal of pressure on researchers. Human nature being what it is, some researchers will be tempted to fudge things or do something that is dishonest. Thus it is important that we have a code of ethics and integrity that is well understood and taught.

Complex research is a very inefficient endeavor. Everything is not black and white. Searching, exploring, and creative work are difficult. There will always be honest errors and differences of opinion, so what is ethical may often be hard to determine. The natural science community has been in the front rank in promoting an honor system in research. The social sciences - if they are to be truly sciences - must follow their leadership in promoting integrity in their domains.

Our first subject will be honesty, as it is the foundation of integrity.

An article with this title appeared the January 8, 1956 issue of This Week The Sunday Magazine, a publication included in newspapers. It impressed me so much I had the page framed and hung it on my office wall in Barrington, N.J. I still have it on the wall of my Fort Lauderdale office. An editor found it posted in a print shop. It says:

If your own performance of a job looks perfect to you, it isn’t because you’ve done a perfect job. It’s only because you have imperfect standards!

The article states that “the greatest trait a man can have is a total inability to be completely satisfied with his own handiwork. The feeling of having done a job well is rewarding: the feeling of having done it perfectly is fatal.”

This all ties into the scientific method - to be dissatisfied you must be curious and skeptical. Stage 1 of the scientific method - curious observation - is what leads to what is wrong, what can be done differently, what could be better, and what change can be made. So be both dissatisfied and curious.

The March 2006 issue of TD (Training and Development Magazine) has an article by Tom Peters. I like his statement:

There’s a Darwinian-sounding quote I like. It says something like, “It’s not the most intelligent that survive. It’s not the biggest that survive. It’s those that are most able to adapt and change.

I’m worried about our intellectual community and America. The misunderstandings about the scientific method have resulted in great harms to America. Since 1992 I have been urging the correction of these misunderstandings. To correct them is going to take a lot of adaptation and change. But our leaders don’t want the trouble this will cause. So they ignore my pleas to at least study the blunder I describe. They and America will survive, but it is sure going to hurt America’s competitiveness and eventually our standard of living if the blunder is not corrected soon.

Integrity requires adherence to a code of moral, accurate, and honest values and method. The integrity of knowledge presented to the public requires that it must be true as near as truthfulness can be obtained. That is, “on the evidence available today the balance of probability favours the view that. . . ” (V. Gordon Childe, 1936)

Over the centuries many methods of seeking reliable knowledge have been tried, and the best one found has been the scientific method. As the scientific method was recognized and developed, scientists were required to follow an honest and ethical code of conduct to ensure the integrity of the research process.

Thus, incorporated into the scientific method are various mental activity stages with self-correction features. Supporting ingredients for the work at these stages include procedural principles and theories, including a code of ethics to further ensure the integrity of the research process. A part of this code is presented in Responsible Science - Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy Press, 1992).

For a description of the self-correction features of the scientific method, see Chapter 5 (page 33) of End the Biggest Educational and Intellectual Blunder in History.