Engineering Practicum Baltimore Polytechnic Institute M. Scott.

Engineering Practicum Baltimore Polytechnic Institute M. Scott


EthicsObjectives

1.Understand ethics in science/engineering context

2.Refer to popular ethics cases in science3.Further develop academic integrity4.Think critically upon specific ethics cases.


Who was Rosalind Franklin? B

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/DNA-structure-and-bases.png


Source: BBC

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Jan Hendrik Schon• German physicist, received the Otto-Klung-Weberbank

Prize for Physics in 2001, the Braunschweig Proze in 2001, Outstanding young investigator of the Materials Research Society in 2002.

• Hired by Bell Labs in 1997• Condensed matter physics and nanotechnology• In 2001 he was listed as an author on an average of 1 research

paper every 8 days• In 2001 he announced (in Nature) that he had produced a

transistor on the molecular scale• Would have been the beginning of a move away from Si-based

electronics

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Jan Hendrik Schon

• Suspicions arose when it was noticed 2 experiments carried out at different temps had identical noise

• Schon claimed he accidently submitted the same graph twice• Same noise in a 3rd paper• Formal investigation by Bell Labs• Schon had kept no lab notebooks, raw data files had been

erased, no samples remained• Sept 25th 2002 the committee publicly released the report

which showed 24 allegations of misconduct• Schon fired that day • In 2004 the Uni. Of Konstanz revoked his PhD

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http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/167683



Peer Review• Traditionally used to determine:

– Relevance– Originality

• Now should be used to detect deliberate fraud

Should co-authors face consequences as well?

Scientific Misconduct or Professional Responsibility?

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Why do it?

• “Three Danger Factors in Scientific Misconduct”1. Career Pressure – “publish or perish”

2. Perpetrators think they know the right answer• Intent is to insert a truth without doing the

experiment properly• A violation of the scientific method, not of

scientific truth

3. In a field where reproducibility is not expected to be precise

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/11352



Being Wrong is Okay

• “Science is a marketplace of ideas”– Good ideas are proven wrong to be replaced by better

ideas– Being wrong is an essential part of progress in science– It is easy to confuse being wrong with being guilty– Scientists must not fear being accused of misconduct

when they are wrong• But misconduct is still wrong




Modern Ethics Questions

• Human and plant genetic engineering• http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html• Politics and Corporations• UPS Bailout Video –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqqTKQhBsSs

http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html




What is Ethics?


What is Ethics?

• What do you value in life?• Why is acting ethically an important value?• How do your daily decisions affect the people around

you, the people not around you, the environment?


Engineering Ethics

• http://www.nspe.org/Ethics/CodeofEthics/index.html

http://www.nspe.org/Ethics/CodeofEthics/index.html


Academic Integrity

• Class Discussion:– What are the first things that come to mind?– What is the value of a diploma?– What does it mean to be a member of a scholarly

community?


Academic Integrity• Small Group Discussion:– Top 5 list for why academic integrity matters– Why does it matter to:• Self• Peers• Professors• Schools • Alumni• Employers• Society


• In groups of 3:– Define plagiarism in your own words– Develop 10 examples of plagiarism– What’s the problem from the instructor’s / student’s /

professional’s perspective?

Academic Integrity:

What is plagiarism?


http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

Academic Integrity:

What is plagiarism?

http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html


Mark Twain – What is Man?

• Old Man: Whatsoever a man is, is due to his make, and to the influences brought to bear upon it by his heredities, his habitat, his associations. He is moved, directed, commanded, by exterior influences — solely. He originates nothing, not even a thought.

• Young Man: Oh, come! Where did I get my opinion that this which you are talking is all foolishness?



• Old Man: It is a quite natural opinion — indeed an inevitable opinion — but you did not create the materials out of which it is formed. They are odds and ends of thoughts, impressions, feelings, gathered unconsciously from a thousand books, a thousand conversations, and from streams of thought and feeling which have flowed down into your heart and brain out of the hearts and brains of centuries of ancestors.



• Old Man: Personally you did not create even the smallest microscopic fragment of the materials out of which your opinion is made; and personally you cannot claim even the slender merit of putting the borrowed materials together. That was done automatically — by your mental machinery, in strict accordance with the law of that machinery's construction. And you not only did not make that machinery yourself, but you have not even any command over it.


• Video: the most stolen song in the history of musichttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTnuGkZgaMc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTnuGkZgaMc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTnuGkZgaMc


Consider the Following1. You have borrowed a knife from a friend who, since has turned homicidal.

He wants it returned. On the one hand you have a moral obligation to return what you have borrowed. On the other hand you have a moral obligation to protect those around you. (Dilemma posed by Plato in The Republic.)

2. As medical representative for a friend who lays dying in a hospital, you are asked whether you want life support removed. Your friend could live indefinitely in a coma with support, but would die within 24 hours without it. Hospital costs are $1000/day. You know that both yourself and several other friends are named in his will.

3. An energy corporation must be responsive to its stockholders. Extracting coal using strip mining is clearly most profitable, but the terrain will be permanently compromised. Shaft mining is much less profitable, but will preserve the landscape.

4. A family is six months behind in paying its rent (husband lost job, child became critically ill). Landlord has legal right to evict.


Consider the Following

5. An engineering firm has won an award to build a bridge to specification for a set price. Due to misestimating costs, if the firm builds the bridge as specified the company will go bankrupt. However, if the firm uses inferior materials and reduces the safety factor in the bridge design, it can make a profit.

6. An automobile manufacturer discovers a significant design flaw in a new model that, under the right circumstances, could cause the car to flip at high speed. But the chances are slim. Issuing a recall would be very expensive and would probably negatively affect future sales. Ignoring the flaw and hoping that resulting accidents could be blamed by driver error would save profits and the model line.

Engineering Practicum Baltimore Polytechnic Institute M. Scott.

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