Syllabus
PHIL 613/UNIV 604
Research Ethics
Fall 2012
Instructors: Tom Powers (Philosophy and DBI), Bill Ullman (Marine Science & Policy), and Mark Greene (Philosophy)
Meetings: Tuesday 4-6pm at DBI room 105 (unless otherwise noted)
Website: http://sepp.udel.edu/responsibility-and-integrity-science-engineering
Week 1: Scientific Method, Ethical Practice, and
Institutional Policies
Readings: “Philosophical foundations of scientific
ethics” D. Resnik
http://sepp.dbi.udel.edu/research.html
Week 2: Current UD Research Integrity Policy
Readings: “University of Delaware Policy on
Responding to Allegations of Misconduct” UD
Research Office
Week 3: Authorship and Ownership
Week 4: The Plagiarism Continuum
Readings: “Retractions’ realities” Nature 422
(editorial), March 2003; “Writer’s cramp” C. Anderson,
Nature 355, 1992
and
http://sepp.dbi.udel.edu/Authorship_Policy_Ullman.doc
Readings: “Song From Myself: An Anatomy of
Self-Plagiarism” P Scanlon, Plagiary 2(1) 1-10,
2007
and
http://sepp.dbi.udel.edu/plagiarism.ppt
Week 5: Authorship and Ownership
Week 6: Data falsification & presentation
Readings: “Déjà vu – A Study of Duplicate Citations in
Medline,” M. Errami, et al., Bioinformatics
Readings: “Cubism at the nanoscale” C. Toumey,
Nature Nanotechnology 2, 2007; N. Hanson,
Perception and Discovery: An Introduction to
Scientific Inquiry
Week 7: Data fabrication
Week 8: Conflicts of Interest
Readings: Korean Stem Cell Scandal. The Sokal Affair
http://sepp.dbi.udel.edu/research.html
and “The Sanctity of Data”
http://sepp.dbi.udel.edu/data.ppt
Readings: “What’s wrong with money in science?”
T. Stossel & D. Shaywitz, Washington Post July 2,
2006; “Disclosure in regulatory science” D.
Michaels & W. Wagner, Science 302: 5653, 2003
Week 9: Discussion with Maria Palazuelos, Director
of Research Compliance, UD
Week 10: Academic hierarchies, benefits and
risks of whistleblowing
*Room 105 Hullihen Hall
Readings: “Whistleblowing and professional
responsibility” S. Bok, NYU Education Quarterly,
reprinted in Ethical Issues in Business 1980
Week 11: Professional Ethical Codes
Week 12: Human and Experimental Subjects
Readings: “Ethics and the Welfare of the Physics
Profession” K. Kirby & F. Houle,
Physics Today, Nov. 2004.
The Hippocratic Oath, The Belmont Report
Week 13: Pedagogy Exercise: Problem-based
learning and Cases; Reflective Equilibrium
Week 14: Additional topics (supplied by
students); feedback on course and topics in
research ethics; planning for “outside class”
activity
Readings: selection from J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on
Reflective Equilibrium