by Judith Curry
Earlier today via email, I received the following list of questions on research integrity and scientific responsibility.
The source of the questions and the reasons for asking them is an interesting story in itself, that I will share with you later next week. Here are paraphrased versions on the questions, which I am throwing open for discussion at Climate Etc. Note the context for the questions is science broadly defined, although the topic of climate comes up specifically in some of the questions. I look forward to your responses to these questions; I would appreciate it if you refer to the question numbers in your response.
1. In the case of the climate models, have all the relevant raw data and code, particularly that which has been publicly funded, been placed in the public domain, in order that independent verification and replication of the models and the policy resulting from them might be made by other scientists? Should all raw data being made available be a pre-condition of publication? Should there any case for exceptions to this, beyond the protection of the privacy, confidentiality and anonymity of human subjects?
2. Is it responsible and ethical to hide research articles, based on publicly funded data, behind paywalls, as in the case of journals like Nature and Science, which are often financially prohibitive even to rich-country universities, let alone those in developing countries? What are the research ethics and scientific responsibilities of the open science movement, versus what is done behind paywalls?
3. How can we address the challenge “aggregating” uncertainty across many researchers and many disciplines: each narrow subspeciality may have different techniques and customs. How are uncertainty estimates to be reached across disciplines and how are the decisions in that regard to be reported?
4. What is the responsible use of grey literature (including blog posts) by scientists, particularly in scientific assessments?
5. What is responsible behavior of scientists in balancing the challenges of rights of free speech and political activism? How can the public and policy makers distinguish between a scientist speaking with the credibility of a subspecialist in a narrow field, and those extending that to the use of the phrase “science says” about very widely ranging matters of political economy in which they are not specialists but activists?
6. Should very large scientific operations arriving at public policy be obliged to have all their decisions about important scientific matters publicly traceable in writing in the way that every engineering decision in the building of a nuclear power station is written down and signed off and logged by two responsible officers, with all participants’ inputs being recorded? With regards to the IPCC, does the IAC recommendation go far enough?
7. How is the internet changing communicating about science? What is the way forward to conducting ethical and responsible scientific conversations in the new media, noting that it gets faster, technically better and continually changes?
8. What are the ethics and responsibility of scientists with regards to press releases and other announcements of scientific findings before peer review and before peer reviewed publication?
9. Is freedom of scientific research unduly impeded by the bureaucratic demands regarding documentation and other proof of compliance with scientific responsibility and ethical rules and funders’ requirements?