The Tyrannosaurus Prescription by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-05-21T07:17:00+00:00

Every once in a while (not often), scientists discover that one of their number has published false data or has plagiarized someone else's work.

This is always deeply embarrassing, especially since in these days the news usually receives wide publicity in the nonscientific world.

In some ways, however, these scandals actually reflect credit upon the world of science. Consider:

1. Scientists are, after all, human. There is enormous pressure and competition in the world of science. Promotion and status depend on how much you publish and how soon you publish, for the lion's share of credit comes if you are first with an important theory or observation. Under those circumstances, there is a lot of temptation to rush things, to make up some supporting data you are sure you will eventually find anyway, or to help yourself to someone else's work. The surprise, really, is not that it sometimes happens, but that it doesn't happen much more often. Scientists, almost unanimously, resist the pressure marvelously well.

2. When it does happen, the mere fact that it is so publicized is a tribute to scientists. If it were a common event, or if people expected scientists to be corrupt, it would make smaller headlines and drop out of sight sooner. Single cases of scientific corruption, however, will be talked about for years and inspire articles and books by the score.

3. Cases of scientific misbehavior point up the actual difficulty of carrying them through successfully, or even for very long. In fact, most cases of such misbehavior occur in the biological and medical sciences, where data and theories are less elegant than in the physical sciences. Animal behavior and tissue chemistry are simply less neatly organized than the movements of stars and atoms or the flow of energy, and something that isn't so in the former case is less easily detected. Yet a vital principle in scientific research is that nothing counts until observations can be repeated independently, and there, almost inevitably, anything peculiar is uncovered. Science is self-correcting in a way that no other field of intellectual endeavor can match.

4. It is scientists themselves who catch the frauds; no one else is equipped to do so. The point is that scientists do catch them. There is never any cover-up on the grounds that science itself must not be disgraced. However embarrassing the facts may be, the culprit is exposed pitilessly and publicly. Science is self-policing, and effectively so, in a way that no other field of intellectual endeavor can match.

5. Finally, the punishment is absolute. Anyone who proves to have broken the ethics of scientific endeavor is ruined for life. There is no second chance, no remains of status. He or she must drop out, forever disgraced.

Add to all this the fact that scientific ethics requires all scientists to labor to find flaws in their own observations and theories, and to publicize these flaws when they find them, and you will understand how stern science's requirements are. Perhaps it is not so astonishing that scandal comes so infrequently.

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