[roenxi]

> If you’re willing to cut ethical corners in one dimension there’s no reason to believe you won’t in other dimensions.

There is reason to believe. People have different ethical standards and some standards are more conducive to getting honest useful results. In this case I think free and informed consent is important. But the ethical framework our medical system works to is counterproductive and destructive; so there is reason to believe that the ethical option is to ignore the official rules on ethics under some circumstances. I personally am of the opinion that the single biggest threat to my health and wellbeing is the West's culture of forcing everyone to conform to the highest possible safety standard and paying no attention to the cost-benefit of that. As I measure it, our absurd standards appear to be crippling (with respect to some hypothetical entity that had more reasonable standards) the west's:

* Manufacturing capabilties.

* Energy security.

* Medical research.

So while someone with different ethical standards might also cut corners on the quality of the reporting I find it extremely easy to believe that someone with different standards might just produce better research. We don't all have the same ethical frame.

[fnordpiglet]

The issue is less related to morality, which I think is what you are referring to, and more following the ethical guidelines and standards for a journal. The former is relative, and the latter is definite and concrete. It’s related to “following the rules,” less about “conceiving of right and wrong as I do.”

That’s where the interrelation with following standards regarding honesty, transparency, etc. You can fall afoul of these out of inability to follow the rules rather than duplicity - there are standards for record keeping, statistical rigor, etc, which are prescriptive and fairly inconvenient. If you can’t follow the ethics rules because you find them inconvenient per your cost benefit analysis, what about rigorous record keeping? Not ignoring inconvenient outliers? What calculus do you use that lets you choose which inconvenient rule you won’t follow? As someone who doesn’t know your standards, how do I trust you’re making well informed decisions that don’t skew results in your favor in your convenience calculus?

A simpler way is hold a standard and rules and when you vary you assume variance exists everywhere.

This is science, not business. Science isn’t just about discovering results, it’s about conveying your results in a rigorous and believable way following high standards that build confidence others can build ontop of your work. Cutting corners damages your reputation on all dimensions.

I would also note these standards come about for a real reason it’s not just a bunch of anti progress bureaucrats devising ways to make everything expensive from a “western” culture perspective. These are best practices derived from observations of real and genuine horrors. They are absolutely restrictive. But when the rules don’t exist, some jackass somewhere does something inhuman and gets rewarded for it. Maybe it creates progress, but it leaves real victims whose lives are destroyed. This being unacceptable isn’t a western culture thing. It’s a human thing. No one wants to be the victim, and most people agree it’s not ok to exploit and harm people for your benefit. The difference is some societies (not cultures) have weak systems that protect the individual over profit, power, and greed. One could make the argument that the current society in China doesn’t prioritize human rights very highly, but I think it’s wrong to say Chinese culture doesn’t. There’s a difference between a people and their government.

[roenxi]

Interesting post, but no I mean the ethical guidelines and standards of the journal. I suspect that the scientists treat them like people treat EULAs - they make assumptions about what is in there and often don't actually read them unless someone rejects their paper because of the guidelines.

[fnordpiglet]

My grandfather was a career medical researcher and medical school founder, with a career spanning heart surgery, kidney transplant pioneering, to blood diseases, and pulmonary systems. He had hundreds of papers published, hundreds of patents, and published until he died in his 80s. In my experience he was very well versed in the ethical standards for medical research, sat on the human research standards boards, and oversaw likely thousands of graduate students. My belief from existing in his orbit and sitting in his labs most my summers growing up was people were very concerned about the ethics of human research. I think generally the culture of biomedical research tends to reject people who aren’t from the field, and journals tend to hold fairly uniform standards that are pretty broadly agreed upon. I don’t think the researchers in question here were ambiguous as to whether forced or coerced consent to genetic forensic research is ethical or not. It was just convenient and didn’t require sourcing subjects and engaging with them sufficient to gain positive informed consent. People that traffic in slave labor goods are almost certainly aware it’s considered wrong, people who traffic in forced medical research also know it’s considered wrong. It’s not the same as skipping through a ten thousand page boilerplate of garbage.

[hnfong]

It's very weird that you seem to have such faith in the so called reputable journals, and speak in such a seemingly elitist tone, at a time where the "replication crisis" and in general academic fraud is so well known.

[fnordpiglet]

Oh I don’t have faith in journals to be flawless, and I think the peer review system implies a lot more than it delivers. However it is the system, and there are well intentioned reasons behind a lot of it. But the replication crisis isn’t a flaw to me it’s a feature. Peer review isn’t a substitute for replication and the fact things are being discovered in replication as fraudulent sounds like the way science is supposed to work.