David Resnik

The propagation of errors in physics research is studied, with particular attention being paid to the effectiveness of the erratum in avoiding error propagation. We study the citation history of 17 physics papers which have significant errata associated with them. It would appear that the existence of an erratum does not significantly decrease the frequency with which a paper is cited and in most cases the erratum isnot cited along with the original paper. The authors comment on implications for the responsibilities of authors.

What makes a system—evolved, engineered, or hybrid—describable by teleological and mentalistic terms such as intelligent, goal-directed, cognitive, and intentional? In this two-part article, we review classical thought on teleology in the life sciences and defend a new approach to goal-directedness that stems from an emerging field—diverse intelligence. This field seeks to characterize what all active agents, regardless of their composition or provenance, have in common. Our approach emphasizes: (1) empirical testability (not philosophical commitments to linguistic categories), (2) fecundity in discovery of new capabilities (not just reductive mechanistic explanations of results after they are made, but worldviews that facilitate and enable novel research), (3) operationalization of terminology by reference to conceptual and empirical toolkits shown to be effective for a given system (cognitive and teleological claims are really hypotheses of optimal interaction protocols), and (4) continuity of human goal-directedness with our unicellular origins (which implies a need for models of scaling of cognition). In Part One, we reviewed historical and contemporary debates about teleology in biology and described some ground-breaking experimental results from morphogenesis, synthetic biology, and other areas of research involving the coordination of cellular behavior by means of bioelectric networks. In Part Two, we argue that current approaches to goal-directedness in biology cannot accommodate these results in a manner that helps us better understand how these systems work and fruitfully guides experimental work and practical applications in these areas of research. What is needed, therefore, is an approach to teleology in biology, informed by mentalistic concepts, such as intelligence, cognition, and intentionality. We describe and explain our mentalistic approach in greater depth, show how it can be applied to specific cases, and address some important objections to our view. By abandoning the reductionistic aversion to mentalistic concepts in biology in favor of principled and testable frameworks for understanding diverse minds embodied in the physical world, the plasticity and problem-solving competency of the agential material of life can provide fodder for advances in philosophical thought, as well as for biomedical and bioengineering applications.

What makes a system—evolved, engineered, or hybrid—describable by teleological and mentalistic terms such as intelligent, goal-directed, cognitive, and intentional? In this two-part article, we review classical thought on teleology in the life sciences and defend a new approach to goal-directedness that stems from an emerging field—diverse intelligence. This field seeks to characterize what all active agents, regardless of their composition or provenance, have in common. Our approach emphasizes: (1) empirical testability (not philosophical commitments to linguistic categories), (2) fecundity in discovery of new capabilities (not just reductive mechanistic explanations of results after they are made, but worldviews that facilitate and enable novel research), (3) operationalization of terminology by reference to conceptual and empirical toolkits shown to be effective for a given system (cognitive and teleological claims are really hypotheses of optimal interaction protocols), and (4) continuity of human goal-directedness with our unicellular origins (which implies a need for models of scaling of cognition). In Part One, we review historical and contemporary debates about teleology in biology and describe some ground-breaking experimental results from morphogenesis, synthetic biology, and other areas of research involving the coordination of cellular behavior by means of bioelectric networks. In Part Two, we argue that current approaches, which tend to minimize the emphasis on goal-directedness in biology (and thus suppress the use of powerful tools from behavioral science), cannot account for these experimental results in a manner that helps us better understand how to control living systems toward new large-scale functions and fruitfully guide novel experimental work and practical applications in these areas of research. What is needed, therefore, is an approach to teleology in biology informed by mentalistic concepts, such as intelligence, cognition, and intentionality. We describe and explain our mentalistic approach in greater depth, show how it can be applied to specific cases, and address some important objections to our view. By abandoning the reductionistic aversion to mentalistic concepts in biology in favor of principled and testable frameworks for understanding diverse minds across a spectrum, embodied in the physical world, the plasticity and problem-solving competency of the agential material of life can provide fodder for advances in philosophical thought, as well as for biomedical and bioengineering applications.

Since chronic diseases are the leading causes of mortality, morbidity, and health care expenditures in the US and other industrialized nations, it is important to understand whether bioethicists are paying adequate attention to issues related to chronic disease in their research and scholarship. To address this question, we analyzed a random sample of 1200 out of 16,854 articles published in five top bioethics journals from 2001 to 2024. The most common topic was patient-provider relationship (34.9%), followed by theoretical bioethics (32.9%), health law, regulation, and politics (28.7%), research ethics (24.8%), and population issues (23.6%). Chronic disease was the 13th most common topic (out of 20), which places it in the 3rd quartile along with public health (10.8%), emerging technologies (10.4%), ethics consultation (9.9%), and infectious disease (9.1%). Although chronic disease is not among the least discussed topics in the bioethics literature, it is still a neglected topic. Bioethicists should pay greater attention to questions and concerns related to chronic disease and should highlight the relevance of their work for chronic illnesses and conditions. More research—empirical and conceptual—is needed to better understand bioethical issues related to chronic disease.

Scientists have begun using AI agents in tasks such as reviewing the published literature, formulating hypotheses and subjecting them to virtual tests, modeling complex phenomena, and conducting experiments. Although AI agents are likely to enhance the productivity and efficiency of scientific inquiry, their deployment also creates risks for the research enterprise and society, including poor policy decisions based on erroneous, inaccurate, or biased AI works or products; responsibility gaps in scientific research; loss of research jobs, especially entry-level ones; the deskilling of researchers; AI agents’ engagement in unethical research; AI-generated knowledge that is unverifiable by or incomprehensible to humans; and the loss of the insights and courage needed to challenge or critique AI and to engage in whistleblowing. Here, we discuss these risks and argue that, for responsible management of them, reflection on which research tasks should and should not be automated is urgently needed. To ensure responsible use of AI agents in research, institutions should train researchers in AI and algorithmic literacy, bias identification, and output verification, and should encourage understanding of the risks and limitations of AI agents. Research teams may benefit from designating an AI-specific role, such as an AI validator expert or AI guarantor, to oversee and take responsibility for the integrity of AI-assisted contributions.

While informed consent is widely recognized as a cornerstone of ethical research with human participants, applying this principle to space exploration research creates some unique challenges and dilemmas. In this article, we examine ethical issues related to informed consent for participation in space exploration research and offer some suggestions for policy development and further investigation. We argue that: (1) informed consent for space exploration research should be required, but exceptions can be justified for research involving public records, de‐identified medical records, secondary use of de‐identified, biospecimens or data, emergency medical research, and research critical to mission success or crew safety; (2) organizations that conduct space exploration research should take steps to minimize the potential for undue influence by, for example, ensuring that informed consent discussions will be private and that information about research participation will be kept confidential; (3) prospective spaceflight participants should be provided with information about research activities or other types of data and specimen collection (such as quality assurance) that will take place; and (4) since existing laws and regulations do not apply to most of the research activities conducted by private companies, space companies should give serious thought to developing guidelines for the protection of human research participants.

Dual-use research is research that can be readily employed for beneficial or harmful purposes. Using recent examples from biomedical science, this chapter argues that scientists who are assessing the risks and benefits of dual-use research face issues of practical inductive risk because they must consider the ethical and social implications of mistaken inferences concerning the acceptability of hypotheses pertaining to these risks and benefits. Attempting to avoid practical inductive risk by estimating the probabilities of hypotheses and deferring to policymakers and the public on the issue of accepting hypothesis for practical purposes would be an abdication of the scientist’s ethical and professional responsibility. Scientists have an obligation to play an active role in helping policymakers and the public make well-informed decisions concerning conducting, funding, and publishing dual-use research, including considering the values at stake in these decisions and the bearing they have on policy options.

This chapter summarizes the arguments contained in the book. It argues that scientists and society should manage the relationship between research and financial interests, and develop social and economic institutions that promote the values of science, such as objectivity, honesty, and openness. Universities, private companies, granting agencies, journals, and professional associations should develop rules and guidelines for mitigating money’s corrupting influence on science and support education, training, and mentoring on research ethics for scientists and students in all sectors of the research economy.

This chapter examines some of the ethical problems that can arise when the pursuit of profit and prestige affect scientific publication, including bias, duplicate publication, salami science, problems with access to data and materials, and undeserved authorship. To address these concerns, scientific journals, research institutions, professional associations, and funding agencies should develop policies and guidelines for scientific publication. Granting agencies should continue their support for research, education, and policy development pertaining to ethics and integrity in scientific publication. Universities, colleges, and government and private laboratories should sponsor educational and training programs that address the ethics of scientific publication.

This chapter describes the different kinds of interests that may affect scientific research and defines conflicts of interest for individual scientists and for research institutions. It explores how conflicts of interest can undermine scientific objectivity as well as the public’s trust in research. It discusses three basic strategies for dealing with conflicts of interest: disclosure, management, and prohibition. In many cases, disclosure is all that is required to deal with conflicts of interest, but prohibiting the conflict may be required in cases.

This chapter examines science’s most important norm, objectivity. It argues that science ought to be objective because democratic societies need objective beliefs and methods to help resolve controversial moral, political, economic, cultural, and social debates. To help with the resolution of these debates, scientists should attempt to give unbiased testimony in public forums and should try to develop theories, hypotheses, methods, and concepts that are free from personal, cultural, social, moral or political biases. The most effective way of developing unbiased theories (hypotheses, methods, and concepts) is to attempt to test these theories against a mind-independent world. Even though objectivity is often difficult to achieve in science, the quest for objectivity is not an impossible dream or vain pursuit.

This chapter considers the various ways that money can interfere with scientific norms. Problems can occur when financial interests intrude into experimental design, data analysis and interpretation, publication, peer review, and other aspects of science that should be protected from financial, political, or other biases. When this happens, financial interests affect the process of scientific research, and they can undermine objectivity, openness, honesty, and other research norms. Although it is impossible to prevent money from having any impact on research, society should take some steps to prevent financial interests from undermining scientific norms, such as developing policies for journals, granting agencies, and research institutions; educating students and scientists about potential problems and issues; and monitoring of research.

This chapter develops a philosophical framework for thinking about science’s norms. The norms of science help advance the goals of science by promoting cooperation and trust among scientists, and the public’s support for science. They also help to ensure that scientific research is publicly accountable. Science has epistemological goals, such as knowledge, truth, and explanation, as well as practical ones, such as prediction, power, and control. Science has epistemological norms, such as testability, empirical support, and simplicity, and practical and ethical norms, such as honesty, credit, and openness. Epistemological norms govern scientific methods and techniques, while practical norms apply to practices and traditions.

DNA patenting has emerged as a hot topic in science policy and bioethics as private companies and government agencies spend billions of dollars on genetic research and development in a race to identify, sequence, and analyze DNA from human, animal, and plant species. David B. Resnik's Owning the Genome explores the ethical, social, philosophical, theological, and policy issues surrounding DNA patenting and develops a comprehensive approach to the topic. Resnik considers arguments for and against DNA patenting and concludes that only a patent on a whole human genome would be inherently immoral, while the morality of other DNA patents depends on their consequences for science, medicine, agriculture, industry, and society. He also stresses the importance of government regulations and policies in order to minimize the harmful effects of patenting while promoting the beneficial ones.

_Ethics of Science_ is a comprehensive and student-friendly introduction to the study of ethics in science and scientific research. The book covers: * Science and Ethics * Ethical Theory and Applications * Science as a Profession * Standards of Ethical Conduct in Science * Objectivity in Research * Ethical Issues in the Laboratory * The Scientist in Society * Toward a More Ethical Science * Actual case studies include: Baltimore Affair * cold fusion * Milikan's oil drop experiments * human and animal cloning * Cold War experiments * Strategic Defence Initiative * the Challenger accident * Tobacco Research.

This paper discusses a dispute concerning the ethics of research on preventing the perinatal transmission of HIV in developing nations. Critics of this research argue that it is unethical because it denies a proven treatment to placebo‐control groups. Since studies conducted in developed nations would not deny this treatment to subjects, the critics maintain that these experiments manifest a double standard for ethical research and that a single standard of ethics should apply to all research on human subjects. Proponents of the research, however, argue that these charges fail to understand the ethical complexities of research in developing nations, and that study designs can vary according to the social, economic, and scientific conditions of research. This essay explores some of the ethical issues raised by this controversial case in order to shed some light on the deeper, meta‐ethical questions. The paper argues that standards of ethical research on human subjects are universal but not absolute: there are some general ethical principles that apply to all cases of human subjects research but the application of these principles must take into account factors inherent in particular situations.

In his paper “Moral Permissibility and Desert in the Therapy-Enhancement Distinction,” Ozan Gurcan takes a fresh look at the therapy-enhancement distinction and argues that, while the distinction does not establish rigid moral boundaries, it nevertheless serves an important purpose because it differentiates between interventions that are, generally speaking, owed to individuals as a matter of justice (i.e., therapies) and those that are not (i.e., enhancements). Because therapies help to promote justice in society, therapies are always permitted and, in many cases required, whereas enhancements may be, at best, permitted. In this commentary, I argue that we would be concerned about the morality of genetic enhancements even if they did not raise issues of social justice and I propose that other key moral ideas, such as the concept of human nature, may also be important in establishing the boundary between therapy and enhancement.