Hello. My presentation was on Warren Schmaus's article- Fraud and the Norms of Science. It was published in Science, Technology, & Human Values in 1983. Here's the link to the article- http://www.jstor.org/stable/689245
I found this article interesting because it doesn't conform to what Robert Merton says about every scientist having to engage in scientific research solely in a completely disinterested fashion. It is perfectly okay for scientists to perform research in the hopes of gaining some personal benefit, as long as they do not mess or interfere with the aims of science. This is where the whole question of fraud and negligence comes in. In their haste to attain acclaim in the scientific world, scientists often resort to publishing fabricated or incomplete data, and Merton finds this unpardonable. However, Schmaus adds to this by saying that intentional fraud is bad, but so is unintentional or constructive fraud which arises out of negligence or shoddy work. Schmaus believes that negligence too is reason enough for a scientist to face debarment. Fraud is fraud whether intended or not. Schmaus believes that if the other three norms of science are conformed to, fraud should never be a problem. Organized skepticism and peer review, as Dipali posted about, is supposed to ensure that fraudulent practices in science don't arise. Disinterestedness and organized skepticism should be methodological prescriptions instead of norms. Schamus says that it may be unjust or unfair to require that scientists be disinterested unlike the rest of us. "The pursuit of scientific knowledge is not an important moral value that
conflicts with and overrides a scientist's right to pursue his or her own career. Scientists who commit fraud thus violate not a moral rule that applies only to them and enjoins them from self-interested activity, but a moral rule that applies to everybody and requires scientists to do their duty."
