1. Does the contradiction between Millikan's unqualified statement that he has published all the oil-drop data and the evidence of unpublished oil-drop measurements in his notebooks prove that he is guilty of unethical scientific behavior? If Millikan had not claimed to have published all the data, would he still be guilty of questionable behavior?
We believe that this does prove him guilty, because he should not have lied about his scientific research. We still believe he is guilty of unethical behavior, but if he would not have contradicted himself then it would not have been as bad.
2. Should the fact that Millikan was a highly successful scientist, and that he got the right answer in the controversy about the charge on the electron be a consideration in judging his scientific ethics?
We believe he should always receive the credit for discovering the charge on the electron, but it should always be known that he did it through unethical behavior.
3. What criteria should be used in deciding whether data can be legitimately discarded? When a scientist uses his or her "intuition" as the basis for deciding whether to ignore certain data, is the question of the ethics of this action dependent on whether the conclusion reached by the scientist is later proven to be correct?
If the equiptmemt in the test is faulty or shows a sign of malfunctioning, then the information obtained should be discarded. I think that a scientist should make the best guess they possibly could, and if a good answer is not able to be reached, then they should redo the study. I also think that the scientist should warn people that if he had to make an educated guess then the studies could have a possibility of not being 100% right.
4. Is the intentional manipulation and selection of data in order to falsely prove a scientific premise less of a violation of acceptable ethical standards than the outright fabrication of data?
Yes, it is worse because it is done with an intention. Millikan did not intentionally take the material out to help himself, he just believed that it should not be included in his results.
Are you sure? Maybe he wanted to be right and used only the data that would support his hypothesis so he could publish it and be famous. Assuming that it was intentional, is manipulation and selection of data better or worse than actually making data up?
ReplyDeleteI do not think that Millikan was guilty of unethical scientific behavior. I do believe, however, that picking and chosing your information is wrong if the informatin contridicted what you were trying to prove. I think that Millikan had a right to publish whatever he wanted if the information was due to maybe a mistake or the machinery not working right, because then it wouldn't be the true result what he was trying to do.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that scientists who intentionally pick and chose what they publish is wrong.
Did Millikan fabricate his ideas and chose to not put some information in intentionally, or did he just not put them in because it was a mistake or because he didn't perform the experiment the right way? Because these two things could have made a big difference as to why he did not include all of his trials in the experiment.
Paige P: After other scientists found out that all the data from the experiment was not included, Millikan contradicted it saying that he put all his results in the tables. Those on Millikan's side said that there was a problem with the machines in the experiment, but Millkan will not admit that he did it intentionally.
ReplyDeleteWould the data be acceptable if he said that he left some of the information out? I think his deceptivness was wrong, but when doing an experiment, can you just leave things out if you say that you are??
ReplyDeleteThe concern is that Millikan may have chosen the drops that supported his hypothesis and left out those that did not. In a scientific study, the researcher is supposed to test the hypothesis, then report what was found whether or not it supported the hypothesis. Otherwise, why bother to test?
ReplyDeletetaravella: it is not right to just decide what information to include or throwout because it may be important to the experiment even if it doesn't go along with the hypothesis
ReplyDeleteThis is for question #4:
ReplyDeleteI agree with group 2's response. It is worse because it is done with intention.