Welcome Koufax voters!

I'm excited to be one of the many fine nominees for the "Best New Blog" Koufax Award for 2005. As noted in the previous post, "Adventures in Ethics and Science" has a cool new home over at ScienceBlogs. But, a lot of the good stuff is still here where it all started.

Because I know you want to make an informed decision about your vote (or, you know, put off doing actual work for a little while), here's a quick tour of my posts here. A few of these are big-traffic posts via search engine results, while others are posts that are dear to my heart (the "unsung heroes" of the archives). It's my hope that these will give you a taste of some of the issues in ethics and science that seize my hands and make me blog.


Scientific Misconduct (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and their pals)
When scientists get caught doing bad stuff -- especially when it's in the news -- it tends to set me off. I rant, but I also try to draw some lessons from it.

• Aw Mom, scientific misconduct again?! (my initial thoughts on Luk van Parijs)
  
• Lies that "don't matter"? (Van Parijs follow-up)
  
• Completing the misconduct trifecta: plagiarism
  
• Talking the talk vs. walking the walk (plagiarism update)
  

The Farm League
Some of the instances that might not rise (sink?) to the level of full-blown misconduct, but that are slimy enough that they ought to make responsible scientists glower.

• Communicating science to the public? More like an advertising blitz.
  
• Little white lies to the popular press (follow up).
  
• Science, meet capitalism.
  
• When unfalsifiability is your business plan.
  

Research with animals

• Trying to put my finger on the relevant difference.
  
• Professional Duties, Personal Convictions.
  

Research with human subjects

• Face transplants
  (Written in March 2005, before the recent face transplant in France.)
  
• Who'll protect kids from the EPA?
  
• Students as a vulnerable population.
  

Playing well with other scientists
A round-up of day to day issues in the responsible conduct of scientific research.

• Stem cell drama continues (and "magic hands" are raised) (about the tricky balance between having great bench technique and having an experiment that's reproducible)
  
• All kinds of trouble: more on the Korean stem cell saga (wherein I examine the issue of authorship and responsibility)
  
• Authorship matters. (about ghostwriting in the medical literature)
  
• Science blogs for intra-scientific community communication.
  
• Crackpottery, etiquette, and ethical duties. (When things get awkward at the professional conference ...)
  
• Who's in the club, and why does it matter? (Should the scientific community worry about its gender make up?)
  

Teaching science, teaching ethics

• Part of the solution, or part of the problem?
  
• The problem with cheaters.
  
• What's the big deal about high school biology class?
  
• When parental involvement is maybe a bad idea …
  

Science for the rest of us
The public funds science; what are the public's interests where science is concerned? And what kind of duties do scientists have when it comes to getting the public to understand what science is up to?

• Academic freedom, academic responsibility.
  
• Policy decisions and scientific uncertainty.
  
• Uncertainties, prudent planning, and duties.
  
• Science and priorities.
  
• Communicating science to the public.
  
• I miss Sir Karl! (falsifiability and loopiness need not be mutually exclusive)
  

That should give you a feel for where I've been so far -- I'm looking forward to taking on a lot more, and I welcome your comments on all of it.

UPDATE: I think all the links are working properly now. Thanks to commenters and emailers who pointed out the broken ones.