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Scientists Want To Keep Their Research Work Out of Court
concealment writes "How much privacy is the scientific process entitled to? During the course of their work, researchers produce e-mails, preliminary results, and peer reviews, all of which might be more confused or critical than the final published works. Recently, both private companies with a vested interest in discounting the results, and private groups with a political axe to grind have attempted to use the courts to get access to that material.Would it be possible or wise to keep these documents private and immune to subpoenas? In the latest issue of Science, a group of researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) argue that scientists need more legal rights to retain these documents and protect themselves in court."
Helps them to be dishonest about results and the research.
It is Science folks... what purpose is served by keeping it secret? Unless someone is up to no good eh?
There are discoveries made for the sake of discovery and those made for financial gain.
As long as we can support the latter without destroying the former, proceed.
Agreed. I would happily share all of my correspondence and preliminary analysis if it means GlaxoSmithKline has to share theirs.
Being able to subpoena anything pretty much means having it done by people who have an ax to grind, or to benefit someone with an ax to grind.
It's like asking "should the police be able to arrest suspects?" The answer is that clearly it's not a good idea for the police to arrest anyone they want to, and that we need to make rules about who the police can arrest, but on the other hand, we shouldn't just say "the police should never arrest anyone". Arrests are necessary to catch suspects, and catching suspects is necessary because some of them will turn out to be criminals.
Sometimes people with an ax to grind will need to see scientists' documents, and actually use them to discredit the scientists--but that's not a reason not to do it--that's the whole point of doing it, just like sometimes people will be arrested, tried, and put in jail.
Then any e-mail that pertains to the research that the public paid for is public information.
Why any scientist would request privacy protections is beyond me. Science is, by definition, supposed to be an open process of record.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
When scientists publish their results, they publish their methods and data along with it. Their personal emails are not peer reviewed science and should not have to be published for everyone to read. If there's something wrong with their methods then you should find it in the work they actually published, not some random email they sent out at 4 am without thinking about.
It is Science folks... what purpose is served by keeping it secret? Unless someone is up to no good eh?
Agreed comrade! Now, why are you not sharing your personal e-mails and work e-mails with me? Unless someone is up to no good, eh? Surely your business is as "pure" as Science?
When did we drop the "privacy is a human right" mantra on Slashdot? I really miss that. Scientists are humans. Their work should be public if it was paid by the public. Their work should be public if they wish for it to be peer reviewed. But what purpose does opening up their communication hold? If they really wanted to be "up to no good" surely they would merely find another way to communicate than the e-mails that are published? Will this solve anything? Scientists are humans, not slaves. E-mails about picking their kid up from soccer at a time and place should be kept private, even if they use their work e-mail. E-mails where they call a colleague bad names in confidence to a lab assistant should be kept private. Etc. Etc.
If their work involved wrong doing then it should be presented as evidence in court regardless of who paid for it. My biggest concern here is when these court investigations of scientists are politically motivated witch hunts.
My work here is dung.
Is the issue the scientific process, or is the issue the legal system?
It strikes me as the latter. It seems like a reasonable person would easily conclude that a scientific work in progress would contain a lot of incomplete data, a lot of conflicting theories, explanations and incomplete analysis of the data and the project itself.
However, the "reasonable person" conclusion doesn't seem like any kind of barrier from a legal system which makes it very easy for nearly anyone of means to file broad lawsuits by cherry-picking information and forcing defendants to organize expensive, complex defenses.
I think it's important from a justice perspective for anyone to be able to bring a civil suit, however, I think in some cases the rules should be changed to force some kind of automatic review of civil cases whenever some set of standards, like a large asymmetry between plaintiff and defendant resources or damage claims and require "the big guy" to more clearly explain their losses.
All that being said, I think a lot of scientists need to stick to science and be a little more muted with their political opinions. When scientists are extremely strident with their political views it automatically calls into question the accuracy of their science, especially in light of news stories like the huge increase in fraudulent results (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/science/study-finds-fraud-is-widespread-in-retracted-scientific-papers.html).
Scientists who stick to science will tend to be seen more as neutral experts explaining phenomenon and not as biased experts structuring their science to fit their opinions. Furthermore it probably helps the scientists as well, since having a strong political opinion on your research subject is only likely to increase the risk that you'll be tempted to massage your results, conclusions or worse instead of having to face some humiliation for both your theories and your opinions from being repudiated by your own science.
Gary Taubes has done some great reporting in the nutrition field and its remarkable how much the science is weakened when scientists hold strong opinions without strong science to back them up. See his article in Science on salt research for an example.
No certain scientist want to keep their data hidden. Sorry, if you are public ally funded then show your data.. if you are advocating policies and tion based on your findings. You better show your data and methods for scrutiny.
Just to be perfectly 100% clear: this has nothing, in any way, shape, or form, anything whatsoever to do with the data or methods.
This is about the personal communications and rough drafts between the scientists. You know, the emails you send saying "Hey John could you take a look at "x" again, I want to know what you personally think?" or "Wanna go out for a beer later?" or "What do you think of the phrasing of "y"?"Stuff that has nothing to do with the science at all, but which could easily be cherry-picked by someone with a motive (and BP has one hell of a motive) to discredit someones work and/or reputation, with no chance for them to defend themselves. Some of it might be completely wrong and have been thrown out in the end results, yet could be trumpeted as part of the final answer by an interested party (even if that is a lie, some people would do exactly that).
So yes, it should probably stay hidden: it's irrelevant, and even if it was, letting (basically) only one side rip into it is completely biased.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Do you think you have a right to watch people take a shit in publicly funded bathrooms?
So if you are a medicare or social security recipient, we have a right to see your medical records.
If you drive on a public road subsidized by tax payer dollars, we have a right to see where you drive at all times.
If you breath air protected by tax payer dollars, we have a right to measure every molecule of air that comes in and out of your pie hole.
Sounds fair.
Actually, many scientists want to keep their data hidden for a time. It is kinda like patents and copyrights, gathering data can be time consuming, expensive, and unrewarding. It is the analysis that gets you credit, so generally scientists want a window where they have exclusive access to their data in order to be first to work with it. There have been some nasty events where some research group got a hold of someone else's data before they were done with it and scooped the glory without having done the unglamorous work.
The organization I work for (which shall go nameless so I can continue to get my paycheck) has this same issue: lots of documents, emails, and the like express opinions and emotions that may not reflect accurately upon the final product. They might even (typically incorrectly) indicate the product is unsafe or dangerous. As you might expect, lawyers in lawsuits LOVE to find those emails and documents. Our corporate solutions? Destroy all documents after about 90 days that are not deemed business critical. The emails and the like just get wiped out. It has vastly reduced the corporate risk. Though, we also regularly have classes about how important it is to avoid emotional emails with words like "failure" and "disaster" in them. Often, the lawyer-speak in these meetings is hilarious. HIghly recommended as a way to ease into your Monday morning.
Actually, GSK does have to share all their correspondence and preliminary analysis when they get sued. That's where we get a lot of the good stuff. Look up the tobacco industry documents online.
In the US, at least, a judge can order anyone -- even someone who isn't a party to the lawsuit -- to disclose any information that's "in the interests of justice."
I was once sitting through a drug patent lawsuit and they had admitted into evidence a guy's entire 4-drawer file cabinet. They digitized every page, put it in a database, and were projecting it onto a screen in the courtroom.
Let's have laws linking the right to privacy of the public and scientists, to the rights to privacy of corporate executives, politicians. Let's see if they will relinquish their rights to have private talk corrupt practices. And since they are representatives of public servants of public-supported, publicly owned, legally public entities, they should have very few rights to privacy.
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I used to work for a data forensics company a few years ago and trust me. It's never gone. Don't even bother to try to hide it or destroy it. (the act of destruction alone is seen as admitting guilt to the courts - and there are huge fines as well) It's also why 90% of most lawsuits settle out of court. Every company does morally questionable practices and sometimes outright illegal ones, so getting a look at their data is the last thing they want their competition or lawyers to be able to do.