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Scientists Want To Keep Their Research Work Out of Court

Posted by timothy on from the 10-million-dead-polar-bears-can't-be-wrong dept.

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."

12 of 288 comments (clear)

  1. Helping to Keep it Secret... by SirAstral · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Helping to Keep it Secret... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They have to publish their methods. The problem is that if preliminary information is published, its easier for people to accuse them of bias without judging them based on their findings. This isn't science, that's politics. We need to keep politics out of science. What matters are the final published results. Those are the findings that they are saying, "Here is our data, we believe this is reproducible." If it's not independently verifiable, that will come out soon enough. If they practice good science, and peer review backs their findings, who cares if they initially had biases before the experiment began?

    2. Re:Helping to Keep it Secret... by FhnuZoag · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Research data has to be shared for the sake of peer review. But the main problem I see with totally public access is that the public aren't ready for it. In a public arena where people jump on evolutionists for using the word 'theory', or pull all sorts of quotes out of context from leaked climate research emails, publication will just lead to a massive and distracting shitstorm that all scientists want to avoid.

      It's fine to ask scientists to show their working, but what's usually being asked in these cases is for scientists to expose all the minutiae of their thinking, their process of coming up with hypotheses, and so on, most of which is irrelevant to the final produce of Evidence->Conclusion. And really, no one can work in such an environment where you have to guard all your words and thoughts carefully lest someone picks it out at some later date. It would be a hugely oppressive work environment, subjected to a group of people who are generally kinda private individuals. Even the Soviet Union understood that they need to afford these people a little privacy.

    3. Re:Helping to Keep it Secret... by Rostin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The truth will out "eventually", but that's not always fast enough. You should check out the book Plastic Fantastic, which is about the Schön scandal. The careers of many innocent people who wasted years of their PhD training trying to replicate fraudulent results were ruined in that little episode. Schön was asked repeatedly to provide access to his samples, to more clearly describe his methodology, and the like, but kept finding excuses to avoid doing so. He was only found out when suspicious researchers in his area noticed that the noise in the results of multiple experiments was identical, likely having been faked using the same random numbers. It's a classic example of the inadequacy of our current way of doing and reporting science to quickly identify fraud.

    4. Re:Helping to Keep it Secret... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And how is this failure to put sufficient pressure on someone who's results just can't be reproduced to prove their stuff in any context relevant to the topic at hand? Or are you suggesting that this fraud could have been spotted easier by sifting though everyone's correspondence looking for "sumethin' off"?

      The problem in your anecdote, in case you can't spot it, has nothing to do with Schoen's correspondence, and everything to do with prestige. People not daring to admit they can't reproduce the results of the big star, and not daring asking uncomfortable questions, and not daring/being able to request answers to questions raised to a satisfactory degree. Seriously, either he could reproduce the results in a satisfactory manner or tell those who tried what they did wrong - which in turn should produce identical results - or he couldn't. If you fail at this, getting someones working materials won't help. Ever. It's just a red herring used by people digging for dirt.

  2. And What Horrible Things Are You Up To? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:And What Horrible Things Are You Up To? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And if it can't withstand daylight - it's suspect.

      I want to see all of your bank statements from the past 36 months. I need these to know you aren't an oil company shill. Also, a key to the front door of your house, just so I can check to see if you have piles of cash that they might have given you to avoid scrutiny of your bank account. You can withstand daylight, so this shouldn't be a problem, right?

  3. The issue is the science, or the legal system? by swb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:public scientists should not hide data by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  5. Re:If it's funded with my taxpayer dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you think you have a right to watch people take a shit in publicly funded bathrooms?

  6. Re:If you receive public dollars to do research... by 0racle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Scientist 1 email: "I don't see how this supports your hypothesis"
    Scientist 2 email: "Ya, it was a little messy, I didn't explain it clearly. Here you go"
    Scientist 1 email: "A yes, I see what you're seeing now."

    Group opposed to Scientist 1 and 2's work subpoenas their emails, public hears this:
    Group releases only Scientist 1's first email.
    Group: "See Scientist 1 says the data doesn't support their claims. They're lying, follow the money" and so on.

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  7. Re:Emails are not peer reviewed science by E-Rock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unless you're suing them and this lets them shield the e-mail to their lab tech that says "sample set B is really screwing up our results, go ahead and shred any copies you have and I'll update the findings."