Friday, February 1, 2008

Asking for answers in New Mexico

The buzz around the Nature article (see my last post) appears to still be going strong. Andy makes some good points surrounding the issues of open access dissertations and how we need to be more aware of what is taking place in our community. Julia also brings up points that one would think would be common practice when visiting other collections, but obviously are not used by all. Christopher Taylor points out the ICZN guidelines surrounding the ethics that are in question. Janet D. Stemwedel dissects a particularly disturbing email that was posted on the vert paleo list. There are many other good post included in Mike Taylors list of Blogs to visit that also make good points. You might take the time to read a few of them.

I would also like to point out that while I know all of the people involved (with the exception of the Polish folks), I am 1) not accusing or pointing fingers at anyone, only trying to point out an interesting ethics question that would have needed address eventually regardless, and 2) just promote better communication between people in our field. We need to be able to trust our colleagues and not promote a community of fear, especially for the safety of your research and/or career. If wrong doing has occurred, I hope the proper action will be taken, and not just swept under the carpet with a slap on the wrist. If it is found that no wrong was done, I hope we can all be more cautious and aware that these things *could* possibly happen.

1 comment:

Julia said...

Nice one ReBecca. :) This whole business is doing nothing for the supposed collegiality in the community. I wonder if we'll see a marked decrease in the number of abstracts submitted for SVP this year if no action is taken...