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TEDx Talks
Published: 2014-12-22
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSV4VZ8gdUQ
the morning for the past three years I was a researcher at the Edmond J. Safra center for ethics at Harvard University where I examined corrupting influences and hidden biases in the pursuit of knowledge during this time I conducted in depth interviews with professors from medicine business law the natural life sciences as well as the humanities and social sciences my goal try to understand the everyday life
of scientists and professors across all the disciplines in the end I ended up with close to ten thousand pages of interview transcripts today I would like to share with you some of the ethical dilemmas that professors face in particular whether they experience increased risk of bias depending on who is finding their research now why should we be concerned about the ethics of knowledge production when I
first started university I had this idealistic and perhaps naive view of science I believe the scientists inquired about the world practice the scientific method with integrity and may new discoveries that try progress forward close examination of how scientists conduct research reveals that what we can know depends not only on the scientist but also on the structures in institutions the give scientists the means to pursue knowledge
as I interviewed scientism professors begin to uncover patterns of scientific distortion what some might call the corruption of knowledge however the majority of these distortions were not produced by bad people behaving unethically or legally although this does happen but rather by good people like the people sitting beside you right now your friends and your family cool in response to the daily pressures of work may simply
begin to rationalize to themselves little after collapses here and there now by ethical lapse I mean scientific integrity lapses that appear to be very small or inconsequential at the time one of the most common examples of this involves a scientist thinking maybe I won't pass questioning when pursuing my research because my funder who may be relying on the results of the study to obtain regulatory approval
for potential commercialize ation may not be too happy with a higher risk of a negative result you might also affect my future funding so maybe instead of self censor myself and ask a different question of the data with a possible outcome will most likely not ruffle too many feathers and I will answer that question honestly and with scientific integrity now these types of rationalize Asians the
little compromises we convince ourselves in the moment that what we're doing is okay hope to neutralize any guilt we might experience and our ethical decision making however over time the accumulation of these little ethnical lapses is leading to a broader system of knowledge production is becoming increasingly distorted and more difficult to trust I want you to think about that word for a moment trust and how
to please a role in your daily activities for instance plastic water bottles they're so common that we only pick one up or probably not thinking anything other than I'm thirsty we don't ask ourselves I'm there's a bisphenol a or B. PAF common compound used in hard plastic products lead to cancer behavior disorders reproductive problems no course not we take a drink we go on with their
day we trust that drinking from the water bottle can't be bad or least bad enough to worry about one the one hand you can feel safe because every study performed by scientists funded by the industry concludes no harm from BPA another words it's okay trust BPA but sametime ninety three percent of the non industry funded studies show that there might be cause for concern and that
maybe we should be a little less trusting the next time we pick up a hard plastic water bottle so who do you trust and how is it possible that the industry funded scientists study BPA are so certain that there is no harm is this simply because they're better scientists have bigger data sets no the compound better maybe perhaps but we see this powder often called a
finding of fact across many different areas of research from cellphone safety climate change a soft drinks each case scientists funded by the industry or industry supported think tanks reach conclusions that overall tend to deny or downplay any harm well non industry funded scientists overwhelmingly find evidence of harm among the professors I interviewed in food and nutrition there was acknowledgement of this funding affect biased when food
scientists said there is a tendency for people in my discipline to develop sympathies with the food industry to say yeah this is definitely safe rather than to say okay here's this research study and this research study in this research study when I interviewed another professor who is also an editor of a scientific journal in nutrition he said the following to me so we get some manuscripts
that our industry sponsored and one senses that their story is a little slanted towards the benefit of whatever it might be their product did this never mind that it didn't you ten other things the most frequent scenario it's not that the study is done poorly but that the questions themselves I kind of selective now if a stunning effect bias does exist then surely the regulatory bodies
look out for our safety must be aware of it right for instance what about our prescription drugs pharmaceutical companies must first obtain regulatory approval for the products right yes however many of the drug evaluation and research advisory committee members who vote on whether a drug should be granted regulatory approval also have financial conflicts of interest with the same drug companies these voting members often service consultants
and have ownership interest in the same drug companies seeking approval they also said on their advisory boards even receive funding from these firms for their own individual research in other words they might be experts but they're not independent experts I do know two thousand eight the world suffered a major financial crisis the Oscar winning documentary inside job suggested that economics professors were being corrupted and blinded
through their consulting relationships and conflicts of interest with the financial sector it was so serious that even an upset queen of England he visited the LSC the pristine just London school of economics and sternly asked her top economics professors if the problem was so widespread then why didn't anyone notice it the director of the fallacies management department who stand beside the queen at the time said
you are at every stage someone was relying on somebody else and everyone thought they were doing the right thing in my interviews with business and economics professors it was observed as it was with professors across all the disciplines that a lack of independence can distort the production of knowledge when economics professor who researches private equity finance so me during an interview the only way to get
the data is to get the private equity firms to give it to you if you then say these people don't know what they're doing are the only make returns by taking it excessive risks then there is the potential you simply will not get data going forward and you will be forced to leave the field of economics so you have to worry that the research that comes
out is more favorable to the private equity industry that otherwise it would be now despite all these cautionary examples of corrupting influences in hidden biases some of you out there uncertain are still thinking yourself okay Gary I hear what you're saying but I would never to start my work and no conflict of interest would change how I pursue my research fair enough many of us do
you believe that we can manage any conflict of interest still maintain our own personal integrity however we should never forget that the power to rationalize our own little ethical lapses is remarkable consider this everyday example it is six demonstrate that their disturbingly high rates of accidents and deaths due to cellphone related distracted driving yeah despite knowing this many of us will continue to use cellphones we
drive even after we leave here today studies show that more than half of us believe that when we use cellphones and drive it makes no real difference on our own individual driving performance yeah we switch from being the driver to the passenger ninety percent of us now suddenly state I would feel very unsafe fi observe my driver using a cellphone so saying you have integrity is
easy practicing integrity is not easy and recognizing our own little ask the collapses and rationalize Asians is even more difficult so what does this all mean in the context of knowledge production first we should be aware at funders increasingly want more influence over what question scientists can ask what findings they can share it ultimately what kind of knowledge it's produced so ask yourself what are the
strings attached when we accept funding other strings visible were the scientists is told that she cannot publisher work until given approval to do so by the founder where does the funder require that the data remain confidential so that the research conclusions can never be verified within the scientific community where are the strings invisible tree silly scientists the professors are self censoring their work in order to
appeal to funders and in so doing are sidestepping portant questions that may be critical to the public good and society as a whole my interviews make clear that the funding affect bias Israel and if left unchecked we'll continue to have a real impact on what we can know so next time you pick up a book or research ethical check to see who is funding the author's
work and pay close attention to the author's affiliations in order to be informed in this information age we need to take extra measures to bet the legitimacy of the content that we rely on to develop a critical eye for independence it's a value scientific integrity above anything else information and knowledge require science unfettered and unbiased and it's time we all take measures to demand thank you
