Science Practice and Ethics

SILVINA PONCE DAWSON

Conferencia; V IUPAP International Conference on Women in Physics; 2014

We all have the image of scientists as objective seekers of truth. Is this a true picture of how science is being practiced? Are there differences in scientific misconduct between men and women? In this talk I will review the well-known "Schon" case. In 2002 Schon was a "very succesful" 32-year old physicist who held a post-doctoral position at Bell Labs. That year it was discovered that he had faked experimental results in at least 17 published papers. He was fired immediately from Bell Labs. The PIs however did not suffer very harsh consequences. In the talk I will then summarize the results on the issue of scientific fraud presented in:Fang et al, 2012. PNAS 109: 17028-17033D. Fanelli, 2009. PLoS ONE 4(5): e5738Fang et al, 2013. mBio 4(1): e00640-12Kaatz et al, 2013. mBio 4(2): e00156-13We will then go on with the discussion.