tl;dr warning: I am a wee (free men) bit peeved at the Facebook Department of Psychology Department thing.
tl;dr warning: I am a wee (free men) bit peeved at the Facebook Department of Psychology Department thing. I kind of lost it when I read the article kindly linked to in The Atlantic, where the acknowledged editor of the article was interviewed. I am probably conflating reviewer and editor at this point, but whatever. Points stand.
Quote 1:
"I think their beef is with Facebook, really, not the research."
No. The "beef" is with someone messing with your head a la Gaslight. Which IS the research. Which IS unethical. [Hi, would you like to sign up for some research that may have significant psychological and emotional consequences? For free? Without your knowledge? Even if you are not an adult?]
Quote 2:
"There is no unnecessary collection of people’s data in connection with these research initiatives and all data is stored securely."
Nice way to not answer the question, Facebook.
Quotes 3a & b:
"Facebook, as a private company, doesn't have to agree to the same ethical standards as federal agencies and universities."
"Facebook's research is not government supported, so they're not obligated by any laws or regulations to abide by the standards."
I know for a fact that if you are federally funded, you have to abide by the various codes, declarations, and other standards for human and vulnerable subjects research. I do not know that the reverse is true. In particular, I would love for a knowledgeable lawyer to weigh in, as I am fairly certain that some states have applicable laws/codes/statutes, something, on the books. But I don't know that for a hard fact.
P.S. I infer from this reasoning that Facebook may now pull the legs off spiders, the wings off flies, and the whiskers off mice at will.
Final Quote/Paragraph:
"Fiske still isn't sure whether the research, which she calls "inventive and useful," crossed a line. "I don't think the originality of the research should be lost," she said. "So, I think it's an open ethical question. It's ethically okay from the regulations perspective, but ethics are kind of social decisions. There's not an absolute answer. And so the level of outrage that appears to be happening suggests that maybe it shouldn't have been done...I'm still thinking about it and I'm a little creeped out, too.""
I sympathize that Dr. Fiske has gotten caught in a situation in which she may have both lacked some judgment and been bamboozled by trusting others. It is tough to be an editor, and it's worse to be suddenly under what public scrutiny means these days. Sorry, but that paragraph sounds a little like someone who's worried about their professional circumstances.
Let us parse:
A) If you are unsure as an editor, don't ok it. You are allowed to nit-pick, question, argue, fuss, investigate. Hey, usually the complaint is that editors do all that too much. If your gut says no, that's a hint. Besides, authors have recourse to request another editor's input, or to submit to another journal.
B) I promise you that the physicians and others who participated in or facilitated the Nazi experiments on prisoners thought they were "useful". After all, it was important to know whether antibiotics were beneficial or harmful, it was important to know how to help sailors and airmen survive saltwater and hypothermia. Some of their work was considered so useful, the US brought some of them into the US and hired them to work on developing aerospace medicine. That makes it all ok, doesn't it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code
C) "Inventive" and "original" are not justifications. Ever hear of the Milgram experiment? The Stanford Prison experiment? They only stopped the Stanford one because the lead investigator's grad student (and later wife) objected to what she saw when she was brought in. The people running the study were going to let it continue.
D) "It's ethically ok from the regulations perspective..." Yeah, no. It is not, in fact. What it is, per your earlier statement, is not subject to the ethical regulations. Not the same thing.
E) "... ethics are kind of social decisions." Oh, well, ok, then. I don't know why we prosecuted any of the Nazi doctors, then. I mean, the good of the many outweighs the needs of the few - which is abusing a good phrase in service of paraphrasing some leading philosophies about health and social hygiene and necessities of war, etc. that really were extant world-wide before, during, and after WWII. Philosophies that made it ethical to kill people off, or treat them as beneath humans.
F) "... the level of outrage ... suggests that maybe it shouldn't have been done ..." I hope this means you're reconsidering what may have been a poor decision path. Otoh, there are standards and codes and professional as editors in place so we don't have to hope the public makes the call. It shouldn't have had to be up to the public, not this time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code
Quote 1:
"I think their beef is with Facebook, really, not the research."
No. The "beef" is with someone messing with your head a la Gaslight. Which IS the research. Which IS unethical. [Hi, would you like to sign up for some research that may have significant psychological and emotional consequences? For free? Without your knowledge? Even if you are not an adult?]
Quote 2:
"There is no unnecessary collection of people’s data in connection with these research initiatives and all data is stored securely."
Nice way to not answer the question, Facebook.
Quotes 3a & b:
"Facebook, as a private company, doesn't have to agree to the same ethical standards as federal agencies and universities."
"Facebook's research is not government supported, so they're not obligated by any laws or regulations to abide by the standards."
I know for a fact that if you are federally funded, you have to abide by the various codes, declarations, and other standards for human and vulnerable subjects research. I do not know that the reverse is true. In particular, I would love for a knowledgeable lawyer to weigh in, as I am fairly certain that some states have applicable laws/codes/statutes, something, on the books. But I don't know that for a hard fact.
P.S. I infer from this reasoning that Facebook may now pull the legs off spiders, the wings off flies, and the whiskers off mice at will.
Final Quote/Paragraph:
"Fiske still isn't sure whether the research, which she calls "inventive and useful," crossed a line. "I don't think the originality of the research should be lost," she said. "So, I think it's an open ethical question. It's ethically okay from the regulations perspective, but ethics are kind of social decisions. There's not an absolute answer. And so the level of outrage that appears to be happening suggests that maybe it shouldn't have been done...I'm still thinking about it and I'm a little creeped out, too.""
I sympathize that Dr. Fiske has gotten caught in a situation in which she may have both lacked some judgment and been bamboozled by trusting others. It is tough to be an editor, and it's worse to be suddenly under what public scrutiny means these days. Sorry, but that paragraph sounds a little like someone who's worried about their professional circumstances.
Let us parse:
A) If you are unsure as an editor, don't ok it. You are allowed to nit-pick, question, argue, fuss, investigate. Hey, usually the complaint is that editors do all that too much. If your gut says no, that's a hint. Besides, authors have recourse to request another editor's input, or to submit to another journal.
B) I promise you that the physicians and others who participated in or facilitated the Nazi experiments on prisoners thought they were "useful". After all, it was important to know whether antibiotics were beneficial or harmful, it was important to know how to help sailors and airmen survive saltwater and hypothermia. Some of their work was considered so useful, the US brought some of them into the US and hired them to work on developing aerospace medicine. That makes it all ok, doesn't it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code
C) "Inventive" and "original" are not justifications. Ever hear of the Milgram experiment? The Stanford Prison experiment? They only stopped the Stanford one because the lead investigator's grad student (and later wife) objected to what she saw when she was brought in. The people running the study were going to let it continue.
D) "It's ethically ok from the regulations perspective..." Yeah, no. It is not, in fact. What it is, per your earlier statement, is not subject to the ethical regulations. Not the same thing.
E) "... ethics are kind of social decisions." Oh, well, ok, then. I don't know why we prosecuted any of the Nazi doctors, then. I mean, the good of the many outweighs the needs of the few - which is abusing a good phrase in service of paraphrasing some leading philosophies about health and social hygiene and necessities of war, etc. that really were extant world-wide before, during, and after WWII. Philosophies that made it ethical to kill people off, or treat them as beneath humans.
F) "... the level of outrage ... suggests that maybe it shouldn't have been done ..." I hope this means you're reconsidering what may have been a poor decision path. Otoh, there are standards and codes and professional as editors in place so we don't have to hope the public makes the call. It shouldn't have had to be up to the public, not this time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code
Needs more plusses.
ReplyDeleteAnd frankly, needs a way to explain all that to PNAS, specifically including the term "gas lighting."