In the 1980s and 1990s, well-publicized examples of scientific misconduct
increased public concerns and stimulated responses from government,
universities, and other research institutions. The result has been the for-
mulation of policies and procedures that are designed to investigate, adju-
dicate, and prevent scientific misconduct. Some aspects of these deliber-
ations are controversial, including even basic agreement on the definition
of misconduct and appropriate forms of disciplinary action. Nevertheless,
there is now a functioning system in place designed to deal with miscon-
duct allegations, and efforts to prevent misconduct are increasing. This
chapter discusses the definition of scientific misconduct as well as policies
and procedures for reporting, investigating, and adjudicating misconduct.

Although breaches of scientific integrity have been part of our culture for many
years, a book by two science journalists, William Broad and Nicholas Wade,
Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science (1982, [1993]),
played an important role in focusing public attention on research misconduct.
The authors recounted both historical and current cases of scientific fraud and
criticized the scientific community for its indifference to the problem.

The book challenged scientific icons. According to the evidence presented
by the authors, Galileo made the data for falling objects better than they really
were; Newton made his experimental results fit his theories better by fudging
his predictions on the velocity of sound, the procession of equinoxes, and
gravitational forces; Dalton cleaned up his data on the ratios of chemical re-
actions, which remain hard to duplicate; Mendel manipulated the heredity ra-
tios on his experiment with peas; Millikan selectively reported oil drop data on
his calculation of electronic charges; and even Pasteur was guilty of announc-
ing his anthrax vaccine before he completed his experiments (Broad and Wade
1982 [1993], Geison 1978 [1995], Shamoo and Annau 1989).

Among the most famous historical examples of misconduct is the story of
the “Piltdown Man.” In 1908, skull bones were found in Piltdown, a town not
far from London. The bones were presented by a brilliant young curator as
being thousands of years old and belonging to a person who had the charac-
teristics of both monkey and man. It was sensational scientific news: here was
the “missing link” to prove that man had evolved directly from apes. Forty-
five years later, however, some scholars concluded that the curator had pieced
together contemporary skull bones from the two different species and had
aged them chemically (Barbash 1996). At the time of the discovery, the cura-
tor's colleagues had accepted his findings without critical appraisal, largely be-
cause “the researchers [had] shaped reality to their heart's desire, protecting
their theories, their careers, their reputations, all of which they lugged into the
pit with them” (Blinderman 1986 p. 235).

-93-