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Here's something for fans of
academic ethics codes and IRBs to start worrying about. The American
chemical industry is now suing two historians who wrote a book about
the history of the chemical pollution coverups, as well as the five
other historians who merely reviewed the manuscript. What is
their main charge? Not mainly that the allegations in the book are
false but, rather, that the historians involved violated the ethics
code of the American Historical Association by having held a special
conference to closely check the accuracy of the book in which the
identities of the reviewers were revealed to the authors. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050207&s=wiener Read it and weep. If this case successful (even if it is not, but is wildly expensive), it is only a matter of time before scholars and scientists are legally restrained from writing anything that, even if true, might be viewed as damaging to the reputation of someone else who has the money to sue. Codes of scholarly conduct that were (naïvely?) established to protect the vulnerable are now being used to prevent scholars from revealing the actions of those who, it is claimed, have done far more damage to the public good than the most villainous psychological researchers couldhave ever hoped to do in their wildest dreams. Think I'm overdramatizing? I was alerted to this case by a message sent to the History of the Philosophy of Science listserv by a philosopher who has had two articles held up in just the past few weeks by the legal departments of his (would-be) publishers. Regards, --
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Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
