Who Believes in the Storybook Image of the Scientist?
Coosje L. S. Veldkamp, M.Sc. a, Chris H. J. Hartgerink, M.Sc.a,
Marcel A. L. M. van Assen, Ph.D.a,b, and Jelte M. Wicherts, Ph.D.a
aDepartment of Methodology and Statistics, Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg
University, Tilburg, The Netherlands; bDepartment of Sociology, Faculty of Social and Behavioral
Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT
Do lay people and scientists themselves recognize that scientists are human and therefore prone to human fallibilities such
as error, bias, and even dishonesty? In a series of three experimental studies and one correlational study (total N = 3,278) we
found that the “storybook image of the scientist” is pervasive:
American lay people and scientists from over 60 countries
attributed considerably more objectivity, rationality, openmindedness, intelligence, integrity, and communality to scientists than to other highly-educated people. Moreover, scientists
perceived even larger differences than lay people did. Some
groups of scientists also differentiated between different categories of scientists: established scientists attributed higher
levels of the scientific traits to established scientists than to
early-career scientists and Ph.D. students, and higher levels to
Ph.D. students than to early-career scientists. Female scientists
attributed considerably higher levels of the scientific traits to
female scientists than to male scientists. A strong belief in the
storybook image and the (human) tendency to attribute higher
levels of desirable traits to people in one’s own group than to
people in other groups may decrease scientists’ willingness to
adopt recently proposed practices to reduce error, bias and
dishonesty in science.
KEYWORDS
Bias; fallibility; integrity; RCR;
scientists
Evaluation of Research Ethics Committees: Criteria for the
Ethical Quality of the Review Process
Gregor Scherzinger, Ph.D.a and Monika Bobbert, Ph.D.b
aInstitute of Social Ethics, University of Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland; bSeminar of Moral Theology,
University of Muenster, Muenster, Germany
ABSTRACT
Repeatedly, adequacy, performance and quality of Ethics
Committees that oversee medical research trials are being discussed. Although they play a crucial role in reviewing medical
research and protecting human subjects, it is far from clear to
what degree they fulfill the task they have been assigned to. This
eventuates in the call for an evaluation of their activity and, in some
places, led to the establishment of accreditation schemes. At the
same time, IRBs have become subject of detailed legislation in the
process of the ongoing global juridification of medical research.
Unsurprisingly, there is a tendency to understand the evaluation of
RECs as a question of controlling their legal compliance. This paper
discusses the need for a quality evaluation of IRBs from an ethical
point of view and, by systematically reviewing the major ethical
guidelines for IRBs, proposes a system of criteria that should orientate any evaluation of IRBs.
KEYWORDS
Clinical research ethics;
ethical deliberation; human
subject protection;
independent review boards;
quality evaluation
On the Nature and Role of Peer Review in Mathematics
Line Edslev Andersen, M.A.
Centre for Science Studies, Department of Mathematics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
ABSTRACT
For the past three decades, peer review practices have
received much attention in the literature. But although this
literature covers many research fields, only one previous systematic study has been devoted to the practice of peer review
in mathematics, namely a study by Geist, Löwe, and Van
Kerkhove from 2010. This lack of attention may be due to a
view that peer review in mathematics is more reliable, and
therefore less interesting as an object of study, than peer
review in other fields. In fact, Geist, Löwe, and Van Kerkhove
argue that peer review in mathematics is relatively reliable. At
the same time, peer review in mathematics differs from peer
review in most, if not all, other fields in that papers submitted
to mathematical journals are usually only reviewed by a single
referee. Furthermore, recent empirical studies indicate that the
referees do not check the papers line by line. I argue that, in
spite of this, mathematical practice in general and refereeing
practices in particular are such that the common practice of
mathematical journals of using just one referee is justified from
the point of view of proof validity assessment. The argument is
based on interviews I conducted with seven mathematicians.
KEYWORDS
Mathematical journals;
mathematics; peer review;
proof validation; refereeing
practices; validation
practices
