$Id: Padian-letter-to-Fleck.txt,v 1.2 2008-05-29 13:54:29 mike Exp $

Copied and pasted from the Albuquerque Journal blog for 23 May 2008:
http://www.abqjournal.com/abqnews/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7346&Itemid=49

    There's something for everyone to like -- and dislike -- about the
statement by the Ethics Education Committee. Emphasis on the word
"education:" they don't want to be a court, and so their tone of
"mistakes were made" will not satisfy those who want exoneration of
one party or another.

    Really, what nearly everyone has been asking for all along is due
process, and there it is. And there are a lot of constructive points
in the statements.

    The statements about the need not to be overly competitive but to
support junior workers, about the clear bias in the Museum's handling
of the complaints, and about the editorial practices of the Museum's
Bulletin series seem to be direct criticisms of Spencer and his
colleagues, and they're difficult to wave away. But the EC's
statements give him the opportunity and the mandate to address these
points without feeling under censure, which is good for the Museum.

    There are very strong statements about editorial practices and
museum practices, which will inevitably be known as the "Lucas rules"
as a result of this case. Most professionals would have thought that
most of them hardly needed to be articulated, that they are part of
the common ethical compass of the field. But the stories of many young
workers -- who are not always blameless themselves -- suggest that, as
in any walk of life, continuous education is needed, if only to avoid
potential misunderstandings.

    I disagree that Parker needed to get permission or to inform Lucas
et al. in advance of his taxonomic conclusions. They had already
published theirs on several occasions. Every qualified worker has a
right to access to published specimens to check published conclusions,
and to come to different ones as the case may be. That's how our
science tests its hypotheses; you can't do it any other way.

    It is expected that students will publish the results of their
theses, and so when Martz sent a copy of his to Lucas et al. as a
courtesy, he was effectively notifying them of the completion of his
work and the implicit intent to publish. In hindsight, they should at
least have checked with him before publishing virtually all the
conclusions of his thesis and arguing with them. The EC's view that
students should be "wary about circulating their work" until it's
almost published seems to acknowledge that there are sharks out there,
and it comes close to blaming the victim. I'm concerned about the
effect that statements like that may have on younger workers.

    I don't agree that internet postings made it more difficult to
assess the case. The documents received by the EC were all that they
could and did act upon. Without the internet postings the incidents
would have gone quietly away. Now, at least, there is a chance for
broad education, which will for the first time be part of the SVP
meeting in the Fall. So let's get over the accusations and move
on. This is really a very small part of what goes on in our field (or
any field), and it's time to get back to normal science and build on
this.