Letters

Ditta Bartels' view that the Victorian government's Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act of 1984 is the correct model for regulating in vitro fertilization (IVF) (The Scientist, April 6, 1987, p. 11) is not an opinion that is necessarily widely shared. Even the Attorney General of Victoria who prepared the legislation told Time Australia (March 23rd, 1987) that embryo experimentation "raises the very fundamental question that some things are better left unsaid. I'm not saying that I espouse that or I regret legislating for it, but it is a question that is on the line. People have to face up to it. I think it is a pity if government and parliament run away from it, but it may be a political reality." The committee formed to evaluate and advise on matters relating to the Act, including any proposed research, has unanimously supported the proposed research referred to by Bartels as "attempts to combat male infertility by injecting dysfunctional sperm into ripe eggs" and the Victoria government has responded by introducing an amendment to the Act to enable this research to be done. The governor of the state has also been critical of legislation that seeks to prevent research in this area. Indeed, I believe that the criminal penalties of fines and imprisonment attached to failure to comply with the rather ill-defined and widely interpreted sections of the Act probably have very little support in the general community. It certainly is difficult to equate these penalties for destruction of pre-implantation embryos (for whatever reason or misinterpretation) with the acceptance in Australia of abortion and some methods of contraception. It isn't unusual in science that a diversity of opinion exists on the merits of research in any particular field. Indeed, there is much debate within the IVF fraternity about many aspects of present and future research and of clinical applications in the area. I have spoken against the premature clinical use of some developments such as the freezing of unfertilized eggs because we haven't properly assessed the possible genetic risks of this procedure. To presume, as Bartels writes, that we will pursue any research because we "have a vested interest in promoting [our] own research and that [we] will exaggerate its benefits to further [our] needs" is insulting and derogatory. Bartels' implication that IVF researchers have no scientific ethics deserves the contempt of similar unsubstantiated judgments passed on any other group of people. While the issues of IVF research should be debated, the proposals should be examined with the care we accord published scientific articles. To trivialize the initial cleavage stages of embryonic development by using them in academically interesting research is not justified, and I have never read a research grant from IVF scientists that has proposed this. I suppose it is asking far too much to hope that scientists for and against the actual research proposed might acquaint themselves with all the facts as we would expect in any reasonable scientific forum. —Alan Trounson Center for Early Human Development Monash University, 172 Lonsdaie St. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3000 Another Iceberg in the Literature on Fraud Kudos to Rex Dalton and The Scientist for a needed glimpse at the erstwhile "honorary co-authors" (to use Stewart and Feder's term) of researchers accused of or admitting to acts of fraud (May 18, 1987, p. 1). The piece adds a perspective on research misconduct that has been curiously missing among the dizzying array of accusations, denials, investigations, and interpretations by participants, observers and analysts of fraud in science. The profile of the young collaborator victimized by a "gift authorship" is sad indeed: naivete, the yearning for publication credit, and exploitation may go hand in hand. But surely this explanation is the most individualistic of the lot. Are we witnessing merely a series of isolated anomalies? Dalton's interviews yield a fuller portrait: status-hungry researchers seek the next grant and simultaneously the approbation of the fatherly lab chief. They co-opt unknowing associates through flattery and the prospect of adding another paper to their c.v.s. What are the pressures in the lab environment that allow such behavior to run amock, perverting the division of research labor and feeding the lab chief's expectations over the precocious postdoc's productivity and his (has it ever been a her?) career? Interviews "with nearly a dozen research-era" in short only begin to reveal a more complex picture of the social structure of fraud. It would be valuable to learn how many honorary co-authors refused to talk to Dalton, how many he called in all, how he defined the "best-known cases of fraud" and so forth… The coauthors of fraudulent papers make up a unique data source that journalists and social scientists have not systematically tapped. If we are to understand the dynamics underlying the unthinkable practices we label as deviant and injurious to both the institution of science and to individual careers, then more systematic scrutiny of the principals in research misconduct must follow. Dalton has pointed the way. While it sure beats indifference or resentment, I suspect his commentary by co-authors exposes just the tip of another iceberg floating in the literature on fraud in science. —Daryl E. Chubin Office of Technology Assessment U.S. Congress Washington, DC 20510 Departmental Politics Affect Publishing, Too The article "Opting Out of the Numbers Game" does not touch on one crucial aspect of the promotion and tenure process—the departmental review. There we find all the subjective processes—the intra-departmental jealousies and hatreds, the political infighting, cronyism, toadying and so forth—in all their strength. Quality of publication doesn't mean a damn thing in such cases. I know a man in the history department at a SUNY college who published and did all the other things considered in the promo-tion process. However, he is a Marxist, is outspoken and aggressive, and rather obviously contemptuous of some of his colleagues—in short, somewhat difficult. He was turned down for promotion despite his more than adequate academic record, and had to take his case all the way to the chancellor in Albany to get his promotion. I also know of a botanist at a college in New York City whose scholastic record is excellent, even exemplary. He has many papers of excellent quality. He was up for tenure, and was requested to supply not only his papers, but 40 (!) references. He did so, and all of them praised him highly. Did he get tenure? No. Why not? Because the biology department is completely dominated by molecular biologists who don't understand the need for organismal and systematic biology and who don't want such types around any-how, and because the university doesn't want to tenure too many people, regardless of their field or qualifications. What are people to do when faced with such happenings? They produce in quantity, I suggest, because when they are job hunting as a result of being frozen out of their current job by such hostility or bureaucratic rigidity, they know that deans and vice presidents, generally not knowledgeable in the applicant's field, go by quantity. —H. David Hammond Scientific Publications Dept., New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY 10458 Author Finds Little Wisdom In Review of His Book May I comment on the review of my book The Wisdom of Science by Alexander Rosenberg (The Scientist, February 23, 1987, p. 23)? I knew my book was trespassing on the sacred preserves of the philosophers of science, but I didn't expect the protest to be quite so splenetic! Not only does Rosenberg misunderstand every argument he chooses to criticize, but he mistakes the whole purpose of the book. For example, his complaint that my readers will put it down with no "real insight" into thermodynamics or Bell's theorem is absurd! It was not written for philosophers of science who write books for each other and whose works are as incomprehensible to the general public and to most working scientists as the works of theologians are to the average churchgoer. It is written in straightforward language, with pictures, to tell ordinary mortals not more of science but more about science. I am sorry Rosenberg doesn't like the style—all I can say is that most of my readers do. I would dearly like to refute every single point Rosenberg makes, but I have space to mention only two. In criticizing my discussion of the support of basic research, he fails completely to grasp my point that in seeking such support scientists cannot, also, rely on the cultural value of basic research but must learn to show its connections with some practical results that the people who control the funds can readily appreciate. In my final chapter on the relations between science and religion, I suggest that science tries to make better sense of this mysterious world in terms of observation, experiment, reason and working hypothesis, while religion does so in terms of ideas about meaning and purpose. Any reconciliation between science and religion must be based on the recognition that they are neither rivals nor alternatives but are both attempts to interpret the same mysterious world. Rosenberg rejects this idea as "glib" on the grounds that in the scientific view, meaning and purpose are "just natural properties to be explained by the operation of underlying physical processes." He is certainly entitled to that belief, but he cannot claim that is an accepted part of the scientific view. My book is intended to clear away some of the popular misconceptions about science and to put in their place an appreciation of the new ideas as well as the new things which it brings to our culture. It is to be regretted that Rosenberg's review may well prevent this timely message from reaching a wider public. —R. Hanbury Brown Dept. of Physics University of Sydney 37 Beatty St., Balgowlah N.S.W 2093 Australia

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