What a tangled web we weave

Recent months have seen a spate of disturbing science stories; spoofed studies from an NIH post doc, fraudulent use of public funds, faked pain research that involved wholesale confabulation of studies, hundreds of thousands of dollars of unreported pharmaceutical company payola to a major psychiatrist, and on a lighter note, a __mea culpa__ from the perpetrators of a purported medical condition--cello scrotum.

But all of this deception begs a deeper question. Why does such fraud occur? This can be something of a touchy topic, with plenty of motives suggested. Some indicate that stress is a primary culprit behind unethical research behavior. But this does not account for the fact that most researchers--even those under severe stress--are not unethical. Lax supervision has also been suggested, but plenty of researchers are highly ethical whether the supervision is tight or lax. To better understand the phenomenon of profoundly unethical behavior, I spent six careful years writing linkurl:__Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend__.;http://www.barbaraoakley.com/ As I describe in the book, there is a raft of hard scientific evidence supporting the idea that a small but non-negligible percentage of everyday people--not just the Hitlers, Idi Amins, and out-and-out psychopaths--are innately of dubious morals. Building on earlier research that linkurl:showed;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15877765?ordinalpos=20&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum a substantial genetic risk for psychopathy in 7-year-olds, researcher linkurl:Essi Viding;http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/Research-Groups/Developmental-Group/group-members/MemberDetails.php?Title=Dr&FirstName=Essi&LastName=Viding and her colleagues at King's College, London found linkurl:evidence;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19278671?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum for a range of more subtle effects related to the genes involved in psychopathology. linkurl:Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg;http://frontiersin.org/neuroscience/profiles/andreasmeyer-lindenberg/ and other well-known researchers at NIH have linkurl:expanded;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569698?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus on earlier linkurl:work;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12161658 by linkurl:Avshalom Caspi;http://psych.wisc.edu/faculty/bio/NewCaspi.html related to the contribution of the X-linked __MAOA__ gene to impulsive aggression. Researchers have also identified genetic linkurl:links;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8238637 for sadism and narcissism, which can allow for easy justification of almost any amoral activity. Borderline personality disorder, which is often characterized by manipulative and deceitful behavior, has been found to have strong linkurl:genetic components;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18312122?ordinalpos=4&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum and is far more linkurl:prevalent;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18426259?dopt=Citation than had previously been thought.Of course, some decent people without a strong biological push toward bad behavior can still be brought low by an abusive upbringing. Thus, one might think that simply eliminating the abusive upbringing would solve the problem for everyone--but that's not necessarily so. If a person possesses a profound biological predisposition for nastiness, an overly-permissive environment can allow self-esteem to linkurl:flower,;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18193991?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum maturing the individual into a full-blown manipulator. In any case, there appears to be a small percentage of people who are naturally untrustworthy, irrespective of upbringing, culture, religious background (or lack thereof), or education. Innately dubious morals are something we all sense intuitively, or learn about through the hard knocks of life, although psychology and sociology have done their best to train people to think otherwise. For example, the "science" behind linkurl:Philip Zimbardo's;http://www.zimbardo.com/ linkurl:Stanford Prison study,;http://www.psychologymatters.org/spe.html which blames social forces and what Zimbardo terms "the System" for the vast majority of malevolent and amoral behavior, is still taught in high schools and universities nationwide. Zimbardo's study, like linkurl:many such studies;http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Social-Psychology-Experimental/dp/0202307433/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238082296&sr=8-7 in the social sciences, has been shown linkurl:to;http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/5/615 linkurl:contain;http://www.angelfire.com/or/sociologyshop/frozim.html linkurl:fundamental;http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/Zimbardos_%20study_%20February_19751.pdf linkurl:problems,;http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/5/603 including an unorthodox interpretation of the Mach IV test for Machiavellian behavior and a complete disavowal by the ex-convict who attempted to help Zimbardo design the study. The pervasiveness of Zimbardo's promotional efforts regarding his study, which was never published in a peer-reviewed journal, has made it difficult for people to accept sound scientific findings related to people's character and to form coherent theories that actually address the root of unethical behavior. If a child or adult shows evidence of conduct disorder, our immediate reaction is an old-fashioned, knee-jerk: "What did those parents do to the child?" This resembles the attitude fifty years ago regarding conditions such as autism and schizophrenia, which were blamed on "cold parenting." But the parents of ill-behaved kids may have done nothing at all to hurt the child, instead being at their wits' end trying to find help. Without acknowledgement of the biological as well as the environmental causes of amoral and unethical behavior, how can they possibly find that help? And how can we better understand how to prevent amoral and unethical behavior in the laboratory, the home, politics, business, religion, or society as a whole?It's time to throw off the shackles of social psychology research with no basis in science, and be honest about the intertwined environmental and neurophysiological causes of unethical behavior. Without this, no real progress can be made.linkurl:__Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend__,;http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Genes-Hitler-Mothers-Boyfriend/dp/1591026652/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224009617&sr=8-1 by Barbara Oakley, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2008. 473 pp. ISBN: 978-1-59102-665-5. $18.98.linkurl:__Barbara Oakley,;http://www2.oakland.edu/users/oakley/ Ph.D., P.E., FAIMBE, is an Associate Professor of Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. She is currently working on an edited volume as well as a trade book on the neurological, evolutionary, and cultural aspects of pathological altruism.__
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Doctor faked pain studies;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55503/
[11th March 2009]*linkurl:Cornell settles NIH fraud lawsuit;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55499/
[10th March 2009]*linkurl:The lighter side of scientific fraud;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/55383/
[28th January 2009]

What a tangled web we weave

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What a tangled web we weave

The Scientist ARCHIVES

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Meet the Author

Barbara Oakley

Related Research Resources

How Do Embryos Know How Fast to Develop

Research Resources

Podcasts

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eBooks

Become a PCR Pro

Embracing Polypharmacology for Multipurpose Drug Targeting

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