Tales of research misconduct : a Lancanian diagnostics of integrity challenges in science novels

Description

This monograph contributes to the scientific misconduct debate from an oblique perspective, by analysing seven novels devoted to this issue, namely: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1925), The affair by C.P. Snow (1960), Cantor's Dilemma by Carl Djerassi (1989), Perlmann's Silence by Pascal Mercier (1995), Intuition by Allegra Goodman (2006), Solar by Ian McEwan (2010) and Derailment by Diederik Stapel (2012). Scientific misconduct, i.e. fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, but also other questionable research practices, have become a focus of concern for academic communities worldwide, but also for managers, funders and publishers of research. The aforementioned novels offer intriguing windows into integrity challenges emerging in contemporary research practices. They are analysed from a continental philosophical perspective, providing a stage where various voices, positions and modes of discourse are mutually exposed to one another, so that they critically address and question one another. They force us to start from the admission that we do not really know what misconduct is. Subsequently, by providing case histories of misconduct, they address integrity challenges not only in terms of individual deviance but also in terms of systemic crisis, due to current transformations in the ways in which knowledge is produced. Rather than functioning as moral vignettes, the author argues that misconduct novels challenge us to reconsider some of the basic conceptual building blocks of integrity discourse. Read more... Abstract: This monograph contributes to the scientific misconduct debate from an oblique perspective, by analysing seven novels devoted to this issue, namely: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1925), The affair by C.P. Snow (1960), Cantor's Dilemma by Carl Djerassi (1989), Perlmann's Silence by Pascal Mercier (1995), Intuition by Allegra Goodman (2006), Solar by Ian McEwan (2010) and Derailment by Diederik Stapel (2012). Scientific misconduct, i.e. fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, but also other questionable research practices, have become a focus of concern for academic communities worldwide, but also for managers, funders and publishers of research. The aforementioned novels offer intriguing windows into integrity challenges emerging in contemporary research practices. They are analysed from a continental philosophical perspective, providing a stage where various voices, positions and modes of discourse are mutually exposed to one another, so that they critically address and question one another. They force us to start from the admission that we do not really know what misconduct is. Subsequently, by providing case histories of misconduct, they address integrity challenges not only in terms of individual deviance but also in terms of systemic crisis, due to current transformations in the ways in which knowledge is produced. Rather than functioning as moral vignettes, the author argues that misconduct novels challenge us to reconsider some of the basic conceptual building blocks of integrity discourse Front Matter ....Pages i-ix Introduction: An Oblique Perspective on Research Misconduct (Hub Zwart)....Pages 1-23 Conceptual and Methodological Framework: Lacanian Psychoanalysis (Hub Zwart)....Pages 25-55 Knowledge, Power and the Self: Preliminary Explorations (Hub Zwart)....Pages 57-83 Into the Twentieth Century: The Case of Robert Oppenheimer (Hub Zwart)....Pages 85-118 Phage–Ethics: A Lacanian Reading of Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith (Hub Zwart)....Pages 119-139 A Compartmentalised Culture: Snow’s The Affaire (Hub Zwart)....Pages 141-150 What Do Scientists Want? Perverse Incentives and Replication Traumas in Cantor’s Dilemma (Hub Zwart)....Pages 151-163 Tainted Texts: Plagiarism and Self-Exploitation in Perlmann’s Silence (Hub Zwart)....Pages 165-182 Suspicious Minds: Allegra Goodman’s Intuition (Hub Zwart)....Pages 183-196 Splitting and Conflation: Plagiarism in Ian McEwan’s Solar (Hub Zwart)....Pages 197-210 The Catwalk and the Mousetrap: Reading Diederik Stapel’s Derailment as a Misconduct Novel (Hub Zwart)....Pages 211-244 Concluding Remarks (Hub Zwart)....Pages 245-254 Back Matter ....Pages 255-263