Linguist condemns "moral depravity of ethics protocols"

George van Driem, Professor of Historical Linguistics at the University of Bern, minces no words in condemning the “moral depravity of ethics protocols.” He argues that human subjects rules primarily serve to cover the asses of Western universities while hampering linguists in the field and insulting the people they encounter. Paraphrasing couldn’t do justice to this marvelous essay, so enjoy the block quotations. Better still, read the whole thing.

[George van Driem, “Endangered Language Research and the Moral Depravity of Ethics Protocols,” Language Documentation & Conservation 10 (2016): 243–252, http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24693].

Strangers on a Train

In Patricia Highsmith’s novel, Strangers on a Train (adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock), a sociopath plans to get away with murder. Rather than kill his own nemesis and risk arrest, he will kill the troublesome wife of a stranger, and expect that stranger to reciprocate by killing his detested father. Since each man could arrange to be out of town at the time of his relative’s murder, each alibi could be ironclad.

Ethnographers Staci Newmahr and Stacey Hannem think this is a good way to deal with the IRB. The idea might be stupid enough to work in some cases, but it is also a distraction from the hard work of regulatory reform.

[Staci Newmahr and Stacey Hannem, “Surrogate Ethnography Fieldwork, the Academy, and Resisting the IRB,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, May 10, 2016, doi:10.1177/0891241616646825.]

Bioethicists learn from history

Now that I’ve had my rant about the Belmont Report’s year of publication, I can turn to the more substantive arguments of Barron Lerner and Arthur Caplan’s recent essay, “Judging the Past: How History Should Inform Bioethics." These scholars wisely argue against simplistic condemnations of past behavior, yet they also reject the other extreme of attributing all past misbehavior to the age rather than the individual. By understanding what choices were open to actors in the past, we can better assess the morality of their actions and the choices that we ourselves face.

[Barron H. Lerner and Arthur L. Caplan, “Judging the Past: How History Should Inform Bioethics,” Annals of Internal Medicine 164, no. 8 (April 19, 2016): 553–57, doi:10.7326/M15–2642.

The Belmont Report was published in 1978, goddammit!

Bioethicists Barron Lerner and Arthur Caplan have published a nice essay about using history to make better decisions today. I will comment on their main points in a separate post, but I want to address separately the authors’ repetition of a common error: the suggestion that the Belmont Report was published in 1979.

The Belmont Report was published in 1978, goddammit!

[Barron H. Lerner and Arthur L. Caplan, “Judging the Past: How History Should Inform Bioethics,” Annals of Internal Medicine 164, no. 8 (April 19, 2016): 553–57, doi:10.7326/M15–2642.

Emmerich seeks case studies about social science ethics

Nathan Emmerich seeks case studies about social science ethics for the SAGE Research Method Cases.

The Methodspace page explains:

This special collection will be edited by Dr Nathan Emmerich (n.emmerich@qub.ac.uk).  We are interested in cases that discuss substantive ethical issues or concern the process of securing ethical approval to conduct research. In both instances we seek accounts that will provide a description of ‘what really happened’ and offer lessons for those who are conducting similar research. These case studies will have significant pedagogical value whilst also engaging with current developments in the ethics of social science research. This includes the ESRC’s recently revised Framework for Research Ethics (FRE) and the generic principals of research ethics recently adopted by the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences.

If you are interested in publishing your experiences, disseminating your thinking and to promoting your research, or would simply like to discuss the possibilities further, please contact Dr Nathan Emmerich, at: n.emmerich@qub.ac.uk