Against the participation of psychologists in torture

A Call for Annulment of APA’s PENS Report

(www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens)

Over the decade since the horrendous attacks of 9/11, the world has been shocked by the specter of abusive interrogations and the torture of national security prisoners by agents of the United States government. Although psychologists in the U.S. have made significant contributions to societal welfare on many fronts during this period, the profession tragically has also witnessed psychologists acting as planners, consultants, researchers, and overseers to these abusive interrogations. Moreover, in the guise of keeping interrogations “safe, legal, ethical and effective," psychologists were used to provide legal protection for otherwise illegal treatment of prisoners.

The American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2005 Report of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (the PENS Report) is the defining document endorsing psychologists’ engagement in detainee interrogations. Despite evidence that psychologists were involved in abusive interrogations, the PENS Task Force concluded that psychologists play a critical role in keeping interrogations “safe, legal, ethical and effective.” With this stance, the APA, the largest association of psychologists worldwide, became the sole major professional healthcare organization to support practices contrary to the international human rights standards that ought to be the benchmark against which professional codes of ethics are judged.

The PENS Report remains highly influential today. Negating efforts by APA members to limit the damages – including passage of an unprecedented member-initiated referendum in 2008 – the Department of Defense continues to disseminate the PENS Report in its instructions to psychologists involved in intelligence operations. The Report also has been adopted, at least informally, as the foundational ethics document for “operational psychology” as an area of specialization involving psychologists in counterintelligence and counterterrorism operations. And the PENS Report is repeatedly cited as a resource for ethical decision-making in the APA Ethics Committee’s new National Security Commentary, a “casebook” for which the APA is currently soliciting feedback.

Equally troubling, the PENS Report was the result of institutional processes that were illegitimate, inconsistent with APA’s own standards, and far outside the norms of transparency, independence, diversity, and deliberation for similar task forces established by professional associations. Deeply problematic aspects include the inherent bias in the Task Force membership (e.g., six of the nine voting members were on the payroll of the U.S. military and/or intelligence agencies, with five having served in chains of command accused of prisoner abuses); significant conflicts of interest (e.g., unacknowledged participants included the spouse of a Guantánamo intelligence psychologist and several high-level lobbyists for Department of Defense and CIA funding for psychologists); irregularities in the report approval process (e.g., the Board’s use of emergency powers that preempted standard review mechanisms); and unwarranted secrecy associated with the Report (e.g., unusual prohibitions on Task Force members’ freedom to discuss the Report). These realities point to the impossibility and inadequacy of merely updating or correcting deficiencies in the PENS Report.

We the undersigned organizations and individuals – health professionals, social scientists, social justice and human rights scholars and activists, and concerned military and intelligence professionals – therefore declare that the PENS Report is illegitimate. We call upon the American Psychological Association to take immediate steps to annul the PENS Report.  At the same time, in our own efforts, we aim to make the illegitimacy of the PENS Report more broadly known within our communities.

(Visit www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens to add your signature)

Organizational Signers

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Center for Constitutional Rights

Center for Justice and Accountability

Defence for Children International – Palestine Section

Division 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology, American Psychological Association

Executive Committee of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (APA Division 24)

International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School

Massachusetts Campaign Against Torture

National Religious Campaign Against Torture

Network of Spiritual Progressives

New York Campaign Against Torture

Physicians for Human Rights

Program for Torture Victims

Psychoactive – Mental Health Professionals for Human Rights, Israel

Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Veterans for Peace

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Individual Signers

Note: Affiliations that appear below are for identification purposes only

Roy Eidelson, PhD, Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility; Associate Director, Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, Bryn Mawr College

Jean Maria Arrigo, PhD, APA PENS Task Force Member, Project on Ethics and Art in Testimony

Michael Wessells, PhD, APA PENS Task Force Member, Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health, Columbia University

Stephen Soldz, PhD, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis; Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Steven Reisner, PhD, Candidate for APA President; Clinical Assistant Professor, NYU Medical School; Faculty and Supervisor, International Trauma Studies Program, New York City

Brad Olson, PhD, President-Elect, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, National Louis University, Chicago, IL

Bryant Welch, PhD, Program Director and Professor of Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA

Trudy Bond, PhD, Independent Psychologist; Steering Committee, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Philip Zimbardo, President, American Psychological Association (2002); Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, Stanford University

Stephen N. Xenakis, MD, Brigadier General (Ret), U.S. Army

Nathaniel A. Raymond, Former Director of the Campaign Against Torture at Physicians for Human Rights

Leonard Rubenstein, Senior Scholar, Center for Public Health and Human Rights, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor (ret.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Robert Jay Lifton, Lecturer in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance; Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Psychology, The City University of New York

Manfred Nowak, Professor for International Law and Human Rights, University of Vienna; Director, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights

David Remes, Appeal for Justice; Guantánamo habeas attorney since 2004

Gerald Gray, LCSW, Co-Director, Institute for Redress & Recovery, Santa Clara University School of Law

Morton Deutsch, Past President, APA Divisions 8 (Society for Personality and Social Psychology), 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues), and 48 (Peace Psychology); Professor Emeritus, Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

Nora Sveaass, UN Committee Against Torture; Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway

Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, Economics (Harvard 1962), Senior Fellow, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Director Truth-Telling Project, Kensington CA

Herbert C. Kelman, PhD, Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Emeritus, Harvard University; Past President, APA Divisions 8 (Society for Personality and Social Psychology) and 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues); past member, APA Board of Directors, Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility, and Ethics Committee; Cambridge, Massachusetts

Steven H. Miles, MD, Professor of Medicine and Bioethics, University of Minnesota

Udo Schuklenk, PhD Ontario Research Chair in Bioethics, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada

George Hunsinger, Professor of Systematic Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary

Vincent Iacopino, MD, PhD, Senior Medical Advisor, Physicians for Human Rights; Adjunct Professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School; Senior Research Fellow, Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley

David DeBatto, former US Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and Iraq war veteran

Buz Eisenberg, Chair, International Justice Network; Attorney for Guantánamo detainees since 2005

Michael Ratner, President Emeritus, Center for Constitutional Rights

Vince Warren, Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights

Susan Opotow, Past President, APA Division 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues); Professor, City University of New York

Richard Wagner, Past President, APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology); Professor Emeritus, Bates College

Marc Pilisuk, Past President, APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology); Professor Emeritus, University of California; Professor, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center

Ethel Tobach, PhD, Past President, APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology); American Museum of Natural History, New York

Joseph de Rivera, Past President, APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology); Research Professor, Clark University

Marybeth Shinn, PhD, Professor, Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN

James Coyne, PhD, Director, Behavioral Oncology Program, Abramson Cancer Center and Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Luisa Saffiotti, PhD, President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Jancis Long, PhD, Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility

Frank Summers, PhD, President-Elect (as of January 2012), APA Division 39 (Psychoanalysis); Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

Alice Shaw, PhD, President, Section IX, APA Division 39 (Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility)

Jules Lobel, President, Center for Constitutional Rights; Bessie McKee Walthour Endowed Chair Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh Law School

Bernice Lott, Professor Emerita of Psychology and Women’s Studies, University of Rhode Island

Ruth Fallenbaum, WithholdAPADues Steering Committee

Dan Aalbers, WithholdAPADues Steering Committee

Anthony Marsella, Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility; Emeritus Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii

Ghislaine Boulanger, PhD, WithholdAPADues Steering Committee

Jean L. Hill, PhD, President-Elect, APA Division 27 (Society for Community Research and Action); Professor of Psychology, New Mexico Highlands University

Joseph Margulies, Attorney, MacArthur Justice Center, Clinical Professor, Northwestern Law School

Martha Davis, PhD, Visiting Scholar (ret.), John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Kristine Huskey, Director, Anti-Torture Program, Physicians for Human Rights; Guantanamo detainee habeas counsel (2002-2011)

Scott Horton, Columbia University School of Law

William P. Quigley, Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans

Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun Magazine; Executive Director, The Institute for Labor and Mental Health

Scott Allen, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside

M. Brinton Lykes, PhD, Professor of Community-Cultural Psychology, Boston College; Co-Founder, Ignacio Martin-Baro Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights

David Luban, University Professor in Law and Philosophy, Georgetown University

Jeffrey S. Kaye, PhD, Clinician, Survivors International, San Francisco

Sibel Edmonds, Founder & Director, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC)

David Sloan-Rossiter, Boston Institute for Psychotherapy; Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis

Stephen R. Shalom, Department of Political Science, William Paterson University

Andrea Cousins, PhD, PsyD, Massachusetts Campaign Against Torture (MACAT), Northampton, MA

Lynne Layton, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Deborah Popowski, Clinical Instructor, International Human Rights Clinic; Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School

Shara Sand, PsyD, Assistant Professor, LaGuardia Community College; Past Chair, Divisions for Social Justice, American Psychological Association; Past President, Division of Social Justice, New York State Psychological Association

Jose Quiroga, MD, Co-founder and Medical Director, Program for Torture Victims

Ana Deutsch, MFT, Co-founder and Clinical Director, Program for Torture Victims

Coleen Rowley, retired FBI agent and former Minneapolis FBI Legal Counsel

Donald Bersoff, PhD, J.D., Earle Mack School of Law, Candidate for APA President, Radnor

Michelle Fine, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, The Graduate Center, Montclair

Dan Christie, PhD, Past President, Div 48 (peace psychology); Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility; Prof Emeritus, Ohio State University, USA, Delaware, Ohio

Paul Kimmel, PhD, Past President of APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology) and Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Saybrook University, Panama City Panama

Lisa Hajjar, Associate Professor of Sociology, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Uwe Jacobs, PhD, CA

Tom Hayden, Peace and Justice Resource Center, Culver City, CA

Eduardo Diaz, PhD, Past President-APA Division 48 (Peace Psychology), Miami-Dade County Florida

Dan Mayton, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Lewis-Clark State College, Lewiston Idaho

Karen Hollis, PhD, President, APA Division 3 (Experimental Psychology); Past President, APA Division 6 (Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology), Granby MA

Kwang-Kuo Hwang, Ph.D., Psychology, National Chair Professor, National Taiwan University; President, International Association of Indigenous and Cultural, Taipei Taiwan

Maureen O'Connor, PhD Psychology; JD, Professor, City University of New York, Brooklyn NY

Corann Okorodudu, Professor of Psychology & Africana Studies, West Deptford New Jersey



Hector Betancourt, PhD, Past President, APA Division 48, Peace Psychology, Professor of Psychology, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda California



James Lamiell, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Dept. of Psychology, Georgetown University, Oakton Virginia



Joan Chrisler, PhD, Connecticut College, Milford CT

Jonathan Hafetz, JD, Seton Hall University School of Law, Brooklyn, New York

Are churches responsible for bad consequences if their believers take their guidance seriously?

It happens all the time. Religious groups (call them churches, cults or whatever rocks your boat), busily marketing their superior wares, sometimes resort to suggestions along the lines that if their followers pray hard enough their ailments will be healed, without any need for medical interventions. There are plenty of examples of this, both with regard to religious groups in the West as well as with regard to cults like Falun Gong in the East or charismatic churches in Africa. To give you just two recent examples. I was recently in China, visiting both the Chinese as well as the Shanghai Academy of the Social Sciences, as well as community groups agitating against Falun Gong in the country. 

Falun Gong in China

Falun Gong is a nasty, racist, homophobic and misogynist cult that has successfully misled some of its adherents to not seek medical care and instead focus on its exercise regime as a means to fight illness. I met a man in Shanghai who told the story of how his family fell apart, his wife (like him and his daughter Falun Gong adherents) did not seek care for her cancer and died eventually. The woman believed that following the Falun Gong guru's teachings would translate into her being cured (without having to seek expensive medical care). The Chinese authorities have outlawed Falun Gong because they consider the organisation a destructive cult. Us Westerners get of course all flustered about this, because we believe that religious freedom is of greater importance than preventing the harm caused by these groups. 

Synagoge Church of all Nations in Britain

In East London the evangelical Synagoge Church of all Nations reportedly promises its followers miracle healing. As a result of this several people with HIV infection chose to stop taking HIV medication. At least three reportedly have died as a result of this choice. The BBC reports that a growing number of evangelical churches in the UK is making wild healing promises (no big surprise, they're outcompeting each other on this front in order to attract followers). Unlike Falun Gong in China, the Synagoge Church of all Nations as well as others like it may continues its practices unhindered in Britain and other Western countries, and more people will predictably die. 

I think it is reasonable to ask why religious freedom is somehow valued higher than other convictions (of an ideological kind) in the West. If a complementary medicine company made such false healing claims for its products, it obviously could not hide behind the religious freedom mantra, hence state authorities in the West would prosecute the company for making demonstrably false claims resulting into harm. I do wonder why there is this special dispensation in the context of religious belief, at least when this belief is uncontroversially harmful (as is the case in the context of miracle healings). 

Should groups who make such claims not be forced to provide evidence in support of their claims, and lacking that evidence should they not be prevented from making such claims? Why is the religious freedom mantra seen to be a more significant societal value than harm prevention? Most of the liberal reasons for permitting such religious groups to spread their deadly teachings are unsound. Just think of John Stuart Mill's famous justifications for permitting such ideologies to be spread without hindrance: 1)  we better be careful with censorship as they might be right after all - in this context surely an implausible proposition; 2) society can learn from debating their erroneous ways by getting a better understanding of why they're wrong, hence we are better off letting them continue to spread their views - what exactly are we learning in the case under consideration other than that poorly educated, vulnerable people tend to fall for such deadly quacks, no surprise in that; 3) people grow as persons if permitted to follow their eccentricities - in our case there's little growth as people die as a result of bad choices they make based on religious propaganda. Much of Mill's case seems based on all sides involved in freedom of expression cases having a serious (of sometimes faulty) case, ie that at least they believe what they say. This is a somewhat doubtful proposition in the case of money grabbing cults, they're in it for revenue generation and gains in political influence. If they were genuinely concerned about their members well-being they'd stop peddling lies about the benefits associated with following the cult rules, given that all the available empirical evidence points against their case..

I am not suggesting here that the Chinese answer to the problem of destructive cults is perfect compared to what we have in the West, but at least there is some recognition that harmful propaganda must be confronted and cannot be led go unanswered by the state under the guise of protecting religious freedom. Surely people's well-being must come first. Well, truth be told, I am ambivalent about this matter. Any comments are very much welcome.

Organs transplanted from executed Chinese prisoners

My good colleague Art Caplan and a number of co-authors published a piece in THE LANCET, arguing for a boycott of Chinese (that's mainland Chinese) transplant programs, specialists etc. They seems to have two bones to pick with the Chinese approach to organ transplantation:

1) the country has no ethical system in place to decide who gets an organ. They suggest in their piece that it is odd indeed that there's brisk transplant tourism (ie foreigners getting deceased Chinese people's organs for hard $$ while there ain't enough organs to go around  for Chinese folks who would need those very same organs to survive). So, they allege queue jumping by the rich. That's a pretty good reason, if true, for criticizing the current transplantation policy modus operandus in China. Whether  or not that's a good enough reason to boycott Chinese scientists working in the area is questionable as the opportunity is removed to influence policy development in this context constructively.

2) Their second reason is a tad bit weaker, I think. Caplan and colleagues are upset that organs from executed Chinese prisoners are being utilized for transplantation purposes (often without their consent, they allege, or with consent obtained under duress - ethically invalid is how they describe it ). They also claim that prisoners on death row 'might' be executed (ie they don't seem to know, but suggest anyway) in order to meet demand for a particular transplant organ. It goes without saying that they argue (well, claim) that these executed prisoners' human rights are being violated by this practice.

This second argument I don't find persuasive (it could be persuasive, but the data required to make it persuasive are nowhere to be found in Caplan and co-authors' comments). My thinking goes like this: given that China executes prisoners regardless of the organ transplantation issue, it makes sense to me that the organs of deceased prisoners are utilized to preserve human lives that otherwise would be lost. Just to be clear, I am against capital punishment. I think it's a barbaric form of punishment, the risk of wrongful convictions is plain too high,  and there are other sound arguments against the death penalty. However, as long as the number of convictions in a country that executes prisoners on death row (as eg Caplan's country, the USA does) does not increase as a result of demand for  transplant organs, I wonder why we should not use their organs to preserve human lives that otherwise would wither. This in no way condones capital punishment, it simply suggests that IF a country has capital punishment we should make the best of a bad situation.

There could be empirical evidence that the number of death penalty verdicts increases in China when there's increased pressure to generate transplant organs. That would be a very good reason for being against such a practice, but there's no evidence in the article to suggests that this is actually the case. I did not realize that there is such a thing as human right to be buried with all your organs (at least not in international human rights documents that I am aware of). If this right existed, many countries would be in violation of this right, as there's plenty of countries these days where people have to opt-out to avoid having their organs used for transplantation purposes. In other words, the organs of all those who have died, and who didn't care to opt-out, forgot, were too lazy, etc, are fair game in these countries (Austria being just one of them), even though they never explicitly consented to having their organs used for this purpose.

Globe and Mail on End-of-Life Issues

Marina Jimenez of the Canadian national paper Globe and Mail initiated a meeting between three members of their Editorial Board and myself for a brief interview on end-of-life issues in Canada. The result is this Editorial and this interview. Check it out. Reading the spoken words now I realize how way more sophisticated written content is when compared to an interview transcript, let alone how typing errors like 'Advanced Directive' can sneak in (that can easily occur when one is not that familiar with the terminology). Interesting experience. I like the gist of the editorial, but be warned, do not assume that the views I express in the interview reflect necessarily the content of the Royal Society expert panel report that will be out later this year.

'Balanced reporting'

Something bizarre is going on. It was likely triggered by faux news outlets like Fox in the USA. In a nutshell these rightwing news outlets claimed to have come into existence in response to the biased reporting (aka 'liberal bias') of the mainstream media that existed at the time. Those mainstream media have essentially responded by moving significantly further to the political right in order to demonstrate how balanced they are.

A few weeks ago I bumped into a hardcore zionist Jewish guy who went on and on and on how biased the BBC is in favor of Palestinian views. He wanted more 'balance'. There we go again, 'balance'. I'm not going to bore you with my views on this dreadful conflict. I am interested in the idea that 'balance' for news reporting purposes means inviting 'the two sides', whoever they are, and trying to locate oneself in the middle somewhere.

This is such a bizarre proposition. What this means is basically that if you want a debate to move into your direction, you need to be as close to lunatic fringe at your political end as can be, simply because by virtue of doing that the 'balance without concern for content' brigade would automatically shift the centre of the debate closer to your end. On the other hand, having sensible middle-of-the-road views would mean that you're already giving up too much political ground to the other side, so you lose before you even get started.

A good example of this lunacy in terms of reporting is CNN. These days, reasonably sensible people from the Washington Post are usually 'balanced' with the lunatic fringe represented by 'reporters' from the Washington Times. The Washington Times was deliberately created by the rightwing Moonie Unification Church to ride on the confusion in many people's minds about the difference between the Washington Post (the real deal) and the Washington Times (the joke). The cover photo I am displaying here shows what I mean, look at how keen the paper is to have Obama and bin Laden in its headline. That CNN today routinely invites agitprop staff (aka 'journalists') from the Washington Times shows you how far the 'balance' lunacy has got out of control. CNN is actually misleading us into thinking that the Washington Times is a legitimate news outlet to begin with.

How about focusing on substance instead of trying to get the most radical views at either end of the political spectrum (or any other matter) to demonstrate 'balance'?

Write letters on behalf of Ramin Zibaei, Iran

Scholars at Risk (SAR) calls for letters on behalf of

Mr. Ramin Zibaei of Iran

August 30, 2011

Scholars at Risk (SAR) is gravely concerned about Mr. Ramin Zibaei, a scholar of psychology and dean at the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education in Tehran, who has been arrested and detained for several months.  SAR asks for letters, faxes and emails urging the appropriate authorities intervene by reexamining his case and, pending his earliest release, by ensuring his well-being, including access to family, legal representation of his choosing and medical treatment.

Scholars at Risk is an international network of over 260 universities and colleges in 33 countries dedicated to protecting the human rights of scholars around the world and to raising awareness, understanding of, and respect for the principles of academic freedom and its constituent freedoms of expression, opinion, thought, association and travel. In cases like Mr. Zibaei's involving alleged infringement of these freedoms, SAR investigates
hoping to clarify and resolve matters favorably.

Background

Scholars at Risk has learned that Mr. Ramin Zibaei was one of over a dozen staff and faculty members of the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education (BIHE) arrested in late May. He has been held since. Mr. Zibaei completed a Master’s level program in psychology at BIHE and has taught extensively at the institute over the past 8 years, holding positions as member of the psychology department and dean of social science faculty. Scholars at Risk
understands that since his arrest Mr. Zibaei has not been permitted to receive regular visits from his family and has not been granted access to legal counsel, in apparent disregard of international standards of due process, fair trial and detention as guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is signatory.

The suddenness of Mr. Zibaei’s arrest and the lack of any clear basis for his detention raise grave concerns about the ability of intellectuals and scholars to safely work in Iran. Taking into account reported arrests of several additional Baha’i scholars in May—and the reported arrests of scholars following the June 2009 election—Mr. Zibaei’s detention suggest a wider attempt to exclude Baha’i individuals from the higher education
community within Iran and more broadly to intimidate intellectuals and to limit academic freedom in Iran.  Scholars at Risk finds this suggestion particularly distressing and unfortunate, given Iran’s rich intellectual history and traditional support for the values of scholarship and free inquiry.

Scholars at Risk therefore joins with many national and international academic associations, human rights organizations and individual scholars in respectfully urging authorities to ensure that Iran’s obligations under international law are upheld with regard to Mr. Zibaei, his colleagues at the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education (BIHE) and other intellectuals in Iran. Scholars at Risk respectfully implores authorities to reexamine Mr.
Zibaei's case and, pending his earliest release, to guarantee his well-being and to ensure that he is granted access to family, legal representation of his choosing, and medical treatment.

Take Action

Scholars at Risk invites letters, emails and faxes be sent:



-respectfully urging authorities to ensure that Iran’s obligations under international law are upheld with regard to Mr. Zibaei, his colleagues at the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education (BIHE) and other intellectuals in Iran; and

-respectfully urging authorities to reexamine Mr. Zibaei's case and, pending his earliest release, to guarantee his well-being and to ensure that he is granted access to family, legal representation of his choosing, and medical treatment.



PLEASE WRITE TO:



Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran
c/o H.E. Mr. Mohammad Khazaee
Ambassador of Iran to the United States
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
662 Third Avenue, 34th Floor
New York, NY 10017, USA
Email to: iran@un.int
Fax to: +1 (212) 867-7086

COPIES TO:

Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Sadeqh Larijani
Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh
(Office of the Head of the Judiciary)
Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave. (south of Serah-e Jomhouri)
Tehran 1316814737
Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: larijani@dadgostary-tehran.ir or info@dadgostary-tehran.ir


Bahai International Community
United Nations Office
866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 120
New York, NY 10017 USA
Fax: +1 212-803-2566
Email: nyc@bic.org

The Honorable _________
Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to [YOUR COUNTRY]
[POSTAL ADDRESS]
[FAX]
[EMAIL]
(See http://www.mfa.gov.ir/cms/cms/Tehran/en/Missions/ for a list of Iranian embassies worldwide.)

The Honorable _________
Ambassador of [YOUR COUNTRY] to the Islamic Republic of Iran
[POSTAL ADDRESS]
[FAX]
[EMAIL]

Scholars at Risk
New York University
194 Mercer St., 4th floor
New York, NY 10012  USA
Fax: +1 212 995-4402
scholarsatrisk@nyu.edu

To view a model letter of appeal, as well as a copy of SAR's letter, please visit:
http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/Education-Advocacy/Alerts-Scholars-in-Prison.php.



This Action Alert was posted by the AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program on behalf of Scholars at Risk. SRHRL has not
independently verified its contents.

How not to argue against assisted dying

Assisted dying refers to various ways by which someone is assisted by a third party to end his or her life. In most jurisdictions this sort of activity is illegal, but there is a growing number of jurisdictions that have decriminalized assisted dying in some form or shape.

Frequently in debates about assisted dying opponents of decriminalization argue that if a society went down that road it would also find itself on a slippery slope. The slippery slope would entail that if we decriminalized we would quickly slide down this slope and end up in a situation where people get killed against their wishes. These arguments take various forms and shapes. I want to use this entry to show how not to deploy this type of argument, no more no less. This entry is not a plea for decriminalization, it merely offers a critique of typical examples of failed slippery slope arguments.

There are different types of slippery slope arguments. As people in philosophy will tell you, these types of arguments just about always fail. Let us have a closer look then on a commentary written by Alasdair Palmer of Britain's Telegraph newspaper. It's a decent contribution to the ever-growing case literature of failed slippery slope arguments.

I found the commentary in today's issue of the Telegraph newspaper. Let me give you a bit of background first. A 43 year old man suffered a devastating stroke some time ago that left him paralyzed to the point that all that he is able to do on his own is to move his eyes. He made it clear that he would like assistance in dying, because he himself does not consider his life worth living. For those of you who care about philosophy, you'd cash that out in terms of autonomous decision-making in a liberal democracy and all that, but as I said, I will not be making the case in favour of decriminalization today.

Telegraph writer Alasdair Palmer is one of those columnists that broadsheets tend to employ to encourage their readers to cancel their subscriptions. Writing for a conservative newspaper with a strong religious bent you'd expect him to take a stance against decriminalizing assisted dying. That, of course, is fair game, reasonable people can disagree on such a contentious issue, but you'd want to see each side at least to argue their case genuinely and not to engage in skirmishing activities. Here's how he builds his case, and here is also how you'd not do that if you agree with his conclusion, because he fails to make his case. Mr Palmer's offering consists of slippery slope dangers.

His argument goes like this (read it here, lest I be criticised for supposedly misrepresenting Mr Palmer's arguments): Mr Palmer sympathizes with the patient in question. Mr Palmer also concedes that he finds it difficult to argue that the patient should be condemned to continue living. The patient started a lawsuit petitioning that legislation is changed that reportedly permits his family members to kill him out of compassion without getting prosecuted for murder (recall that he can't move, so someone else would have to oblige him), but that doctors doing the same would still face the full force of the law and would be prosecuted for murder.

The patient and his family would prefer a health care professional to render the requested assistance, hence the lawsuit. Mr Palmer misrepresents this in a typical slippery slope offering, arguing,

The law starts by allowing family members to help others die. The next step is to rule that you don’t have to be a family member – anyone can get involved.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. It is not 'anyone' but members of one of the most heavily regulated professions, namely medical doctors. After telling us again how much he empathizes with the patient, Mr Palmer offers further slippery slopes:

If the law were to incorporate the presumption that those who help the very severely disabled to die should not be prosecuted, it would be very close to assuming that those who do away with the very severely disabled must be doing them a favour. That would not only be wrong, it would also, almost certainly, increase the number of cases of “mercy killing” that are actually straightforward murders.

Mr Palmer's slippery slope offering then is this: If you help competent disabled person A to die (for good reasons, and on their explicit request), society would very likely (ie 'almost certainly') experience an increase in the number of murders of disabled people that do not wish to die. - What is remarkable is that a supposed quality paper such as the Telegraph would publish such agitprop without blushing, but then, newspapers can't blush as we know. For starters, in the case under consideration we have a competent patient requesting assistance in dying. How would that translate 'almost certainly' into the killing of disabled people who do not wish to die? It obviously doesn't translate into this. Mr Palmer could then point to societies where assisted dying has been decriminalized (to be fair to him, he didn't wheel this 'evidence' out on this occasion, but it's usually deployed in the context of this argument), and where indeed cases of involuntary killing have occurred. The problem with this line of reasoning is that there is no evidence that this is a result of decriminalization. In fact, such abuse cases also happen in societies where assisted dying is illegal. Nobody from Mr Palmer's camp has as yet claimed that keeping assisted dying illegal is the cause for such abuse cases, while they have happily claimed this slippery slope for societies where decriminalization has occurred. No surprise then that Mr Palmer concludes,

...it is impossible to change the law in the way he’d like without producing a system that makes it easier to kill people who want to live.

Of course, the evidence he has provided in his article doesn't actually support that conclusion. Mr Palmer isn't finished with just deploying one bad argument. He makes a complete fool of himself in the remaining two paragraphs of his commentary. He goes on to suggest a further slippery slope, saying that if Britain extended the right to assist someone in dying out of compassion from family members to others, the country would run a 'terrible risk' of being overrun by Kevorkian type characters. You have seen already how slippery slopes fail. This one is another spectacular failure, even more obvious than the first slippery slope Mr Palmer served up in his short commentary. Kevorkian's actions could be paraded as a good example of the unregulated chaos that could ensue in societies that have not decriminalized. He killed patients in the USA when assisted dying there was outlawed. That's why he went to jail in the first place. So, the only slippery slope that one could conjure up in the Kevorkian context is that criminalizing assisted dying leads to Kevorkians (note that I am not making this case, what I am saying is that based on Mr Palmer's screwy logic this would follow).  - My own view would be, by the way, that if a society decriminalizes they should limit the right to assist to health care professionals as opposed to family members. At least health care professionals are governed by professional codes of conduct, whereby family members... oh well.

 Palmer ends his diatribe with a misrepresentation of the patient's legal case, too, by claiming that

...it is impossible to disagree with Martin when he says that he would prefer to be dead. But that does not mean that anyone else should be obliged to kill him.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that nobody is suggesting that doctors should be legally obliged to assist, but rather that they'd be able to assist if they wish to volunteer. I wonder whether we will see the Telegraph publishing a correction at some point further down the track.

And here ends the rant against slippery slopes in discussions on end-of-life decision-making.

More good news about our anthology! It's soon available in Polish as well as Korean language editions. Today I learned that a Spanish translation is also in the making!

On Assisted Dying

Here's a link to a brief CTV interview I did on assisted dying in Canada and two recent cases reaching the courts in British Columbia.

What Information Does Jack Layton Owe to the Public - if any?

Jack Layton, for my international readers, is the official Leader of the Opposition in Canada. He has been battling prostate cancer for some time. This week he announced his temporary withdrawal from his post, because a further cancer had been detected and needed to be treated. This all is, of course, terrible news both for Mr Layton personally, as well as for his party. Since then Canadian media outlets have begun speculating how bad his condition really is, pointing to his 'raspy voice' and the fact that he participated in Toronto's gay pride parade from the back of a ricksha, stuff like that. The question arose what levels of health disclosure public officials owe us. 


The Globe and Mail in Toronto's writer suggests that nothing short of a detailed disclosure of their health problems will do. He holds the disclosure the US President provides as a matter of course up as the gold standard. Of course, why such a standard should apply to an opposition politician (who isn't exactly in charge of the military or much else for that matter) isn't addressed in that article. There's no explanation in for why Mr Layton would owe us a full disclosure of his ailments along the standards the US President has to live up to. Why should Mr Layton's right to privacy not count? According to the G&M writer, it's because by having chosen to be in the public eye Mr Layton doesn't deserve much privacy. Really? 


Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr Layton owes us nothing at all with regard to the state of his health beyond stepping down when he is unable top fulfill his duties as an elected official, temporarily if he has reason to believe he will recover, or permanently if he has reason to believe he won't recover. We might be curious, but that doesn't establish a right to know on our part. Of course, Mr Layton has not stepped down as the elected representatives of his riding, so his electorate might want to ask him questions about his prognosis. After all, he can't currently meaningfully represent them. In case he's likely to recover he should say so, in case he's unlikely to recover he should resign his seat. However, does that mean he owes us details of his health situation? Not at all, it's none of our business. Do we need to know what other cancer he suffers from? Not at all, it's none of our business.


Elected officials owe their constituents just enough information as to permit them to make a determination on whether they remain (or will be in the foreseeable future) fit for office. No more, no less. The G&M writer offers us this silly line in his defence of his aggressive intrusion in Mr Layton's private life: 'Mr. Layton is a big boy. He can take it. The last thing he needs is pity.'  - The less said, the better.

Greyhound vs Via Rail

Interesting experience I had this week. So, I needed to book a last minute trip from Ottawa to Kingston. Stupidly I listened to advice and booked on Greyhound as opposed to Via Rail, as I normally do. So, I book a ticket for a particular day and time on Greyhound from Ottawa to Kingston. The price was negligibly lower than Via's would have been. Bizarrely on their website Greyhound tells you that just because you have a ticket for a particular service does not mean you will actually get on that service. It's first come first served. In other words, they might sell the 100 seats on a particular bus 20,000 times and leave 19,900 people in the lurch, they'd find out at the bus station, and Greyhound would try to put them on a 'later service'. Suffice it to say, there was no later service on the day that I planned to travel.

Well, I decided to take my chances. Expecting disastrous service at that stage I wasn't too surprised that the ticket did not actually print when I clicked the relevant weblink (the link was 'broken'). I tried on and off throughout the day, it never worked. Eventually I called Greyound's call centre where some smartie pants told me that I must print off the ticket. I asked him to try himself. He tried (me patiently waiting on my mobile phone), and eventually advised that they had a 'technical problem' (sounds like Air Canada, doesn't it?).

Incredibly, he then told me that he had to cancel my booking. I asked what that meant and he enlightened me me by telling me that he would cancel the ticket and I would get my credit card reimbursed during the next 7-14 days (!!!!), and that I would have to go to the bus station and purchase a new ticket. I asked whether that would mean a higher price, he confirmed that that likely would be the case.

So, everything here is Greyhound's fault. Their technical fault, their ticket cancellation, their requirement to purchase a more expensive ticket while having to wait 7-14 days to get the money back for the ticket they never issued. Does that strike you as possibly a fraudulent business practice? You sell on-line tickets you don't actually have, you eventually cancel them last minute and force customers to purchase a higher-priced ticket. Herewith added to my 'no go' list: Greyhound.

Compare this to Via Rail. I called them and asked whether I could use my Via points (Preference) to book a complimentary ticket for the next train available from Ottawa to Kingston. A pleasant person picked up the phone next to instantly (not the useless 'pick 1 for', 'pick 2 for', 'pick 3 for' that Greyhound keeps you occupied with), confirmed my details, booked my ticket, voila I had a valid booking, all in less than 5 minutes. No hassles, delightfully competent service. Another excellent experience with Via Rail. Love these people!

CMAJ Impact Factor and Impact on Authors

I got an interesting email from the Canadian Medical Association Journal today. The CMAJ informs me that its Impact Factor has increased from 7.3 to 9. So, in the average a paper gets cited 9 times per year during a two year window period right after publication. Congratulations to my colleagues at the CMAJ editing that paper. The journal I edit jointly with Ruth Chadwick, Bioethics, improved its Impact Factor sufficiently to jump into second places among journals publishing primarily bioethics content. We're currently standing at 1.64. This gives us about twice the impact of reportedly more 'prestigious' journals such for instance Ethics which languishes in the vicinity of 0.8 if I am not mistaken. Philosophers, no doubt, will point to the amazing 'quality' of what Ethics publishes, suffice it to say that that quality doesn't seem to result into a great deal of citations (ie use). Now, if a journal does great quality publishing but there's not much evidence of interest in that quality in terms of academics actually using it in their own published research,  how do those claiming 'quality' demonstrate quality? I'm not suggesting that impact equates quality either by the way, but at least impact points to utility, peer reviewed content is demonstrably being used by academics in their peer reviewed outputs. It's a reasonable start toward measuring a journal's relevance as an academic outlet.


Anyhow, I digress, I meant to write about the CMAJ email. Its marketing spiel (marked as 'this is not spam') is aimed at attracting authors to the journal based on its improved impact. Here's the offending line from said email: 'This is good news for authors who publish in CMAJ and hope to have their work cited.' This seems nonsense to me, to be honest. An improved Impact Factor as such is neither here nor there for authors who hope to see their work cited. Here is the reason: Most academics searching for research papers relevant to their own work will not look for particular journals. They will key in keywords in specialist databases (as well as google scholar possibly). Once they find relevant content they will download it via their library's on-line services. Nobody will go any longer into the library to browse a particular journal issue in the hope of finding relevant content there. It would be highly inefficient to do something like that. What determines whether someone cites your work, in this day and age, is whether the journal is widely available on-line, and whether the content of the journal is indexed widely in the relevant data-bases, whether you got the right title, keywords and abstract as well as the right content The Impact Factor as such has no impact on these crucial features that determine whether your paper will be cited. What it does tell us is that the editors of the journal made prudent choices aimed at increasing citations with regard to the papers they accepted, no more, no less. As any investment guru will tell you, current performance is no guarantee of future performance, so as an author you are on your own on this. There's no way you could ride (ie 'benefit') on the coat tails of the journal's improved Impact Factor. It's as simple as that. Let that not stop you at all from submitting relevant content to the CMAJ, just keep in mind that whether or not a paper they accept will be cited or not is up to factors other than their current (or future) Impact Factor. 

International Day Against Stoning

The barbaric Islamic Republic of Iran, among a few other medieval dictatorships, continues to practice the stoning to death of people. A number of brave activists in Europe, among them Mina Ahadi, Patty Debonitas, and Maryam Namazie  have started some time ago a campaign against this practice. I urge you to check out their website and support the campaign for the abolition of stoning as a form of punishment.

More confusion on plagiarism: The case of Johann Hari

If you were to read the right-wing papers in the UK you'd think Johann Hari (a high-profile left-wing columnist at the Independent newspaper who has also published for Slate and other outlets) had committed a terrible terrible crime. Not unexpectedly his enemies, of which there are surprisingly many, want to see his head (well, they want to see him fired). The plagiarism charge is currently being leveled against Hari all over the place.

What makes this an interesting case is the nature of his transgression. Hari admitted essentially to using content as part of interviews that was not part of the actual interview in question. Say, he interviewed Hugo Chavez. Hari would include in the interview quotes from sources other than what was said during the interview (but the quotes were nonetheless verbatim quote from the person he interviewed, it's just that the stuff wasn't actually said during the interview but was published elsewhere by someone else).

What is interesting here is that by standard definitions of plagiarism he has not actually plagiarised anything. After all, he didn't pass someone else's content off as his own. The people he quoted during the interview really said the things he quoted, but they did not say it during he interview. It would have been correct and arguably required to give the other interviewer credit (ie the person who got the quote he eventually quoted as if it had been said during his own interview).

What Hari did is no doubt a bit dodgy, but does it really constitute plagiarism? Clearly not, because the intellectual content was corrected ascribed to whoever was quoted. However, he should have given credit to the person who managed to get the quote in question from the subject of the interview.

Did Hari commit a capital crime here? I don't think so. One understands the campaign run by the right-wing media against an unloved left-wing commentator and competitor, but to my mind it's time to move on. Hari admitted his errors, promised to change his ways. That should be the end of it. Plagiarism  he did clearly not commit.

News from BIOETHICS and DEVELOPING WORLD BIOETHICS

The journals
We got our annual report from our publisher a few days ago. Much of the stuff there is confidential, of course (and would likely bore you, too). However, there's bits and pieces of statistics that you might find interesting. In case you don't know the journals, or don't know them well, Bioethics is now in its 25th year of existence. It publishes 9 issues per calendar year. Developing World Bioethics is now in its 11th year of existence. It publishes 3 issues per calendar year. The journals come in a package, so what it boils down to is a monthly publication schedule. Bioethics is also the official publication of the International Association of Bioethics. This essentially entails us publishing every two years a special issue with the best contents form the IAB Congress, as well as us offering deeply discounted subscriptions to paid-up members of the IAB. We continue to sponsor events held during the IAB Congress every two years. Recently we have also provided sponsorship to a postgraduate bioethics conference held in the UK.

Our reach and academic success
We have been able to increase the reach of both journals quite significantly in 2010. The journals are available in about 3,500 university libraries by regular subscriptions. A further 6,000 libraries in developing countries have access to the journal at this point in time. I should like to add that this - to my mind - puts to rest claims about the unavailability of our academic content in the developing world due to high subscription fees. A further 5,200 libraries worldwide are able to access our content a year after it has been published.  So, in total, slightly less than 15,000 libraries across the globe provide access to our content.

This wide availability has also resulted in another significant boost to article downloads from our journals. In total about 250,000 articles from both journals were downloaded in 2010.

The European Science Foundation has given Bioethics the highest ranking available in the philosophy category.

Our upcoming content
Ruth Chadwick, Bioethics' other Editor, and I have lined up a whole range of interesting special issues over the next few years, covering topics all the way from synthetic organisms to ageing.  In case you're one of our readers, give us a shout with suggestions for special issue topics. We are always keen to hear from you!

Publication ethics
On the publication ethics fronts, we have introduced extensive regulations on authorship and conflict of interest matters that we hope will keep us out of the firing line on these issues for the foreseeable future.

Editorial board, bias and peer review
Last but not least, following our most recent review, invitations will be going out to a few academics to join our Editorial Board. Funny enough, that should also put to rest any suspicions that you might have with regard to editorial bias. Of the new members on the Editorial Board of the journal two are colleagues with whom I had quite serious professional conflict in the distant and in the very recent past, respectively. None of that made any difference to our decision to appoint to our Editorial Board. What matters crucially are competence and reliability. Reliability of reviewers is becoming sadly an ever bigger challenge. You would expect that academics who themselves publish academic contents in academic journals would be willing to review colleagues' academic content (the golden rule and all that jazz). The truth is though that that is becoming ever more difficult. All too often the most experienced peer reviewers decline and editors have to move lower down the list of experienced and knowledgable academics. The same authors, in other words, who would be all too keen to have their paper reviewed by a top academic like themselves are all too often not prepared to provide a similar courtesy in return when they are being asked to review academic content. This is quite disappointing, but equally, until university administrations and research funders give credit to academics for providing such services to the academic community, it is understandable that individual academics vote for working on their own paper rather than reviewing someone else's paper. All I can say is that some academics are paradigms of how a professional should act in this context and others are paradigms of the how-not-to. The former probably do not know how grateful we really are to them, as journal editors, for their services.

Beware of Priceline's unethical business practices

Eish, the last few weeks have been an ongoing travel nightmare. I'm glad it's over for a while. 2 days ago I had to quickly book a hotel for a night in Toronto (while on the train on my way back from another journey). Like so many people I went to check out Hotwire and Priceline prices. For better or worse Priceline seemed (sic!) to offer a better deal on this occasion. That is, until I saw my booking. Let's leave for a moment their 20% taxes and charges. A very serious transgression is their underhanded selling of add-on products one does not want. Most of these sites when you think you've finally sorted out your booking prevent you from simply paying by forcing you to go through one or two pages of travel related goods and services that you usually neither need nor want to look at. That in its own right is bad enough but you can discount it as bad marketing efforts (as they annoy customers).

Princeline, however, has gone to unethical length here. They sneak default add-on purchases into your booking. So, when you finally see your confirmed booking (that they cleverly prohibit you from changing in any respect), you will see that they sneaked a travel insurance into your booking. It is a booking that you never pro-actively made and that almost certainly you did not want. They know that, of course, so among their other offers (where you have to click in order to book/buy), on the insurance occasion you have to un-click. It's easy to miss (they literally bank on this), and cleverly you only see the charge when your complete booking has been made and can't be changed.

The danger, in terms of permitting Priceline to get away with this is, of course that nothing would in the future prevent them from selling you other crap (unless you unclick purchases you have not even made!), After all, why not sell you a sex worker for the night (oops, you forgot to unclick, well tough...), or a bunch of roses delivered to your hotel room, toothpaste and the list truly is infinite.

So, my advice to anyone reading this is to stop doing business with Priceline until they revert to a policy where you proactively choose what you want to purchase as opposed to underhanded selling tactics designed to confuse you into purchasing stuff you never needed and certainly did not want to purchase. At this point in time this once reputable company operates like a bunch of crooks.

Self-Plagiarism - a misnomer if there ever was one

If you browse documents on academic misconduct you'll bump sooner or later into the term 'self-plagiarism'. Students in many universities are threatened with sanctions if they submit plagiarized as well as self-plagiarized content in seminar papers.

I take issue with this. There is no such thing as self-plagiarism. It's a misnomer. Plagiarism's defining feature is that it involves the theft of someone else's intellectual content and the attempt to pass off this intellectual content as one's own. So, I steal someone else's content and claim it is my own intellectual, creative contribution in a paper or some other medium.

What goes for self-plagiarism is nothing of that sort. I use my own content and recycle it in another paper I produce. This might involve using text blocks from an older paper in the new paper without referencing the text as such. Or it might involve the rewriting of text from an older paper in a new manuscript.


Now, because there is no theft of intellectual property involved, calling this plagiarism seems wrong to me. It also seems to me as if such behavior is not necessarily wrong. Let me give you a couple of examples. Say I invent a new method in genetics research and I re-use it time and again. Is it really wrong to copy-paste the description of my method in the method section of paper I produce? I doubt it. Equally, thinking about my own field. Say I got famous for having said something remarkable about the ethics of human enhancement. Obviously, I will be invited by textbook authors, journal editors, encyclopedia producers and whatnot to write my argument afresh for them. Is acceding to those requests really wrong? I doubt it. I might also be asked to reproduce my argument/analysis for a different audience (say a different language journal or a different audience comprised of readers of a specialist journal etc). Would it really be wrong to re-use content from an older paper I wrote without diligently referencing every single line of my own analysis? I doubt it. I also think that if you believe you have a really good idea, you'd aim to promote it, instead of burying it in one paper that might be missed by the community you hope to reach with your analysis.

Where what is called mistakenly self-plagiarism is wrong is:
1) when students are required to write an original piece for a seminar and it is made explicit by the teacher that they must not use content they produced earlier. The 'crime' here would lie in the violation of the rule though, and not in the renewed use of one's own intellectual material.
2) when the same argument is published in different journals with similar target audiences.  Doing this gives the mistaken impression that there's a deluge of interest in your particular analysis, while other content is prevented from getting published. Current guidelines tend to see this as a breach of etiquette rather than a capital crime (in publishing ethics terms).
3) more difficult is it when people re-use their content in multiple papers and then add it to their CVs. This is so, because these CVs are used to attract research funding (ie impress review committees), get promotions and stuff like that. I see this as more difficult, because more often than not, only bits and pieces of content are recycled. It's rarely the whole shebang published earlier. My view would be that the onus should be on the reviewers to ascertain the originality or lack thereof of papers listed on CVs. Alternatively, academics could be required to state per paper/book listed on their CVs to what extent the individual publications constitute original contributions. In any case, the violation here is not related to the integrity of the academic content but to do with other matters altogether.

My view would be that we should do away with the general term of 'self-plagiarism', because it is a misnomer, and that instead we should describe more carefully under what circumstances the recycling of one's own intellectual content is ethically problematic.  I hope to have shown that what is called today self-plagiarism is not at all always wrong, but that it can be wrong under certain circumstances.

I should stress what is true for everything posted on this blog, this is my personal view on this matter, no more, no less. 

Any comments?

Bioethics ranked top philosophy journal

Interesting, the European Science Foundation in the most recent incarnation of its European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH) has given Bioethics top billing in the Philosophy category. It is now INT1. INT1 stands for 'INT1 Sub-Category: international publications with high visibility and influence among researchers in the various research domains in different countries, regularly cited all over the world.'


Now we know. It's tempting to say that the hard work Ruth Chadwick and I have put into developing the journal over the last decade or so is paying off, but truth be told, these ranking remain pretty arbitrary at best. Either way, a great deal of thanks to our authors, Editorial Board members, peer reviewers and certainly our colleagues at Wiley-Blackwell are due!

News Corporation is at it again - this time attacking our libraries

Ebooks are a great idea. They permit you to conveniently download books from the comfort of your home, read them on trains and planes without having to slog much more than a kindle or its equivalent around. Importantly, they permit libraries to stock more content because they're not physically limited by shelf space.

Enter HarperCollins owner News Corporation (the owner of Faux News, as well as the Simpsons, the Times in Britain, the Australian on Down Under and any number of other mass media outlets from India to the USA).

Harper Collins decided to limit the number of users who can borrow its ebooks from libraries to 26 per book. After 26 check-outs the ebooks self-destruct. The argument is that books that are read by a lot of people will also eventually be destroyed and replaced by new copies. The trouble is, of course, that any book that falls apart after 26 people read it, is likely of pretty low production quality (ie News Corporation type quality). The magic number also assumes that all 26 readers read the book really thoroughly, turn every page and so on and so forth, when in the real world someone might just xerox a chapter for personal use, or read bits and pieces in different chapters. There are bound to be very many books that exist happily ever after even if 26 people borrowed them at one point or other.

As with so much of the digital-only stuff, the books the libraries purchase cease to be theirs. This publisher can delete them by remote at any point in time (here the magic number being 26 check-outs).

Here is a letter you'd write to the big-shots at HarperCollins, protesting their policy and threatening to boycott their products.

brian.murray@harpercollins.com

Mr. Brian Murray
HarperCollins Publishers
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022

Dear Mr. Murray:

I am writing to express my concern about a recent announcement by HarperCollins. I understand that you intend to place a limit on how many times libraries can lend HarperCollins ebooks. If you go through with this policy, library ebooks will self-destruct after they have been loaned out 26 times.

I urge you to reconsider this policy. Like many people, I respect and rely on libraries. The increasing popularity of ebooks is giving libraries a chance to reach people in new ways, continuing to spread literacy and engender a love of reading. Your proposed policy will hurt libraries and, more importantly, it will limit the options available for millions of current and potential readers across the nation. For that reason, I cannot see myself purchasing books or ebooks from HarperCollins or any of its imprints until you stop your policy of causing library materials to self-destruct.

Libraries do not abuse their relationship with publishers. I hope HarperCollins will soon return to treating libraries and library users with the respect we deserve.
Sincerely,

Oh well, democracy first-past-the-post style

Canada's progressive parties (ie the Greens, Liberals and the NDP) owe the progressive majority in Canada a very big apology. They (together with the country's electoral system) are primarily to blame for the fact that a 39% share of the vote translated into a majority conservative government. It's a silly system where such a minority of the vote (a significant minority of the vote against a 58% share on the progressive side of things) can attain majority power. I for one hope that the NDP and Liberals will stop slaughtering each other, get their heads together and create a social-liberal party along European lines to stand against the conservative minority in the country that otherwise will keep on running this place in perpetuity.

Part of the Liberal Party of Canada's problem is that it is not so clear any longer what it is that it stands for, ideologically. The liberal matters (privacy, abortion, gay rights, name it) have by and large been decided in Canada in support of liberal core values. It's not clear what else the party would have to offer to its electorate unless the conservatives decide to undermine those rights. Incidentally, how little the party has left in terms of ideological conviction is best displayed by the election of its Kingston and the Islands candidate, Ted Hsu. Hsu, a self-proclaimed pro-lifer, ran on a platform that was decidedly incoherent. He droned on about liking the Cuban health care system yet wanted to contract out government services. His campaign within the Liberal Party's for selection for the local candidacy for parliament was - in my judgment - decidedly homophobic in its implicit attacks on the only openly gay candidate who was also competing in that race. All of this - these days - is fair game in the so-called Liberal Party of Canada. You might want to study Hsu's supporters attacks on me on this blog. They truly speak volumes. It is no big surprise then, to my mind, that the Liberal Party of Canada has been reduced to what it is today. Political liberalism would show itself to be decidedly intolerant toward such behaviours and views. Hsu, by the way, won the local race. His main competitor on the conservative side of things was a candidate whose main claim to fame was that she doesn't like paying taxes. The choices the local ridings were given by the two mainstream parties (well, as far as the Liberals are concerned, formerly mainstream) were painful to watch in action.

One of the few bright sights in this election was that of the Green Party leader Elisabeth May getting elected to a seat - incidentally unseating a conservative government minister. Having been a Green politician in another life I am naturally thrilled that she made it, alas even the Green contribution to the vote splitting will undoubtedly have helped the conservatives attaining majority power.

Well, there we go, alea iacta est...

... and a Korean translation of 50 Voices of Disbelief

Great news! The anthology 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists that Russell Blackford and I put together for Wiley-Blackwell, is now also being tranlated into Korean! Korea, here we come :).

Why mention countries or regions when that serves no purpose

I got an interesting letter the other day, from academics in Turkey. For reasons that will become apparent sooner rather than later, I will likely be criticized for mentioning the country where the plagiarism occurred. The letter writers essentially are annoyed that in reports about plagiarism country affiliations of researchers feature prominently. So, the headline could say 'Harvard Hoititoiti Lab Researchers Caught Plagiarizing', but instead it says that ' US Americans Caught Plagiarizing'. The authors of said letter criticize that Western media and Western academics (the target of their scorn is an article in Nature) go out of their way to point fingers at countries rather than individual academics, just as if individual academics in a particular country plagiarizing something implicate many or most other academic researchers in the same country with wrongdoing. In this particular instance, under a big heading mentioning Turkey, in a kind of block in the centre of the Nature article, an Italy based academic is mentioned as saying that in certain cultures plagiarism is not considered deplorable. Anyone merely browsing the pages of Nature could be forgiven for taking home the message that plagiarism is not considered deplorable in Turkey, when really in this particular instance Turkish universities withdrew papers they considered plagiarized. That does not exactly suggest that they considered plagiarism anything but deplorable. So, what purpose did it serve for Nature to mention that the transgressions occurred in Turkey, and for designing the article in such a way as to suggest to the superficial reader that plagiarism in Turkey is not considered deplorable, when the opposite is actually true.

Interesting point that is being made by these academics. This nearly falls into the same category as racist talk (aka Black people are this, White people are that), but not quite so, given that it is superficially linked to a particular case at least. Still, it makes me wonder whether we should take country mentions out of paper headings unless they are relevant to the case. That's not to say that we mustn't add this kind of information within articles or in reference sections.

Webmedcentral - an early 1st April joke?

A few days ago I received an invitation from a computer to review a manuscript. The computer's name is Webmedcentral, it seems, and it's the latest incarnation of Open Access file uploading. At the moment you can publish (ie upload a file to said computer) free of charge, but that's gonna change by January 2012. None of the computer's content is indexed in any databases at all, except tragically by google scholar. 


The paper I was asked to review consisted of 427 words and 2 references. The computer explained to me that the paper had been published already, and that the review would take place after publication of the article in question. Authors could then publish revised versions of their article in response to the reviews received, or ignore the reviews altogether. Either way, said computer (hardwarewise not that different from other Open Access 'journals' - and neither quality wise in all too many instances) explains on its website that it has 'have full faith in the honesty and integrity of the scientific community and firmly believe[s] that most researchers and authors who have something to contribute should have an opportunity to do so.' Despite strong evidence of widespread cheating in academia trust is what drives this computer.  


How does this thing work then? 'We have introduced a novel method of post publication peer review, which is author driven. It is the authors' responsibility to actively solicit at least three reviews on their article. During the submission stage the authors are asked to provide details of three reviewers who are contacted by the WebmedCentral team when the article is published. Authors can seek more reviews, if they so wish. We discourage authors from choosing their reviewers selectively.'


'Our peer review process is author driven. With our innovative method of publishing, peer review takes place after publication. It is authors' responsibility to organise at least three reviews for their articles. We aim to generate an open debate on the article after its publication. WebmedCentral reserves the right to invite additional reviews as and when necessary.


All pretty clear: any crook can pick his or her best mates to 'review' content they have already 'published'. They're strongly encouraged not to be crooks, of course. That should just do the trick.


The computer mentions in passing  that it has neither an Editor nor an Editorial Board: 'With our model of publishing, we do not need an editor or editorial board for our journal. Authors are completely in charge of the entire publication process including soliciting reviews and submitting revised versions of the manuscripts if needed.' It's kinda unclear how a journal without Editor or Editorial Board is going to solicit  further reviews, 'if needed', but hey, minor detail in the big swing of the Webmedcentral universe.


There is a bit of confusion, too (well, I remained confused about the modus operandi). It seems as if you'd upload your papers free of charge to the computer, then have the article send to your three best mates whose compliments will also be 'published'. If they review more than three other files they can send more of their own non-reviewed drivel for publication purposes to the Webmedcentral server. Basic maths would suggest that soon review co-operatives identifiable by one's three best mates will monopolize much of Webmedcentral's file uploading activities. According to Webmedcentral the comments are also considered publications. It goes without saying that in this uploading orgy minor details such as doi identifiers are missing, but hey, it's a minor detail while you 'publish' a paper per hour to beef up your publications record. 


It's all pretty random and no doubt databases controlled by people as opposed to algorithms will not index stuff emanating from webmedcentral. Google scholar at least is happily indexing the contents on the Webmedcentral server. The price you pay for letting machines do the job humans arguably should be doing. 


The only nice thing is that webmedcentral could easily be confused with biomedcentral. It couldn't hit a nicer 'publisher' :-). 


Oh, the list of shame, aka academics prepared to be associated with this charade, is here. What people confuse with academic publishing here is academics publishing anything they feel like. No different to my blog really... feel free to comment (aka 'review' in Webmedcentral lingo).

Freshco and friends, why are you doing this to us?

I'm sure you also get those flyers during the weekend where supermarkets and other retail outfits try to persuade you to do your shopping with them. Invariably they've also sorts of special offers for us, usually involving buying more than we need of something (you know 5000 for the price of 1). Hence our ever growing mountains of rubbish.

Anyhow, so Freshco (a Canadian outfit) today sent me the flyer  that I am displaying to the left. You see the cheaper price guarantee. If I find the same product in some other store or some other flyer they will not just give the product to me at the same price, no, better even, they will 'beat' it. - The usual conditions apply. 

So, here are just a few of Freshco's conditions. They are both hilarious as well as offensive. They are unsurprisingly also more difficult to display, because they're longer than the original, seemingly straightforward deal. At least there's some information as to what 'beat it' means. And I quote: '... and we will sell you that item for 1c less'. Prior to getting that 1c discount on their best competitor you have to take the flyer to their store (yes, drive there for the 1c discount instead of buying it where it's cheaper to begin with, without the haggling). 

Anyhow, you might still think that it's worth it (for reasons unbeknownst to me), so to make things ever so slightly more complicated,here are a few minor additional conditions: 'Our major supermarket competitors', 'geographical trade areas' and 'comparable items' are determined solely by us and are based on a number of factors that can change from time to time.' So, you'd well head to Freshco, competitors' flyers in hand, to get your 1c discount per product, only to discover that, according to the store manager that you start haggling with, the flyer ain't from Freshco's 'major supermarket competitor' (ie your flyer doesn't count), or that the competitor is in the wrong part of town (ie 'geographical trade areas') etc etc. Random excuses are possible (you really would be bothered subjecting yourself to this sort of nonsense for 1c???).

Tesco in the UK was a tad bit more certain that its products really are the cheapest, so it offered to refund double the difference (as opposed to the ludicrous 1c Fresho is offering its price conscious customers). Well, that certainly flopped. They had to abandon the offer quickly because they could not afford paying out all those claims. No doubt Fresho ain't serious about its price guarantee otherwise it would not qualify the amusingly low-brow 1c deal on no less than 4 lines of smallest print. Really...

My view on offers like Fresho's is to always purchase from the retailer who offers you a decent deal straightaway as opposed to doing business with someone who first tries to charge you more and then offers you 1c (after haggling, and with said conditions applying) so that you do business with them anyway. I must also say that this sort of offer would annoy me sufficiently to stop doing business with Fresho altogether, simply because its marketing people tried to fool me with its 'beat it' promise. 

Let the buyer beware, true then, true now :).

50 Voices of Disbelief in Polish

coming in September, apparently.

Supporting the powers that are - Queen's Rector vs Queen's Principal

This likely is a first for me, at least on this blog. I agree with the powers that are (avid readers of this blog will know that I tend to enjoy being a thorn in their side).

It's a story about Israel (you might be tempted to say 'spare me the details'). I came across it because of Facebook. Facebook friends contacted me and asked me to sign a petition supporting the Queen's University Rector against demands that he step down. There is a lot of talk about academic freedom in that petition, please read it yourself. Now, our Rector is an elected student representative.  He wrote in his capacity as Rector to the leader of the federal opposition, Mr Ignatieff, defending Israel Apartheid week against criticism of that event, uttered by the Liberal politician. Israel Apartheid Week likens the state of Israel to - you guessed it - apartheid South Africa. I won't tell you what I think about Israel Apartheid Week, because that is not what this blog entry is all about. You are welcome to agree or disagree with the main proposition of Israel Apartheid Week, and yet you should be able to agree with me regardless.

The Queen's Rector was called in to the University Principal's office. Principal Woolf essentially told the Rector, Nick Day, that it was inappropriate for Rector Day to use his title as Rector to make the statement that he made. After all, the student body of Queen's University has taken no stance on Israel Apartheid Week (let alone Mr Ignatieff's statement), and so Mr Day had no reason at all to pretend he was representing Queen's University's student body when he wrote to Mr Ignatieff. Woolf here is showing himself to be way more sophisticated than his predecessor who did not hesitate to declare a few years ago that Queen's University would never support academic boycotts of Israel for reasons of academic freedom and whatnot, when (of course) Queen's University's governing bodies had taken no stance on this matter. Woolf, on his blog, makes quite rightly clear, that one could hold legitimately differing views on Israel Apartheid Week. At issue is that Mr Day chose to use his Rector moniker to impress Mr Ignatieff, instead of writing to Mr Ignatieff as Mr Day.

If the relevant student governing bodies at Queen's had taken a stance on Israel Apartheid week then Mr Day would have been entitled to write to Mr Ignatieff, especially if these bodies had tasked him to do so.

What's a bit puzzling is said petition claiming 'academic freedom' for the undergraduate student Rector. This strikes me as a rather bizarre complaint. Mr Day could have written to Mr Ignatieff and express his views as Mr Day (even as Mr Day, undergraduate student at Queen's University). Nothing would have stopped him. Asking that he refrain from using his title as Rector when he is not entitled to speak as Rector is not an infringement of academic freedom (if we assume there is such a thing for undergraduate students). I wonder what the same petitioners would have said if Mr Day had chosen to write as Rector in support of the establishment of a 'Keep Asian students out of Queen's Week'? Academic freedom? Really? Nonsense.


The question remains whether Rector Day should remain Rector Day or whether he should resign and become Mr Day again. If past experience is precedent setting, one could argue that given that the past Queen's Principal who confused her personal views on academic boycotts with those of the University was not forced to resign (over this matter), perhaps the Rector should not be treated differently. At the end of the day, this is a political decision the students need to make. I have no strong views on this one way or another.

Scientific misconduct

The news on research misconduct is coming in hard and fast. A Bradford University professor was reportedly caught having published content that he plagiarized from Indian academics.  Germany had its fair share of significant scandals fairly recently. Retraction Watch reported on Professor Joachim Boldt who had some 90 or so papers retracted because they involved academic misconduct of some kind or other. The country defense minister was forced to resign (mostly because of outrage among the conservative middle classes and widespread anger among academics) because his doctoral thesis basically was a patchwork of stuff he copied elsewhere. Der Spiegel weekly magazine reports that the head of sport medicine at Freiburg University is currently under investigation by university authorities for having plagiarized parts of his habilitation (a German kinda second doctorate that you need if you wish to go for professorial jobs - a waste of time by any stretch of the imagination, but that's a story for another day). As yet unsubstantiated rumors have it that he delayed his PhD student's thesis defence so that he'd be able to publish his habilitation first. The university also investigates claims that said professor's wife, in order to speed up her doctoral thesis defense misappropriated content from doctoral theses her husband supervised for her own thesis.

At Bioethics, a journal that I am associated with as an Editor, we had to face - in this year alone - two plagiarism cases, each time involving stuff we published being plagiarized elsewhere. One paper has since been retracted by BMC Medical Ethics, an Open Access electronic publication operated by Springer Publishing. The retraction did not occur until significant pressure was exerted on the reluctant publisher. In case of doubt, strangely, publishers and editors seem quite happy to cover their authors' tracks and opt for Errata as opposed to retractions, the dreadful word 'plagiarism' is avoided at nearly all cost by publishers and editors. It's unclear to me whether that is due to legal reasons as opposed to lack of insight on the relevant editors' part. The other plagiarism claim is still investigated. When you realize that we publish only between 55 and 65 manuscripts in any given year, that's quite a bad start into 2011.

In Britain the conservative paper The Telegraph reports the results of a nationwide survey suggesting that some institutions had to face down hundreds of cheating students in just one year. You'll be pleased to know that the supposedly best universities in the country, Oxford and Cambridge (where likely the pressure to perform is highest) reported in 2009/2010 12 and 1 instances respectively of cheating amongst their students. I guess, the good news is that once you've been admitted there you don't have to worry too much about getting caught while you engage in academic misconduct. Their  enforcement of academic standards is likely to be pretty lax indeed. Cambridge having caught one student cheating in said academic year seems to be the perfect place to study these days. I recommend the league table to you in case you consider enrolling in places where you stand a fair chance at getting away with cheating because nobody seems to bother checking too carefully. Go for those universities that report close to no students cheating, and you likely are on to a winner. To my academic colleagues asking for evidence I have to say that I do think students everywhere cheat in significant numbers. It's simply the case that some institutions care more so than others about catching cheats. A low number of caught cheats in my reality is not evidence of fewer cheats, rather it is evidence of lax enforcement and monitoring.

In unrelated news, the BBC reports that Germany is today the world's most popular country, closely followed by Britain...