Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Citation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Citation. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

The Future of Morality, at Every Internet User's Fingertips

By Tim Hwang
The Atlantic
Originally posted August 5, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

The choice not to link is therefore a personal moral act: It invokes an individual responsibility around making content accessible to others online. The economics of advertising are such that linking provides a frictionless channel for an audience’s attention (read: money) to reach content. The web of information stitched together by an individual as they browse and publish across the Internet is also implicitly a web of support for the content being linked to.

This shuffles up our traditional notions of what it means to link. Linking is tangled up with our concepts of proof and good argumentation online. One links to something else in order to provide a citation that backs up a point—that’s how I’m using links in this very article, for instance. The often-heard call of “citation needed” on Wikipedia echoes much of the same functionality.

Choosing not to link in that context represents a belief that the ethical duties around linking will sometimes outweigh the need to use linking to facilitate discourse and debate online. In some ways, it implies that the latter use is the lesser necessary as the ability to find information has grown enormously from the early days of the web.

The entire article is here.

Note: The article provides examples of why linking may be rewarding inappropriate, unethical, or immoral acts by internet sites and authors.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

McGill reprimands prof over ghostwriting scandal

By AARON DERFEL, Gazette Health Reporter
Barbara Sherwin
McGill University has formally reprimanded senior professor and researcher Barbara Sherwin for failing to acknowledge a ghostwriter hired by drug company Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in a paper Sherwin wrote in 2000.
However, the university has decided against sanctioning Sherwin, who is a James McGill professor of psychology, obstetrics and gynecology.
In August 2009, Sherwin's name appeared in court documents in a class-action suit launched by 8,400 women against Wyeth. The documents revealed that Wyeth paid a New Jersey professional-writing firm, DesignWrite, to produce a paper on treatment options for ageassociated memory loss that was eventually published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Sherwin was listed as the sole author of that paper, even though Karen Mittleman, an employee of DesignWrite, was involved in the process. The paper was published just when critics started raising doubts about hormone-replacement therapy.
Wyeth - through DesignWrite - had commissioned at least 40 scientific papers endorsing the therapy. The drug company (now part of Pfizer) had a vested interest in HRT, as sales of its hormone drugs soared to almost $2 billion in 2001.
Shortly after the revelations from the court documents were made public, Sherwin issued a written statement in which she admitted to making "an error" in agreeing to have her name attached to the article without making it clear that there was another author.
"I believe the article, which was peer-reviewed, represented sound and thorough scholarship, and in no way could be construed as promotion for any particular product or company," her statement read.
Still, an eight-month investigation found that Sherwin should have credited Mittleman.
The entire story can be read here.