Research integrity and philosophical traditions

Different philosophical traditions exist to describe the relationship of science with the world it aims to access and describe. Some of those traditions grant science unimpeded access to reality, whereas others argue that science and scientists can only access reality through senses, through computations of impressions or even not at all. This manual does not provide an overview of these traditions – even a summary would be well beyond the limitations posed by this text. Here, we will introduce a few relevant variations across such philosophical traditions and make explicit what type of consequences for research integrity they may have.

Three positions

Logical Positivism

Positivism states that all our knowledge is based upon sensory experience, our observation of the world, which is subsequently interpreted. Only when observations are verified, they can achieve status as evidence, supporting facts and ultimately truth. Knowing starts with observing. Theory follows. The more observations support the theory, the more likely it is, that it is true.

Critical rationalism

Critical rationalism states that we cannot observe without pre-existing theoretical understandings of the world. Knowing starts with theory. Observations are required to test the theory. Critical rationalism states that through critique we can get closer to the truth. Confirmation or verification cannot do that – only the active attempt to disprove a theory. Observations are required in the context of disproving. The more attempts to disprove a theory fail, the more likely it is, that the theory is true.

(Social) constructivism

Social constructivism states that our understanding of the world is actively constructed, and that facts or truth are not discovered, but made. Scientists are the key, but not the only, actors engaged in constructing facts and consensus about them is what establishes them as true. Social constructivism puts credibility and consensus ahead of truth: only with enough credibility and a consensus that is shared widely enough and by the right actors, a theory or claim will acquire the status of truth or fact. In the sociological study of how consensus arises and how credibility is gathered, a lot of ingredients begin to matter that did not matter beforehand: who came up with a claim or theory? What is this person’s status? That status can be about the employing institution, or an individual’s track record. It can be about the rhetorical strategies employed, social ties between institutions and individuals that existed before the claim was ever coined. The study of consensus-building is about power distributions: one who has little power cannot build international consensus by him- or herself – powerful and strong allies with international reputation and prestige are required to lift the status or credibility of a claim. Consensus is social and political and as a consequence, so is science and its claims. Knowing requires alliances and the stronger the alliance, the trueer a fact or theory becomes.

Consequences for research integrity

What do these different philosophical traditions bring to the debate on research integrity? First, we have to acknowledge that they are not equally distributed among research professionals. While social constructivism is a domain mostly occupied by sociologists of science, logical positivism has been abandoned by most philosophers of science since the 1970s. Despite this, logical positivism or closely related positions are still very dominant in the images of science that scientists have themselves as well as being a large and significant part of the public credibility that underpins science. Other positions exist (including relativism, scientific realism, actor-network theory, empiricism, etc.) all with their own interpretations of how the sciences are able to produce knowledge.

Research integrity is meant to safeguard the capacity, the ability to make knowledge, that we attribute to the sciences. However, a different epistemic position translates into a different process to safeguard. In positivism, the key element granting science access to knowledge is its ability to observe untainted. In rationalism, science’s capacity to create knowledge is mainly understood as its ability to critique. In constructivism, science’s ability to create knowledge is shaped by its ability to persuade, convince and to find allies. Not only require all three different safeguards, more strikingly, the safeguards required from one epistemic position may negatively influence practitioners’ adhering to a different philosophy’s ability to produce knowledge.

To safeguard science’s ability to observe freely and to prevent those observations to be coloured, influenced or downright corrupted by ideologies, hope or potential financial reward, would require the design of a practice, as well as the education of practitioners, targeted at keeping those influences away. In practice, this can take many shapes, but it refers to one of the Mertonian norms – disinterestedness (see chapter on conflicts of interests for more details), striving to keep science pure. Social constructivism, however, relies on such connections – to other peers, but also to outside actors including companies, NGOs, public associations, political organizations and so much more.

Research integrity in practice is thus dependent on the philosophical tradition that describes the relationship between data, evidence, results and ultimately truth (with varying definitions of all of them). No one considers thought experiments to be examples of data fabrication because we recognize that thought experiments stem from a specific epistemic tradition allowing these routes towards knowledge. In most other cases, recognizing relevant epistemic differences will be more difficult.

However, such matters are rarely discussed at large, often because practitioners are unaware of their own conceptualizations – they just represent the norm in the practice they are engaged at. This means that such conversations require negotiations and explications, and existing guidelines need to be read, understood and applied within the limits of the epistemic framework they originate from. Guidelines, such as the European Code of Conduct or the Singapore Statement are products of the scientific community itself, although heavily supported in their writing, by professional research integrity experts, and largely conceptualize science in a positivist sense.

Basic Principles in Research Integrity in ALLEA Code of Conduct

Responsible conduct of research should be based on the fundamental principles of research integrity. According to the ALLEA Code of Conduct these principles are ment to guide the researchers in their work. These four principles are:

1. "Reliability in ensuring the quality of research, reflected in the design, the methodology, the analyses and the use of resources.

2. Honesty in developing, undertaking, reviewing, reporting and communication research in transparent, fair, full and unbiased way.

3. Respect for colleagues, research participants, society, ecosystems, cultural heritage and the environment.

4. Accountability for the research from idea to publication, for its management and organization, for training, supervision and mentoring, and for its wider impact." (ALLEA 2017.)

Reference:

ALLEA (2017). European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Revised edition. http://www.allea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ALLEA-European-Code-of-Conduct-for-Research-Integrity-2017.pdf.

Further reading

Grinnell, F. (2013). Research integrity and everyday practice of science. Science and Engineering Ethics, 19(3), 685-701.

Penders, B. 2017. Beyond Trust: Plagiarism and Truth. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, March 2018, Volume 15, Issue 1, pp 29–32.