Abstract
In recent literature, the famous Millikan oil-drop experiment appears as a case of “good scientific judgment” on the one hand, and scientific misconduct on the other. This article discusses different interpretations of the fact that Nobel laureate Robert Millikan’s notebooks show that he eliminated a number of oildrops in his published 1913 paper on the charge of the electron, while reporting that he had included all the drops. Starting with the common source of all Millikan stories, historian of physics Gerald Holton’s 1978 paper, I discuss recent “canned” versions of Millikan-as-misbehaver in books on scientific fraud. Then I examine some versions of Millikan-as-good-scientist, particularly the reconstruction by historian of physics Allan Franklin, and the views of some practicing physicists. Finally, we have an instructive head-on collision between the two standard treatments of Millikan. The problem with canned stories is not only insufficient information; we also lack a realistic evaluation of the role of ethics in science. As a fundamentally knowledge-seeking enterprise, science may harbor an inherent, perhaps irresolvable, conflict between scientific and ethical concerns.
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Notes and References
Broad Wm. and Wade N. (1983)Betrayers of the Truth, Simon and Schuster, New York.
Kohn A. (1986)False Prophets: Fraud and Error in Science and Medicine, Basil Blackwell, New York.
See e.g., Brush S. (1974) Should the History of Science Be Rated X?,Science 183: 1164–1172.
Babbage C. (1830)Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, August M. Kelley, New York (1970).
Holton G. (1978) Subelectrons, presuppositions and the Millikan-Ehrenhaft dispute, In: Holton G., ed.,The Scientific Imagination, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Broad and Wade (1983).
Kohn (1986).
Franklin A. (1984) Forging, Cooking, Trimming, and Riding on the Bandwagon,American Journal of Physics,52 (9): 786–793.
Holton G. (1986) Thematic Presuppositions and the Direction of Scientific Advance, In: Holton G.,The Advancement of Science and Its Burdens, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (1990),On Being A Scientist, Washington, D.C., National Academy Press. (The reader should note that there is a new edition published in 1995 that is greatly modified).
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Holton (1978), p. 28.
Holton (1978), pp. 70–71.
Millikan R. A. (1913) On the Elementary Electrical Charge and the Avogadro Constant,Physical Review,2: 109–43.
Millikan R.A. (1917),The Electron: Its Isolation and Measurement and the Determination of Some of Its Properties, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA.
Millikan quoted in Holton (1986), p. 9
Broad and Wade (1983), p. 227.
Holton (1978), quoted in Broad and Wade (1983), p. 35.
Ibid.
Kohn (1986).
Kohn (1986). p. 60.
For Fletcher’s own reflection on this case, see Fletcher H. (1982) My Work with Millikan on the Oil-Drop Experiment,Physics Today, June, 43–47.
Kohn (1986), p. 62.
Luria S. (1975), What Makes a Scientist Cheat?,Prism, May, pp. 16,18.
Kohn (1986), loc. cit.
Franklin (1984).
Franklin (1984), p. 788.
Ibid. Franklin (1984)
Ibid. Franklin (1984),
Ibid. Franklin (1984),
Franklin (1984), p. 789.
Franklin (1984), p. 792.
Fairbank W. M. and Franklin A. (1982)American Journal of Physics 50, 394.
Westfall R. S. (1973) Newton and the Fudge Factor,Science 179: 751–758. This and some other cases are included in Brush S. (1974), Should the History of Science Be Rated X?,Science 183: 1164–1172. Broad and Wade (1983) have collected historical cases in their Chapter 2 and Appendix, and provide references to the original articles.
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Franklin (1984), p. 789.
Ibid. Franklin (1984), p. 789.
Franklin (1984), p. 792.
Holton (1986), pp. 9–10.
De Voto B. (1947)Across the Wide Missouri, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, quoted in Holton (1986), p. 7.
Holton (1986), p. 9. The theme of suspension of disbelief as exemplified by Millikan already appears in Holton’s 1978 article, pp. 71–72.
Holton, 1986, p. 12.
eg, Holton (1978), p. 72; Holton (1986), p. 307.
Scientists often suggests that when judging acceptable and unacceptable behavior of scientists in historical cases, one would have to take into account the prevailing standards at the time regarding data presentation and the like. This has also been applied to Millikan. The 1990 National Academy of Sciences pamphletOn Being A Scientist discusses the fact that Millikan “glossed over [his] exclusions in some of his published papers and by present standards this is not acceptable” (NAS, 1990, p. 3). This statement seems to imply that such conduct was, at some earlier time, acceptable in science. Assuming one could indeed find out what was accepted scientific conduct at a particular time, one might, again, discuss in what way that might affect the ethical judgment of the case. The problem of changing standards for “good science” is briefly discussed in Schmaus W., Segerstråle U. and Jesseph D. (1992) The Hard Program in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: A Manifesto,Social Epistemology,6 (3): 243–265. The question of changing standards for acceptable scientific conduct remains a difficult one.
Goodstein (1991).
Goodstein (1991), pp. 511–512.
Goodstein (1991), p. 512.
Gert (1993), p. 167.
Gert (1993), p. 170.
Ibid. Gert (1993),
Ibid. Gert (1993),
Gert (1993), p. 167.
This assumption can easily lead to problems, however, in cases with conflicting views of “good science.” For an illustration, see Segerstråle U. (1992) Reductionism, ‘Bad Science’ and Politics: A Critique of Anti-Reductionist Reasoning,Politics and the Life Sciences,11(2): 199–214.
Bernard Davis, personal communication.
John Edsall, personal communication.
For a more detailed analysis of this and related problems, see Segerstråle, U. (1993), The Importance of Being Right vs. the Importance of Being Earnest: Public Accountability of Science in the ‘Baltimore Case’,Science Studies 6 (2): 4–22. In this case there seems to be a contrast in reasoning style particularly between junior scientist Margot O’Toole and senior scientist David Baltimore.
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Cf. Segerstråle U. (1990a), The Murky Borderland between Scientific Intuition and Fraud,International Journal of Applied Ethics 5 (1): 11–20. Reprinted in: Erwin E., Gendin S. and Kleiman L., eds. (1993)Ethical Issues in Research, Garland Publishing, Hamden, CT, USA.
See eg, Segerstråle U. (1992, 1990a) and Segerstråle, U. (1990b), Negotiating ‘Sound Science’: Expert Disagreement about Release of Genetically Engineered Organisms,Politics and the Life Sciences,8 (2): 221–231.
NAS (1990), p. 3.
NAS (1990), pp. 3–4, italics added.
Gert (1993), p. 168.
The report defines these terms as follows: “Fabrication is making up data or results, falsification is changing data or results, and plagiarism is using the ideas or words of another person without giving appropriate credit.” National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research (1992),Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process, Volume 1, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., p. 5.
NAS (1992), p. 5.
NAS (1992), p. 6.
Stone R. (1995) Federal Panel Recommends Universities Play Bigger Role,Science 267: 449.
I cannot here go into the interesting reasoning that this open-ended exercise inspires. For instance, as some students correctly point out, if everyone plagiarized, it would undermine science as we know it. While I am here primarily interested in making an analytical distinction between knowledge concerns and moral concerns, a future class exercise might well involve discussing Gert’s fundamental challenge, that is, his question whether “acts of honesty under great temptation to deceive” might not have influence the scientific tradition so as to make science evenmore successful than it is (Gert p. 167, this paper p. 207).
Leon Lederman, personal communication. For more statements by scientists about the importance of careful measurement and reporting, see the special issue ofPerspectives on the Professions (1991),10 (2): What is Good Science? What is Good Engineering? (Guest editor: Segerstråle, U.).
Fairbank and Franklin (1982).
Gert’s suggestion that the correct result may have been produced even more quickly had Newton and Millikan freely disclosed all their results (Gert, 1993, p. 168, this paper p. 207), could indeed be characterized as a knowledge-oriented rather than ethical concern. But Gert is not interested in loss of information of the type discussed here. Rather, he is worried about the amount of possible “futile research” that may result when experienced scientists suppress disconfirming evidence for hypotheses they strongly believe in. He is concerned about scientists’ potentially diminished trust in one another’s results (Gert (1993) p. 170 and this paper p. 206).
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The author’s special interests include standards for “good science”, science and values, and social psychology.
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Segerstråle, U. Good to the last drop? Millikan stories as “canned” pedagogy. Sci Eng Ethics 1, 197–214 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02628797
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02628797