Physics Roundtable William Armstrong Let's call this an "Ethical Issue." There are several news items I'd like to bring up in this issue of the Bulletin, two of them involving scandals, or at least controversies in the physics world. But beyond the behavior and actions of the participants directly involved in these lie the questions that we, as librarians must face and are called to answer. We must eventually respond, and that is what ethics is all about--appropriate responses. Before we get to these responses and the questions which call them forth, let's take a brief look at the recent cases which have brought ethical conduct once again to the fore. 1) The Bogdanov Brothers and their Hoax; or was it just Questionable Physics? I will not rehash the whole story here, for that's been done enough elsewhere (I'll provide a bibliography of the brothers' papers as well as articles on the scandal at the end of this section). You may read the full story later. Rather, I will jump to the conclusions (though I was taught never to do that), because I want to highlight some of the interesting issues and questions that emerge from this story. It appears from statements of the Bogdanov brothers that the papers were not a hoax, but intended as serious science--or as others have said, an attempt at serious science. The immediate question is, if the physics contained in these papers is so ludicrous, how in the world did they get published? Furthermore, how and why were the twins able to earn their degrees based on these? Part of the problem seems to stem from the ever-increasing esoteric nature of theoretical physics. In the case of the brothers' thesis work, this problem led to a seeming inability to put together a committee that could understand, and hence, properly judge of their work. So it was agreed by their major professors that their diploma could be earned in part through the publication in refereed journals of a specified number of papers. In other words, the committee basically shoved the responsibility of judging their work onto others, thereby straying completely outside the normal process. And in the case of the actual publication by refereed journals, there seems to have been a breakdown in the entire refereeing process. There are several ethical issues at hand. First, though I have not yet mentioned it as one, is the behavior of those who spread the initial rumors of a hoax if, as it turns out, there was no intended hoax at all. Such rumors can have the effect of destroying the reputation of its subjects. If reputations are to be destroyed here, let it be by the brothers themselves through the very quality, or lack thereof, of their work. And even if such work slips through the cracks during the refereeing process, the question of its merit will play itself out with time. Those who find these papers of merit will cite them; the others won't. History will have its own way of dealing with the matter. In defense of the instigators of the rumors, this may be merely a case of over-sensitivity on the part of some members of the physics community, fearing or at least expecting retribution from "the other side." In this case, the other side would be the field of cultural-studies. I'm referring to the hoax (which, incidentally, really was a hoax), perpetrated by Alan D. Sokal in 1996. According to the Chronicle article, "Mr. Sokal, a professor of physics at New York University, spoofed the relativism fashionable in the humanities by writing a satirical paper called 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,' which argued, among other points, that there is no external reality and that the theory of quantum gravity has important political implications." The paper was published in the journal, Social Text. It is quite possible that members of the physics community were simply a bit sensitive to the prospect of retribution, and hence, jumped to conclusions--falsely, but with no evil intent. But there is also the question of the committee and the reviewers. Did they abdicate their responsibilities on the one hand, yet on the other, continue to pass judgment on something they didn't understand? (Although who of us has not done this, mostly without knowing it?) If so, that really leads into another question, related to the field of theoretical physics itself. As Frank A. Wilczek, a professor of physics at M.I.T., was quoted in the Chronicle article, "Parts of theoretical physics have become dangerously complicated and divorced from empirical roots. I think it is a very dangerous trend." And further, "… if you don't understand it, and it doesn't apply to anything, then it's really tough to judge." Perhaps this is an issue for theoretical physicists to grapple with. Finally, we come to the question of the appropriate response from publishers, and this concerns us as librarians. What should an appropriate response be? What would be the proper course of action if these papers were really not worthy of publication and "should" never have been published? What does a publisher do after the fact? While you ponder these questions, and before we move on to the next case, let me provide you with a short bibliography of reading about this case, a list of the papers by the Bogdanov brothers, and a reprint of the response from Dr. Andrew Wray, Senior Publisher of Classical and Quantum Gravity, one of the journals which published an "offending" paper. List of Readings:
notwwa@lsu.edu
On November 5, 2002, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported a story about a pair of French twin brothers, TV personalities in France, who reputedly published several (actually the number published was five) papers in physics journals as a hoax; two in 2001, and three in 2002. Not only did they publish them in respected journals--one was in Classical and Quantum Gravity, another in Annals of Physics--but they earned their PhDs, at least in part, through the supposed merits of the articles.
Articles published by the Bogdanov Brothers:
- Grichka Bogdanov and Igor Bogdanov, "Topological field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime," Classical and Quantum Gravity, 18 (2001), 4341-4372.
- Grichka Bogdanov and Igor Bogdanov, "Spacetime Metric and the KMS Condition at the Planck Scale," Annals of Physics, 296 (2002), 90-97.
- Grichka Bogdanov and Igor Bogdanov, "KMS space-time at the Planck scale," Nuovo Cimento, 117B (2002) 417-424.
- Igor Bogdanov, "Topological origin of inertia," Czechoslovak Journal of Physics, 51 (2001), 1153-1236.
- Igor Bogdanov, "The KMS state of spacetime at the Planck scale," Chinese Journal of Physics, 40 (2002).
2) The incident at Bell Labs, or Lucifer's Foray into Lucent Technologies (http://www.lucent.com/press/0902/020925.bla.html)
We come now to ethical topic number two, an incident involving falsification of research results. Following reports of ethical misconduct involving the research of about twenty of its employees from Bell Labs and other institutions, Bell Labs appointed an independent committee in May, 2002, to investigate the allegations. According to their own statement released September 25, 2002, reporting the findings of this committee, Bell Labs concluded "that one member of these teams had engaged in scientific misconduct by falsifying and fabricating experimental data between 1998 and 2001. This scientist's employment with Lucent Technologies has been terminated. The committee cleared all the other researchers who had contributed to the experiments, and who were co-authors on several published papers, of any scientific misconduct" (see above link). This is not a question of specious theories within the esoteric field of theoretical physics, but one of blatant falsification of data.
There are a couple of ethical issues involved here: one, a matter of scientific integrity, essential for the future success of scientific inquiry and communication thereof; and two, that of historical integrity. Related to the latter is the response of those who published the affected papers in this case. Any decisions of this party will necessarily directly affect the ability of librarians, inextricably connected with the historical record, even to act in an ethical manner. For example, removal of the material by a publisher also has the effect of removing the librarian from the field of ethical action. Really, all we can do in this case is shout from the sidelines recommending one action or another from an actual participant. The action is not ours, but we are directly affected by the outcome. Nevertheless, confined momentarily to the sidelines as we are, what do we shout to the players?
I will leave the matter in your hands now. Ponder the scenario, and then look at excerpts from AIP's actual response, provided below.
Excerpts from AIP's Response (full press release available at http://www.aps.org/media/pressreleases/122002.html)
- "American Physical Society (APS) journals are printing retractions of six papers as a result of the Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs inquiry into misconduct by Jan Hendrik Schön."
- "Retractions will appear in upcoming print issues of the journals and online versions will have notations to indicate the retractions. The online tables of contents and abstracts of the papers will include a message with links to the full text retractions."
- "The editors of the Physical Review journals have chosen to leave the retracted papers available online as part of the research record, just as they remain in archived print copies of the journal. However, online versions will always appear with clear statements of retraction and all papers affected will be accompanied by links to the retractions. These notations will appear so that researchers will be able to see them regardless of how they navigate to the versions of the papers online."
- "The retractions also link to the full text of the Beasley report, which Lucent has given the American Physical Society permission to mirror at a permanent web address associated with the journals. It is available at http://publish.aps.org/reports/."
Alternative Response
There is another way of looking at such matters as we have discussed, and just such a perspective is provided in the policy of Elsevier regarding a stance toward questionable articles already published. I will not go into detail here about their policy, but rather will strongly suggest you read carefully the article in Chronicle from January 10, 2003, entitled, "Elsevier's Vanishing Act," (well, I suspect you've probably already guessed the direction their policy takes.) The article is available at http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i18/18a02701.htm. I'm sure you'll find their reasons fascinating. But read it, compare with the policies cited above, and formulate your own position as you judge the correctness of a given action in light of your responsibilities as a librarian. Perhaps this will provide a chance to reflect on those responsibilities.
3) IoP Archives
Finally, we come to the third item on our agenda, and it is of a lighter nature than our ethical issues above, though serious in its positive impact on the scholarly record and access thereto. Institute of Physics announced on January 8 that it has completed its project digitizing all of its journal archives going as far back as 1874 and extending forward to 1992. All of IoP's 37 journals now extend back to volume one. An institution may either subscribe to the Archives at a fee of $550 per year (thus leaving the content on IoP's server, along with the maintenance), or may elect to purchase outright the archival content for loading onto its own server. (A subscription to the current journals will cover ten years back.) Either way, the completion of the archives is good news to the physics community and to libraries everywhere. This is a big step in the right direction, even if that direction is "backwards."
4) Physics Roundtable at SLA Annual
One more note before I close: It's getting to be that time of year again when PAM committees begin feverish efforts to complete preparations for the annual meeting in June. Patricia Hausman, who will be co-moderating the Physics RT this year with Jennifer Edelman, would like to request that any member who has ideas for particular topics they would like to see discussed send them to her at the following email address: pxhaus@wm.edu.
