Archive for the ‘Behaviour’ Category

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Nobel prize winner retracts more papers

September 24, 2010

Following quickly on the heels of Hausergate and the Mount Sinai misconduct, we now have a Nobel laureate  – Linda Buck – retracting two papers because results from her lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) were not reproducible (which is a euphemism for faked data). This was not the first time. She also retracted a Nature paper in 2008 for much the same reason. One particular (former) postdoctoral researcher Zhihua Zou is identified as the culprit.

Dr. Buck is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and also a Member of the Basic Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and an Affiliate Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington. She was at Harvard Medical School from 1994 – 2002.

Linda B. Buck

Linda B. Buck

The Scientist reports that:

Two prominent journals have retracted papers by Nobel laureate Linda Buck today because she was “unable to reproduce [the] key findings” of experiments done by her former postdoctoral researcher Zhihua Zou, according to a statement made by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC), where Buck worked at the time of the publications.

These retractions, a 2006 Science paper and a 2005 Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (PNAS)paper, are tied to a 2001 Nature paperthat she retracted in 2008, due to the inability “to reproduce the reported findings” and “inconsistencies between some of the figures and data published in the paper and the original data,” according to the retraction. Zou was the first author on all three papers and responsible for conducting the experiments.

The FHCRC is currently conducting an investigation into the issue, said Kristen Woodward, senior media relations manager, but no findings of misconduct have been made. John Dahlberg of the Office of Research Integrity declined to comment on the matter.

Yesterday The Scientist reported another case of faked data from the University of Washington. Postdoc fudged epigenetic data.

A former postdoctoral fellow at Washington State University has reportedly falsified data presented in two figures of an epigenetics paper, according to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) report released late last month. The data fabrication resulted in the retraction of a 2006Endocrinology paper, but a repeat of the original study, which uses newer and more quantitative technology and confirms the paper’s conclusions, will be published next week inPLoS ONE.

“This was an extremely difficult issue for myself and the laboratory to deal with,” said Michael Skinner, a professor of reproduction and environmental epigenetics at WSU who headed the research.

According to the ORI’s report, Hung-Shu Chang, a visiting postdoc from Taiwan who worked in Skinner’s lab from 2005 to 2006, falsified sequencing data used to identify DNA regions in rat sperm cells that had different methylation patterns following treatment with an endocrine disruptor known as vinclozolin.

( Is it just coincidence that the post-docs apparently faking data both at Mount Sinai and in these cases all seem to be of foreign origin? Is it a case of “cheap labour” being pressurised by the need for publications?)

Read more:More retractions from Nobelist – The Scientist – Magazine of the Life Scienceshttp://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57699/#comments#ixzz10Q4NXwiY

Postdoc fudged epigenetic data – The Scientist – Magazine of the LifeScienceshttp://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57696/#ixzz10QD852cp


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Posted in Behaviour, Medicine, Science, Scientific Fraud | 2 Comments »

Chilies: The real difference between humans and animals

September 22, 2010

As Paul Bloom, a Yale psychologist, puts it, “Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture and so on. I’d stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.”

Chilies

From the New York Times:

Indian Jolokia pepper

Jolokia chili

Habaneros are very hot, although there’s a lot of variation. On the standard Scoville heat scale (Bell peppers 0, the hottest Indian jolokia peppers 1,000,000) orange habaneros run 100,000 to 350,000. By comparison, jalapenos can go anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000. Two percent capsaicin bear spray is advertised at 3.3 million units, and pure capsaicin — the chemical that causes the pain — hits 16 million.

Some experts argue that we like chilies because they are good for us. They can help lower blood pressure, may have some antimicrobial effects, and they increase salivation, which is good if you eat a boring diet based on one bland staple crop like corn or rice. The pain of chilies can even kill other pain, a concept supported by recent research.

I can identify with this.  Bring on the vengaya chutney.

My Vengaya chutney:

Vengaya chutney

2 large onions, a fistful of dried red (Indian) chilies, a chunk of ginger, 4 cloves of garlic, 2 Habanero chilies.

Blend together into a paste. Add chilies to suit for colour and heat.

Garnish with a teaspoon each of mustard seeds and urad dal, 2 bay leaves heated for 90 seconds in hot oil.

Serve as relish on anything and with everything.

  • Spread on bread and serve grilled or roasted
  • spread on bread when making sandwiches
  • add a teaspoon to any soup (or any gravy for that matter)
  • spread on any meat before grilling (or after grilling if you prefer the raw heat)
  • add a tablespoon while tossing pasta
  • eat traditionally as an accompaniment to idlis and dosais.

The NYT continues:

Others, notably Dr. Paul Rozin at the University of Pennsylvania, argue that the beneficial effects are too small to explain the great human love of chili-spiced food. “I don’t think they have anything to do with why people eat and like it,” he said in an interview. Dr. Rozin, who studies other human emotions and likes and dislikes (“I am the father of disgust inpsychology,” he says) thinks that we’re in it for the pain. “This is a theory,” he emphasizes. “I don’t know that this is true.”

But he has evidence for what he calls benign masochism. For example, he tested chili eaters by gradually increasing the pain, or, as the pros call it, the pungency, of the food, right up to the point at which the subjects said they just could not go further. When asked after the test what level of heat they liked the best, they chose the highest level they could stand, “just below the level of unbearable pain.” As Delbert McClinton sings (about a different line of research), “It felt so good to hurt so bad.”

The story of how chilies got their heat is pretty straightforward. A recent study suggested that capsaicin is an effective defense against a fungusthat attacks chili seeds. In fact, experiments have shown that the same species of wild chili plant produces a lot of capsaicin in an environment where the fungus is likely to grow, and very little in drier areas where the fungus is not a danger.

The fact that capsaicin causes pain to mammals seems to be accidental. There’s no evolutionary percentage in preventing animals from eating the peppers, which fall off the plant when ripe. Birds, which also eat fruits, don’t have the same biochemical pain pathway, so they don’t suffer at all from capsaicin. But in mammals it stimulates the very same pain receptors that respond to actual heat. Chili pungency is not technically a taste; it is the sensation of burning, mediated by the same mechanism that would let you know that someone had set your tongue on fire.

No one knows for sure why humans would find pleasure in pain, but Dr. Rozin suggests that there’s a thrill, similar to the fun of riding a roller coaster. “Humans and only humans get to enjoy events that are innately negative, that produce emotions or feelings that we are programmed to avoid when we come to realize that they are actually not threats,” he said. “Mind over body. My body thinks I’m in trouble, but I know I’m not.” And it says, hand me another jalapeño.

Other mammals have not joined the party. “There is not a single animal that likes hot pepper,” Dr. Rozin said. Or asPaul Bloom, a Yale psychologist, puts it, “Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture and so on. I’d stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.”

As James Gorman, the author of the NYT article puts it:

A taste for chilies has no deep meaning, no evolutionary value. It’s just a taste for chilies. I might add, though, that since it takes such a complicated brain and weird self-awareness to enjoy something that is inherently not enjoyable, only the animal with the biggest brain and the most intricate mind can do it. Take heart, chili heads. It’s not dumb to eat the fire, it’s a sign of high intelligence.

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Posted in Behaviour, Food, Recipies, Social Science | 1 Comment »

After Harvard’s Hausergate, now misconduct at Mount Sinai

September 21, 2010
Mount Sinai School of Medicine logo.png

Image via Wikipedia

Earlier this week, the blog Retraction Watch called attention to four recent paper retractions by noted gene therapy researcher Savio Woo of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Today, the school said in a statement that two of Woo’s postdoctoral fellows have been fired for research misconduct and that an internal investigation has cleared Woo of any wrongdoing.

Two of Woo’s post-doctoral fellows at Mount Sinai School of Medicine were dismissed for “research misconduct,” said Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the institution. According to Michaels:

When Dr. Savio L C Woo came to suspect that two post-doctoral fellows in his laboratory may have engaged in research misconduct he notified the Mount Sinai Research Integrity Office. Mount Sinai immediately initiated institutional reviews that resulted in both post-doctoral fellows being dismissed for research misconduct. At no time were there allegations that Dr. Woo had engaged in research misconduct. As part of its review, the investigation committee looked into this possibility and confirmed that no research misconduct could be attributed to Dr. Woo, who voluntarily retracted the papers regarding the research in question. Mount Sinai reported the results of its investigations to the appropriate government agencies and continues to cooperate with them as part of its commitment to adhere to the highest standards for research integrity.

File:HippocraticOath.jpg

Wikipedia: A twelfth-century Byzantine manuscript of the Hippocratic Oath.

According to ScienceInsider, the names of postdocs Li Chen and Zhiyu Li were recently removed from Mount Sinai’s directory. Chen and Li were listed as first authors on the retracted papers. Three  major journals — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Human Gene Therapy, and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute — recently retracted papers authored by Woo and others.

In a retraction notice issued this month, Woo wrote that:

It was discovered that some of the micrographs in two papers we published [figure 4 in J Natl Cancer Inst 2008;100:1389-1400 (1), and figure 3 in Hum Gene Ther 2009;20:751-758 (2)] are apparently duplicated. This has been reported to the institutional research integrity committee by the authors and while the outcome of an investigation is pending, the undersigned co-authors respectfully request a retraction of both papers and sincerely apologize to our colleagues.

The four papers in question focus on two different areas of gene therapy research. One pair, published in 2008 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and in 2009 in Human Gene Therapy, investigate genetically engineered bacteria as a weapon against cancer. The other two papers describe a method for using bacterial enzymes to introduce therapeutic genes. A 2005 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports experiments in which mice with the metabolic disorder phenylketonuria appeared to be cured using this method. As a demonstration of the promise of gene therapy, that work garnered some media coverage, includingthis article in Science. A 2008 paper in Human Gene Therapy described the use of the technique in human cells.

Source: http://blog.the-scientist.com/2010/09/20/new-in-a-nutshell/

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Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, Medicine, Science, Scientific Fraud | 2 Comments »

Japan’s mighty whale mountain – to be consumed by school children

September 20, 2010
The flukes of a sperm whale as it dives into t...

Sperm whale flukes

It has become an annual ritual between Sea Shepherd and Japanese whalers, a ritual that only gets stronger, louder, and more dangerous over the years.  The Japanese claim that their whaling program is for research purposes.  However, whale meat ends up on the shelves of almost every counter in Japan, leading many activist groups to believe that it is a cover-up.

It is a series of cat and mouse games between the two sides, more often than not resulting in violence and even injuries.  Earlier that day before the collision occurred, Sea Shepherd activists threw stink bombs at the ships and dropped ropes in an effort to snarl their propellers. In the past, they have lobbed missiles including paint and rancid butter. The Japanese whalers have responded with water cannon, flash grenades (usually used for crowd control), and military-grade acoustic weaponry.

But how effective are Sea Shepherd’s tactics?  It is a question that has no answer.  Many media sources criticize Sea Shepherd for their violent demeanor.  Perhaps one of the most well known activist groups, Greenpeace, has openly pointed out that Sea Shepherd’s tactics are “morally wrong” and counter-productive as violent means only harden the Japanese public opinion and ensures whaling continues.

The Japan Times reports:

Stocks of frozen whale meat in Japan have reached 4,000 tons. That means there are about 40 million portions of whale meat being expensively stored under refrigeration ready for eating. But not enough people eat kujira (whale), and far from dwindling, Japan’s whale mountain is growing. It’s just not popular enough as a food. The Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) — a branch of the government’s Fisheries Agency that outsources and oversees Japan’s whaling operations — urgently needs to reduce the size of the mountain. It wants Japan to eat more whale, and it has targeted school children as important consumers.

Whale meat for schools

Whale meat has been eaten for centuries in Japan, even millennia, but it was not consumed on a large scale until after World War II. Post 1945, as the country was being rebuilt, whale meat became an important source of protein. The children who ate it in their school lunches back then are now the venerable policymakers in the ICR and in government. The first potential problem with whale meat concerns its possible contamination with mercury.

A study conducted by Tetsuya Endo at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, and Koichi Haraguchi at the Daiichi College of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Fukuoka, investigated methyl mercury levels in whale meat on sale in Taiji, and in hair samples taken from 50 residents of the town. They found methyl mercury levels of 5.9 micrograms per gram in the red meat. For comparison, the United States Food and Drug Administration sets an “action level” of 1 microgram. In the U.S., any food with more than 1 microgram of methyl mercury is not allowed to be sold or consumed.

In residents who often ate whale meat, on average their hair contained 24.6 micrograms of mercury per gram. The figure from residents who do not consume whale meat was 4.3 micrograms, and in the Japanese population as a whole the figure is about 2 micrograms. The study was published earlier this year in Marine Pollution Bulletin.

n the September 2010 issue of the journal Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care, a group of public health researchers made an extensive review of the evidence for the effect of mercury exposure on children’s health. “Mercury,” the team write, “is a highly toxic element; there is no known safe level of exposure. Ideally, neither children nor adults should have any mercury in their bodies because it provides no physiological benefit.” ( DOI reference  is: 10.1016/j.cppeds.2010.07.002.).

In a paper to come in October 2010’s issue of Environmental Research (DOI: 10.1016/jenvres.2010.07.001) researchers based at Tohoku University conducted a “birth cohort” study on almost 500 mothers-to-be, and the children they gave birth to. They looked at the amount of seafood consumed by the women, the amount of mercury in the women’s hair, and then they measured the child’s behavior at age 3 days using the standard Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale.

They found that the greater the amount of mercury in the mother’s hair, the worse the child performed on the behavioral test. “In conclusion,” the team write, “our data suggest that prenatal exposure to methyl mercury adversely affects neonatal neurobehavioral function.”

This seems to be a not insignificant risk to subject school children to.

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Women highly successful in Indian Banking and in India Inc.

September 19, 2010

Gender imbalances continue to prevail in corporate boardrooms across the world, but the situation is much better in India if the number of women CEOs that India Inc has is any indication–nearly four times more than that of the US–a survey says.  According to a survey by international executive research firm, EMA Partners International, around 11% of Indian companies have women CEOs, while in the case of Fortune 500 list from the US, the women CEOs just account for three% of the total consideration set. “In the backdrop of the Fortune 500 numbers, the Indian results certainly look a lot better, though on a standalone basis, it is clear that barring financial services, other industries have a long way to catch up,” EMA Partners chairman James Douglas said in the survey.

The Times of India: According to a study by Standard Chartered Bank about women on corporate boards in India, the financial sector performs best in terms of gender diversity, nine of the eleven banks listed on BSE-100 have a woman on their board and two of these banks have a female CEO. In fact, through the recent recession, Reserve Bank of India had two women deputy governors on board, Usha Thorat and Shyamala Gopinath.

Women leaders in banking

ICICI Bank, India’s second largest bank after State Bank of India, is headed by a woman, Chanda Kochhar. So is the third largest in the private sector, Axis Bank, with Shikha Sharma at its helm. HDFC Ltd, India’s largest housing finance group has Renu Sud Karnad as its managing director; Kalpana Morparia heads the Indian arm of global financial leviathan JPMorgan Chase & Co; Meera Sanyal is the country executive for Royal Bank of Scotland and; Manisha Girotra is the managing director of Union Bank of Switzerland‘s India operations.

“Women are not driven by wanting to just show numbers,” says Karnad, who feels the recession was a result of excesses, of wanting to achieve goals at whatever cost. “Women are more practical and moderate in risk taking.”

So what is it that makes women so successful in the Indian banking and financial services industry? “Retail banking is more of a relationship thing and women excel at that,” says Karnad. In the Indian context, while women have started venturing out to work in the corporate world, they have been handling relationships at home too, as a wife or a mother. “This nurturing and adjusting attitude flows into the workplace as well.”

The mid-80s saw a number of smart women graduating from the B-schools just when the Indian banking sector was starting to grow. ICICI, HDFC, HSBC, Citibank, were all expanding and were hiring during the mid-80s and the early 90s.

“We were fortunate to have senior role models like Tarjani Vakil, chairperson of Exim Bank who pierced the glass ceiling in the 1970s and ’80s,” says Meera Sanyal, who started her career in the mid-’80s with ANZ Grindlays Bank and is now Royal Bank of Scotland’s country executive for India.

ICICI particularly nurtured a number of women—Chanda Kochhar, Shikha Sharma, Renuka Ramnath—who have today reached the top. One of most prominent among them is Kochhar, who joined the bank as a management trainee in 1984 and rose through the ranks to become the managing director and chief executive officer. Today, of the eleven top executives working directly under her, three are women. “I give a lot of credit to ICICI, which as an organisation has allowed women to grow, prosper, handle responsibilities and offered equal opportunities,” says Kochhar. Of the overall 40,000 employees at ICICI, a quarter are women. “It has contributed a lot to the feminine quotient in the Indian banking sector.”

Additional Sources: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshowpics/6584055.cms

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Hannibal – killer swan could use insanity defence?

September 17, 2010

A swan dubbed Hannibal is to have blood tests to find the reason for its aggression after it killed 15 other swans in just a few months in a quiet rural pond.

The killer swan attacks other birds by beating them with his beak, wings and feet. Conservationists have even reported seeing him hold the head of rivals underwater until they drown in the pond in the grounds of the historic Pembroke Castle, West Wales.

Hannibal's most recent victim was being treated yesterday at an animal rescue centre

Now wildlife workers are to carry out a series of tests on “Hannibal” after parents expressed concern over the psychological effect it may have on their children if they witness an attack.

Maria Evans, an animal worker at Pembroke Castle’s pond, said: “I’ve never come across such an aggressive bird. He is an absolutely horrible swan and people really don’t like him.

“I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been to pick up dead and injured swans.”

Ruth Harrison, 25, said: ““I’ve seen Hannibal attacking other swans and it is quite unpleasant. Afterwards, he swims around the pond with his wings up, looking so proud of what he has done. And if his victims are injured on the bank, he just won’t let them back in the water.” Hannibal’s most recent victim was being treated yesterday at an animal rescue centre after being saved by a local vet. The swan, called Trevor, suffered terrible injuries to his feet in the attack by Hannibal. Hannibal carried out its first attack in February. Ms Evans said: “The water in the pond is very brackish, salty and not particularly clean, and pollution and lack of nutrients can both be responsible for nasty behaviour in swans.

He may be a serial killer and he may be single-wingedly threatening biodiversity but lack of nutrients and the consequent physiological and psychological stresses might support an insanity defence.

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Oxburgh “Inquiry”: Defendants decide on admissibility of evidence

September 16, 2010

Steve McIntyre is upto his admirable sleuthing again.

The question as to who chose the super-11 “peer-reviewed” papers  has been solved.

Dear Mr McIntyre
In response to your recent enquiry I can provide the following information.

I understand that the list of 11 papers for the Oxburgh review was collated by Prof Trevor Davies, in consultation with others. He was also the author of the statement at the bottom of the list.

Yours sincerely,
Lisa Williams

So the list was not selected by the Royal Society after all, but by Trevor Davies, the pro-VC of the University and former director of CRU. In consultation with “others”. Dare one hypothesize that these mysterious “others” will turn out to be Jones and Briffa after all?

An impartial objective inquiry? Where the defendant decided which evidence would be admissible.

image: sodahead.com

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Riding piggy-back can save the polar bears from melting ice!!

September 16, 2010

Well now….

Swedish Radio reports that a previously unknown behaviour of polar bears has been observed. A cub can travel on its mother’s back while she swims in search of food. “It could be a way for polar bears to cope better than we thought” said Tom Arnbom of WWF. “I think it’s positive” he says. “It proves that the polar bears can adapt if climate changes in the Arctic”

image: Isbjörnar. Foto: Angela Plumb/WWF.

Polar bear with cub

Update: Story also on the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8284000/8284906.stm

Dr Jon Aars from the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromso describes what happened in the journal Polar Biology. On the 21 July 2006, Mrs Angela Plumb, a tourist from the UK, was aboard a ship in the mouth of a fjord in the Svalbard archipelago.

“The cub was on the back of the polar bear when it was in the water, then it got out of the water and stayed on its mother’s back a little, then she shook it off,” Mrs Plumb explains.

For large parts of the year, polar bears (Ursus maritimus) live among the sea ice, feeding mainly on seals. The challenge for the bears is to navigate the many areas of open water between the islands of floating ice. Seeing the bear had a radio collar, Mrs Plumb got in touch with Dr Aars to report her sighting and asked if this was a common behaviour.

“I hadn’t seen this behaviour before or heard about it so I asked other researchers and found out it is something that has been observed but not frequently at all,” Dr Aars says.

Dr Aars was especially interested if this behaviour might have some adaptive value for the bears. “This could be potentially important because it means that the cubs get exposed to less water. If they are in the water they would have to swim and very small cubs are very badly insulated in water,” he says.

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“Fake Togo football team” con

September 15, 2010
Passport of Togo

Image via Wikipedia

A most enterprising “agent”.

I cannot help but admire the cheek and the scope of the con. It is in the same league as “selling the Eiffel Tower“.

  1. Take a country which most people couldn’t find on a map (Togo)
  2. Take another country which is rich but not a front-line football nation (Bahrain).
  3. Short-circuit communication links by internet and e-mail between the football federations of Bahrain and Togo.
  4. Arrange a friendly international match to be played in the rich country.
  5. Show-up for the international match with a full team of officials and players (from where? on what passports?)
  6. Take full benefit of all on offer to the visiting team from the friendly (rich) host federation.
  7. Do a little gold trading and any other little money laundering needed on the side.
  8. Play the match – even though the players are huffing and panting after a few minutes.
  9. Leave the country before the sh** hits the fan

The Telegraph:

Bahrain won the friendly 3-0 but they were surprised by the poor quality of the Togolese team with head coach Josef Hickersberger describing the match in Riffa on Sept 7 as “boring” and “a wasted opportunity”. Togo sports minister Christophe Chao told Jeune Afrique: “Nobody has ever been informed of such a game. We will conduct investigations to uncover all those involved in this case.”

According to the Gulf Daily News, BFA vice-president Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa confirmed Bahrain went through all the correct channels in organising the match. Shaikh Ali added all the paperwork received before the friendly were officially signed and stamped from the Togolese Football Federation.

The publication went on to report a letter listed a 20-member Togo team, including each player’s passport number and date of birth.

However, a completely different list of 18 players was provided by a team official a few minutes before the start of the match.

The Bahrain Football Association (BFA) said it had been arranged under all the usual official procedures and through an agent they had known for several years.

The real Togo team. image:morethanthegames.co.uk

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Behaviour, law and ethics: A practical view

September 3, 2010
Le Penseur, Musée Rodin, Paris

Image via Wikipedia

Whether in scientific endeavour, the business world or in politics we see daily scandals where behaviour is considered lacking in integrity or in ethics. In recent days we have had the Hausergate scandal, the Commonwealth Games corruption scandals, the money-down-the-drain in Iraq scandals and the HP procurement scandal.

For clarity in my own mind I reason as follows:

My values lead to my behaviour.

Values are comparative standards or norms and they calibrate and motivate my behaviour but in themselves they have no inherent goodness or badness. My values are my behavioural standards. They allow me to make comparisons (faster, better, pleasing, irritating, bearable, acceptable, good, just, right ….).

Behaviour may be lawful or unlawful or ethical or unethical.

Laws are what the society I operate in, or wish to operate in, uses to define what is unacceptable behaviour. But lawful behaviour does not address whether it is ethical or unethical (though that may be implied). Where law is silent, behaviour is, by default, lawful but may still be either ethical or unethical.

My ethics tell me what behaviour is correct and desirable behaviour. This may or may not be consistent with the ethics of the society surrounding me which specifies what that society considers the right and proper and desirable behaviour. Ethical values and ethical behaviour thus represents a sub-set of all the values I may have and all the consequent behaviour they might lead to. Ethical behaviour is not necessarily lawful. Unlike the limits set by law, behaviour does not become ethical by default if ethics are silent. Behaviour which is not unethical is not therefore necessarily ethical.

Ethical values and moral values are almost synonymous. The only difference I can find is that what I consider ethical codes or values rely more on logic or a rationale and less on faith. And I take faith or belief to be that which exists in the space of the “unknown unknowns” where ” I don’t know what I don’t know”. Faith or belief then allows formulating the answer (and even the question) in the absence of evidence. But both ethical codes and moral codes specify  right and proper and desirable behaviour. Behaviour that is not unethical or immoral does not by default become ethical or moral.

In practice therefore;

  1. My values lead to my behaviour,
  2. Laws tell me what I ought not to do,
  3. Ethics tell me what I ought to do.

Many corporations and organisations and enterprises take the easy way out and adopt so-called ethical codes which are merely  a set of rules (codes of law). But this is merely relying on what not to do and is an abdication of the responsibility to come to a view on what is the right and proper thing to do. The right and proper behaviour must – I think – include a conscious choice from the various options available of what can be done and cannot be merely an exclusion of unacceptable or undesirable behaviour.

A child first accepts its parents view of what is right or wrong. As it grows it brings in and integrates what others consider right or wrong. Eventually a mature thinking individual develops his own views of what is right or wrong and integrates that with the views of the surrounding society. In this sense, most corporations and other organisations are still in their infancy and are content to rely only on what law excludes as being unacceptable. This in turn leads to a minimalist ethical code where anything which is not explicitly unlawful is perfectly OK.

Hence Enron and Satyam and Siemens and British Aerospace and …………

It is the having of an ethical code that matters.

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