Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category
November 20, 2011
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg is serving his self-imposed 2 year exile on the other side of the Atlantic. But he is beginning the process of his own rehabilitation in the public eye. He seems to have subtly changed his look – probably part of a determined effort to create a new “cleaner” image.
Deutsche Welle:
Guttenberg's developed a new look, sans glasses and hair gel: Deutsche Welle
Germany’s disgraced former Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has returned to the political stage, albeit far away in Canada. After the dodgy doctorate debacle, is this the first sign of a comeback? …
Guttenberg, sporting a new look at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, was referred to as “the honorable Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, distinguished statesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)” when introduced to the audience of some 300 people. Guttenberg moved to the US with his family in the summer, and works at CSIS, a think tank based in Washington.
….. Guttenberg’s doctoral title has since been revoked by the University of Bayreuth, and he may yet face trial on charges of violations of copyright law in writing his thesis. The former defense minister did not speak to journalists on the sidelines of the forum.
Tags:Canada, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Germany, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, PhD thesis plagiarism, Plagiarism, retracted doctorate, United States, zu Googleberg
Posted in Academic misconduct, Ethics, Germany, Politics | 5 Comments »
November 15, 2011
Many supposedly unbiased, objective BBC documentary programs have been sponsored by vested interests.
Programs about development were sponsored by the Malaysian government to the tune of £17 million. During the Arab spring a program was sponsored by Mubarak’s government. Another program about climate change was sponsored by Envirotrade – a carbon trading company based safely for taxes in Mauritius. The BBC’s alarmist bias about climate change is notorious but sponsorship by organisations making millions from carbon trading goes a long way to explaining their “objectivity”. The broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, is to investigate.
One media company which made partisan programs for the BBC, FBC Media (UK), has gone into administration. “FBC, incorporated in 1998, was a vehicle for high-profile figures led by founder and chairman Alan Friedman.”
The Independent:
The BBC has owned up to a “nominal fee” programming scandal in which viewers of 15 editorial programmes were hoodwinked by “serious” conflicts of interest of programme makers and a failure to declare that documentaries had outside sponsors.
(more…)
Tags:Alan Friedman, BBC, BBC Trust, biased BBC programs, conflict of interest., FBC, sponsored programs
Posted in Alarmism, Business, Ethics, Media | Comments Off on Supposedly unbiased programs at the BBC were sponsored for millions by vested interests!
November 11, 2011
The greatest fear I have of getting old is not so much the pain or suffering or sickness or debilitation but the degradation one may have to undergo.
I have always perceived the care of the elderly (and children) in Sweden as being perhaps the most compassionate and advanced in the world – especially the care from the public sector. The best care anywhere in the world is no doubt when it happens – and it does not always happen – within the family environment. In times past it was the care of the elderly within extended family groups, where up to 4 generations lived together, which probably provided the best care possible. But as family groups have become smaller, the wherewithal for the best geriatric care possible has shifted to institutions.
But recent events within the Swedish system where the public sector has been outsourcing geriatric care to private enterprise are not pretty. In the chase for profit margins the level of degradation being meted out seems to have increased. The equation is no longer “the best care possible at the lowest allowable cost” and it seems instead to have become “not more than the cost absolutely necessary to avoid public complaints”. And in this new equation the level of degradation that the elderly are subjected to carries no weight. And the degradation is of relevance only if it leads to noisy complaints from others.
Something is not quite right and and it only reinforces my equating ageing with degradation.
The case of the private care company Carema has been the subject of a series of investigative articles by Dagens Nyheter and the latest episode of weighing diapers is not only degrading to the elderly patients but also, I think, for those being forced to implement Carema’s profit objectives:
(more…)
Tags:Carema, Dagens Nyheter, Degradation of the elderly, Elderly care, Geriatric nursing, Old age, Sweden
Posted in Business, Ethics, Sweden | Comments Off on Degradation of the elderly in Sweden’s privatised care system
November 7, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
Il Cavaliere , Sylvio “bunga-bunga” Berlusconi is 75 years old, has a personal fortune of some $9billion, and has been Italy’s Prime Minister for longer than anyone else. He is clinging desperately to power as Italy slides towards a Greece-like crevice and it is not apparent as to why he bothers. Whereas the Greek debt is only about 4% of Eurozone debt, Italy’s debt is closer to 20%. Italy’s public debt in 2010 was 118.4% of GDP. The annual budget deficit was 4.6% of GDP. Italy’s public debt-to-GDP ratio is the second highest in the euro zone after Greece’s, while its debt in absolute terms, which stood at 1.84 trillion euros at the end of 2010, is second to Germany’s.
It might seem to be just a powerful politician in denial of the approaching flames when Berlusconi declares that “Life in Italy is good. The restaurants are full. It’s difficult to get a seat on a plane they’re so busy; holidays are all booked up”.
(more…)
Tags:Bunga bunga Berlusconi, European Union, Eurozone, Greece, International Monetary Fund, Italy, Silvio Berlusconi
Posted in Economy, Ethics, European Union, Italy, Politics | Comments Off on Berlusconi bungas while Italy burns
October 31, 2011
Social psychology is going to take a beating over the Diederik Stapel fraud. It provides ample fuel for the view that social psychology is no science but merely the half-baked opinions of narcissists and charlatans. Ego trips and TV appearances have governed the field rather than any scientific rigour.
The interim report of the investigation being carried out by the of Universities of Tilburg and Groningen which started in mid September is now out.
Diederik Stapel
The interim report (in Dutch) is here:
pdf Stapel interim-rapport
The extent of the fraud is breathtaking and the investigation is far from over. At least 30 papers have been found to contain fraudulent data, at least 14 doctoral theses that he supervised are compromised for using fabricated data and in all about 150 papers going back to 2004 are being investigated. Legal action is to be taken. This one is going down in the history books.
(Update! 1st November: Science Insider carries the story here)
Dutch News writes:
(more…)
Tags:Diederik Stapel, fraud, Groningen University, Social psychology, Social Sciences, Tilburg University
Posted in Academic misconduct, Ethics, Fraud, psychology, Science, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | 4 Comments »
October 27, 2011
Saab is on its last legs but it appears from an investigation conducted by Swedish Television (SVT) that Victor Muller has rewarded himself handsomely even while supplier bills have been unpaid. Muller has little substance in his history but a long track record of grand schemes and – it seems to me – very gullible investors. Employees in his various loss-making companies have continued in the false hopes that Muller is so good at building up. They would seem to have a misplaced loyalty to their brands but instead have actually been relying on an unreliable Muller.
SVT (free translation):
SVT Report has investigated the complex transactions between Saab, Saab’s parent company and Victor Muller’s private companies. His compensation through bonuses, salary, equity, and professional fees add up to 18 million Kronor. This is at the same level as Leif Johansson the former CEO of Sweden’s largest company Volvo Trucks, where Volvo Trucks has about 90,000 employees while Saab has fewer than 3000 employees.
Saab has also paid Victor Muller’s invoices even while supplier’s bills have remained unpaid. Saab’s annual report details consultancy fees of 4 million kronor including a bonus of 1.76 million to a company that Muller controls – Latin America Tug Holding registered on the island of Curacao in the Caribbean. ….. Saab’s parent company has paid consultancy fees of €550 000 and an additional bonus of €508,571, making a total of about 10 million kronor to Victor Muller. He has also received 120,000 shares that he has sold for nearly four million kronor.
Beyond that, Saab’s parent company has bought services from companies affiliated with Victor Muller for nearly seven million. Victor Muller also has very attractive interest rate agreements for the money his company has lent to Saab. The interest on loans is set at EURIBOR plus 6 -10 percent. This means that Saab could have paid him around 12per cent interest on the loans.
Swedish Television have not been able to reach Victor Muller.
Sucking blood from a dying company.
Related: https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/saab-being-pimped-around-the-world-by-victor-muller/
Tags:SAAB, Sweden, Victor Muller
Posted in Business, Ethics, Sweden | 2 Comments »
October 24, 2011
Update: 31st October 2011: Further dodgy papers are given in the next instalment from Abnormal Science.
Japanese Retraction Watch has also been on the case.
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Abnormal Science ( Joerg Zwirner) has 3 more examples of papers with some questionable images. This time the papers are from the Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore with 2 papers published in Blood and one in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
The three papers tagged are:
1. Pervaiz S, Seyed MA, Hirpara JL, Clément MV, Loh KW.
Purified photoproducts of merocyanine 540 trigger cytochrome C release and caspase 8-dependent apoptosis in human leukemia and melanoma cells.
Blood. 1999 Jun 15;93(12):4096-108.
Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore; and the Oncology Research Institute, NUMI, Singapore
2. Hirpara JL, Seyed MA, Loh KW, Dong H, Kini RM, Pervaiz S.
Induction of mitochondrial permeability transition and cytochrome C release in the absence of caspase activation is insufficient for effective apoptosis in human leukemia cells.
Blood. 2000 Mar 1;95(5):1773-80.
Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
3. Hirpara JL, Clément MV, Pervaiz S.
Intracellular acidification triggered by mitochondrial-derived hydrogen peroxide is an effector mechanism for drug-induced apoptosis in tumor cells.
J Biol Chem. 2001 Jan 5;276(1):514-21.
Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore, Singapore
The two names common to all 3 papers are JL Hirpara and research supervisor Professor Shazib Pervaiz.
The NUS investigation committee has its work cut out with all the questionable papers they need to check out (See here and here).
As Abnormal Science puts it:
Their inquiry commissions might soon run out of unbiased members. NUS should consider to accept assistance from abroad to clean up the mess.
And it seems to be truly a mess covering a number of departments which indicates a prevailing culture and not just some isolated incident of wrongdoing.
Tags:Abnormal Science, image manipulation, Joerg Zwirner, National University of Singapore, Plagiarism, Scientific misconduct, Singapore
Posted in Academic misconduct, Ethics, scientific misconduct, Singapore | 2 Comments »
October 21, 2011
The Hausergate affair seemed to have reached a sort of resolution with Marc Hauser’s resignation from Harvard – but it has come back to life with accusations from Gilbert Harman, a philosophy Professor at Princeton that Hauser’s book Moral Minds may have “stolen ideas” without sufficient attribution from the 2000 doctoral thesis of John Mikhail, a graduate student at Cornell University who is now a law professor at Georgetown University.
(more…)
Tags:Gilbert Harman, Harvard University, hausergate, John Mikhail, marc hauser, Princeton
Posted in Academic misconduct, Ethics, Social Science | Comments Off on Marc Hauser now accused of “theft of ideas”
October 20, 2011
Skeletons seem to be tumbling out of the Singapore academic closet thick and fast as one allegation follows hot on the heels of the last. Previous revelations are here, and here.
1. Abnormal Science reports that another whistleblower has appeared and has pointed out image irregularities (image manipulations?) in two more publications, both from the Department of Pharmacology, National University of Singapore. Abnormal Science.
2. From the Straits Times (h/t as pointed out by an Abnormal Science reader) it is reported that a famous cancer scientist in Singapore is having his work challenged. If Prof. Yoshiaki Ito’s work is found to be flawed then some 200 other publications based on his results would be thrown into doubt.
The Times article is behind a pay wall but Asia News Net carries the article (more…)
Tags:Abnormal Science, Agency for Science Technology and Research, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Weizmann Institute of Science, Yoram Groner, Yoshiaki Ito
Posted in Academic misconduct, Ethics, Science, scientific misconduct, Singapore | 2 Comments »
The k2p blog 