Posts Tagged ‘ethics’

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No surprise: US diplomats acted as Boeing salesmen

January 3, 2011

It comes as no surprise that diplomats and government officials are heavily involved in lobbying and “advocacy” in favour of major corporations in international trade. This applies for sales of all defence equipment, commercial aircraft, major rail transport projects, nuclear and conventional power plant and -in short – virtually all large projects where jobs at the seller’s establishment are involved.

Virtually every visit of a head of government to another country reserves a great deal of time for commercial lobbying activities. Large companies look to such visits to bring purchasing decisions to a head and the months preceding such visits are periods of intense co-operation between commercial sales people, diplomats, bureaucrats and politicians in both countries. So called “agents” (essentially middle-men with “sticky” fingers) thrive on such activity.  During such periods I have seen how diplomats take directions from sales people at private companies or from the “agents”. The ability to access and trigger such “advocacy” is of huge competitive advantage for the companies involved. It is here that large international companies can bring factors outside the conventional sales criteria into play.

It is not just the US or just Boeing involved in such advocacy. Nearly every country indulges in this. The UK (British Aerospace for example), France (Areva and nuclear power or Alstom and High speed trains) or Germany (Siemens for power plants or trains or VW at car factories) are all engaged in similar advocacy. But the particular case of US diplomats acting as salesmen for Boeing is reported by the New York Times from the Wikileaks release of diplomatic cables and these reveal some of the “perks” and extra factors that are brought into play. Such as

The king of Saudi Arabia wanted the United States to outfit his personal jet with the same high-tech devices as Air Force One. The president of Turkey wanted the Obama administration to let a Turkish astronaut sit in on a NASA space flight. And in Bangladesh, the prime minister pressed the State Department to re-establish landing rights at Kennedy International Airport in New York. Each of these government leaders had one thing in common: they were trying to decide whether to buy billions of dollars’ worth of commercial jets from Boeing or its European competitor, Airbus. And United States diplomats were acting like marketing agents, offering deals to heads of state and airline executives whose decisions could be influenced by price, performance and, as with all finicky customers with plenty to spend, perks.

To get the interest of their own politicians and governments every large corporation knows that the magic key is being able to link the sale being pursued to jobs in the home-country and especially in the constituency of the home-politician. “Job creation” is the magic mantra that no politician can resist or can afford to ignore. The use of dubious agents or the use of “undue” influence or the flow of a few percent of the contract value  through some side-channels or the provision of some “perks” to politicians and bureaucrats through the entire chain from supplier to purchaser become critical and pervasive.

When the potential of job creation is involved, questions of ethics are rarely raised and the system of high level corruption is perpetuated.

NYT report

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Posted in Corruption, Diplomacy, Ethics, International Trade | Comments Off on No surprise: US diplomats acted as Boeing salesmen

Hausergate: In scientific misconduct “confirmation bias” or “fudging data” are equally corrupt

January 2, 2011

The Scientific American carries an article about the Marc Hauser case at Harvard. (Marc Hauser was found to have committed 8 cases of scientific misconduct).

Scientific American

Scott O. Lilienfeld argues that Hauser may only be guilty of “confirmation bias” and that it is premature to ascribe deliberate wrongdoing to him:

Hauser has admitted to committing “significant mistakes.” In observing the reactions of my colleagues to Hauser’s shocking comeuppance, I have been surprised at how many assume reflexively that his misbehavior must have been deliberate. For example, University of Maryland physicist Robert L. Park wrote in a Web column that Hauser “fudged his experiments.” I don’t think we can be so sure. It’s entirely possible that Hauser was swayed by “confirmation bias”—the tendency to look for and perceive evidence consistent with our hypotheses and to deny, dismiss or distort evidence that is not.

The past few decades of research in cognitive, social and clinical psychology suggest that confirmation bias may be far more common than most of us realize. Even the best and the brightest scientists can be swayed by it, especially when they are deeply invested in their own hypotheses and the data are ambiguous. A baseball manager doesn’t argue with the umpire when the call is clear-cut—only when it is close.

Scholars in the behavioral sciences, including psychology and animal behavior, may be especially prone to bias. They often make close calls about data that are open to many interpretations…….

………. Two factors make combating confirmation bias an uphill battle. For one, data show that eminent scientists tend to be more arrogant and confident than other scientists. As a consequence, they may be especially vulnerable to confirmation bias and to wrong-headed conclusions, unless they are perpetually vigilant. Second, the mounting pressure on scholars to conduct single-hypothesis-driven research programs supported by huge federal grants is a recipe for trouble. Many scientists are highly motivated to disregard or selectively reinterpret negative results that could doom their careers.

But I am not persuaded. When “eminent” scientists use their position and power to indulge in “confirmation bias” it is merely a euphemism for what is still cheating by taking undue advantage of their position. It is “corruption” in its most basic form. I reject the notion that such “confirmation bias” is a form of  “unwitting behaviour”. It may well be behaviour which resides in the sub-conscious but that is not “unwitting” behaviour. Neither is it excusable just because it may be in the sub-conscious. It gets into the sub-conscious only because the conscious allows it to do so. When any behaviour residing in the sub-conscious conflicts with the values and morality of an individual it is inevitably ejected into the conscious.  Being sub-consciously immoral but consciously moral is not feasible.

In the case of Marc Hauser, even assuming that his faults were due to “confirmation bias” then either it was behaviour which remained entirely in the sub-conscious in which case his values and morality are suspect, or it was triggered into the conscious and he continued anyway in which case it was simple cheating.

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Posted in Behaviour, Corruption, Ethics, Philosophy, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Hausergate: In scientific misconduct “confirmation bias” or “fudging data” are equally corrupt

A small bright spot in the murky world of corporate ethics

December 21, 2010

Laws tell us what we must not do and morals tell us what we ought not to do – whether illegal or not.

But ethics – when they exist – tell us what is the right and proper and desirable thing to do.

Far too many corporates seem to think that mere compliance with laws is sufficient as a code of ethics. Much trumpeted Corporate Social Responsibilities are primarily public relations and image building exercises with little relation to ethics. Token gestures of engaging in some social programme are assumed to be evidence of the existence of an ethical code but the reality is that most corporates have no ethics. They are content – like children – to let others tell them by law what is forbidden and then take the easy path provided by assuming that all behaviour which is not illegal is – by default – ethical.

As if it is not possible to be completely compliant and completely corrupt at the same time. British Aerospace and their utter lack of ethics being a case in point.

Retraction Watch carries the refreshing story of Wnt Research which shows that some bright spots still exist in the murky world of corporate ethics.

Two weeks ago, we covered the retraction of a PNAS paper on a potential breast cancer treatment, one that would make tumors that didn’t respond to tamoxifen respond to the drug. We learned earlier this week from a Retraction Watch commenter that Wnt Research, a company based on the breast cancer finding and other work, was about to go public.

In fact, their initial public offering (IPO) happened today, and you can follow the price of their stock — listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange as WNT — here. But what we learned when we looked into the IPO was that it was originally scheduled for late November, and was delayed because of the retraction.

Tommy Andersson, one of the researchers on the now-retracted paper and Wnt Research’s chief scientific officer, told Retraction Watch that the company had initially planned on going public on November 26. They had written a memorandum describing the company’s work to date, and its plans, and the public was given a chance to invest before shares hit the Stockholm exchange. That memorandum included a mention of the PNAS paper, as follows (translated from Swedish):

The research group has even shown that combining Wnt-5a or Foxy-5 will increase the expression of estrogen receptors in estrogen-negative breast cancer cells. It turned out that human breast cancer cells exposed to Foxy-5 regained tamoxifen sensitivity, which is clear from the increased apoptosis and reduced cell growth as a response to the endocrine treatment. Likewise, the research group found that administration of Foxy-5 in the body brought back the expression of estrogen receptors in a mouse model. Apart from the therapeutic potential of these observations, there is a potential to use the outcome of estrogen receptors as a biological marker, which should advance research.

The deadline for investment was October 27, and a number of people responded, allowing the company to continue its work. But on November 11, Andersson and his colleagues realized there were serious errors in the paper, and that it would need to be retracted. When Andersson called Wnt Research’s CEO, Bert Junno, on the 12th:

He rapidly called upon an extra Board meeting on the 15th of November (the same day my email of retraction was sent to the PNAS office). At this meeting we decided to make a press release on this matter and this went out on the 16th of November.

We again had an extra Board meeting on the 19th of November to discuss what other things that we needed to do. We agreed that the short press release must be accompanied by an addition to the already published memorandum, the reason being that you cannot change in the original memorandum. The CEO wrote this addition together with the people at the office of the small Stockholm Exchange “Aktietorget” where the company was to be listed. We also decided to ask for legal advice in how to handle the public that had already paid for shares in the company.

The board held another meeting on the 22nd, during which they approved the addition to the memorandum saying that the PNAS paper had been retracted. They also did something that can only be described as the right thing: They decided to write all of the approximately 275 people who had invested in the company by the October 27 deadline and offer their money back:

The reason for this was that the lawyer advised us to act according to good morals rather than to what we were required to do by law. His belief was that this would pay off in the long run.

The memorandum addition was published on November 25. And some people did ask for their money back:

The offer to retract their investments in the company resulted in a net loss of investments, but we still obtained enough investments to continue our work.

All of that back and forth also meant that the IPO was delayed by three weeks, until today.

We find this story wonderfully refreshing. Imagine, a company bending over backward to let investors — and potential investors — know about problems with its data.

I can only agree that this little story proves that, unlike what Milton Friedman had to say, it is perfectly possible to be ethical in the corporate world.

Today I did my bit and bought some shares in Wnt Research. I know too little about cancer research to judge whether this was or will be a good buy. But I applaud their ethics and my share purchase is just to put my money where my mouth is.

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Posted in Behaviour, Corruption, Ethics, Medicine, Sweden | Comments Off on A small bright spot in the murky world of corporate ethics

Diplomacy in action? Two nuclear scientists attacked in Teheran, one killed

November 29, 2010

In view of the latest Wikileaks revelations where the Saudi’s were aggressively pushing for the US to attack Iran, this story about two nuclear scientists being attacked by car bombs, killing one, becomes particularly interesting. Perhaps this is an example of modern diplomacy in action. Whether carried out by Saudi or US or Israeli agents, the use of car bombs – long associated with terrorism – smacks of hypocrisy. But then in modern “diplomacy”, hypocrisy is not – it seems – considered particularly unethical and it seems that in relationships between nations the end does in fact justify the means. Judging from the reaction of the US State Department to the publication of their confidential cables, it could be concluded that politicians and diplomats do not think it necessary to have  – and are not expected to have  –  any firm ethical standards.

The BBC carries the story:

An Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed and another wounded in two separate but similar attacks, according to Iranian media reports. The scientists were targeted in Tehran by attackers who attached bombs to each of their cars, reports said. The scientist killed has been named as Majid Shahriari of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, according to the official Irna news agency.

Another scientist was killed in a bomb blast at the beginning of the year.

The state television website says attackers riding on motorcycles attached bombs to the car windows of the scientists as they were driving to their workplaces on Monday morning. “In a criminal terrorist act, the agents of the Zionist regime attacked two prominent university professors who were on their way to work,” Iran’s state television’s website reported.

Dr Shahriari was a member of the nuclear engineering department of Shahid Beheshti University. His wife is said to have been injured in the attack. The nuclear scientist injured in the second attack was named as Fereydoon Abbasi. His wife was also wounded. According to the conservative news website Mashreghnews, Dr Abbasi is “one of the few specialists who can separate isotopes” and has been a member of the Revolutionary Guards since the 1979 revolution.

The Iranian scientist killed in January this year, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, was said to be a nuclear scientist assassinated by counter-revolutionaries, Zionists and agents of the “global arrogance”, Iranian media said at the time.

But I cannot help reflecting that as ethics and values become selective or are diluted as and when judged to be necessary, then decadence has set in and civilisation begins to crumble. As Einstein once said “Relativity applies to physics not to ethics”.

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Why cannot a concept of tort or “product liability”apply to scientists?

November 28, 2010

Cases of scientific misconduct do not seem to lead to any significant sanctions. Scientists are not subject to the codes of ethics that other professions have (even if they are not always complied with). Lawyers and doctors and engineers can be “disbarred” or otherwise forbidden from practising their professions when found guilty of incompetence or fraud.  Why then can a physicist or a chemist or a biochemist not be subject to the same professional sanctions for misconduct? Learned Institutes of Physics or Chemistry or Mathematics rarely get involved in the ethics breaches of their members. Scientists also need to be held responsible (liable) for their work and in cases of fraudulent science or misconduct, the sanctions applied need to be seen to be in balance with the extent of the offence.

There have been many cases of scientific misconduct where the offender seems to get little more than a slap on the wrist or a mild reprimand. In some cases they leave one institution and merely move to another. Their degrees are rarely revoked and they usually continue “working” or faking work in some other institution.

Retraction Watch addresses the details of the case of the fraud committed by Dr Jatinder Ahluwalia at University College London which led to the retraction of a paper in Nature.

Earlier this month, we posted an item about the retraction of a 2004Nature paper, “The large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channel is essential for innate immunity.” (That post was followed up with provocative comments from a researcher not affiliated with the authors, about what should happen to papers whose results can’t be replicated.)

One of the paper’s authors, Jatinder Ahluwalia, hadn’t signed the retraction, and the notice referred to “Supplementary Information” that hadn’t yet been made available. Today, University College London (UCL) posted that supplementary information, which was the report of a panel that investigated charges of research misconduct against Ahluwalia. That report fills in a lot of details about what preceded the retraction.

UCL’s investigation found that Ahluwalia:

  • falsified the results of experiments conducted by him, on UCL premises, thereby committing research fraud, as defined by paragraph 1.1.iv of the UCL Procedure for Investigating and Resolving Allegations of Misconduct in Academic Research. It was alleged that Dr Ahluwalia altered the numbering of files of research results so as to misrepresent the results of experiments conducted by him;
  • further falsified and misrepresented the results of experiments conducted by him, on UCL premises, by the use of materials other than those specified in the reports of the results of those experiments, thereby committing research fraud, as defined by paragraph 1.1.iv of the UCL Procedure for Investigating and Resolving Allegations of Misconduct in Academic Research;
  • interfered with the experiments of others so as to distort their results, thus falsifying the results of research experiments conducted by others employed by UCL on UCL premises, thereby committing research fraud, as defined in paragraph 1.1.iv of the UCL Procedure for Investigating and Resolving Allegations of Misconduct in Academic Research. It was alleged that Dr Ahluwalia deliberately contaminated chemicals used by other researchers in their experiments so as to falsify the results of those experiments, in order to conceal the falsification by him of the results of his own experiments.

Dr Ahluwalia is currently employed as a Senior Lecturer & Programme leader in BSc & MSc Pharmacology at the School of Health and Biosciences, University of East London,  Stratford Campus, Romford Road, London E15 4LZ, United Kingdom. For having committed fraud and engaged in sabotage and even though he is no longer employed by UCL, it does not seem that his behaviour has led to any significant sanctions.

Recently a Harvard University investigation found its high-profile Professor Marc Hauser guilty of 8 counts of misconduct and sent him on a year’s “book leave” and he will resume his activities next year. He does not lose tenure and his degrees are not revoked and the sanction seems relatively mild in relation to his behaviour.

The product that researchers and scientists produce is publications – mainly as papers published in scientific journals and as books. Scientific misconduct (whether plagiarism or faking data or inventing data or cherry picking data) leads occasionally to dismissals (but not always) and generally very little else. It seems to me that the concept of tort or “product liability” should be applicable to the work of scientists and researchers where their work is the result of faking data, fraud or other misconduct since it would be work that “had not been done in good faith”. Tort would apply because the ramifications of their misconduct would extend far beyond their employment contracts with their employers.

Tort  (from Wikipedia) is a wrong:

that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else. It is differentiated from criminal wrongdoing which involves a breach of a duty owed to society, and also does not include breach of contract. Tort cases may comprise such topics as auto accidents, false imprisonment, slander and libel, product liability (such as defectively designed consumer products), and environmental pollution (toxic torts).

Clearly a researcher has a civic duty to his co-workers, his department, his institution, his publishers and to the global community working in the same field. Scientific misconduct is a clear breach of these duties and any such researcher must then be both accountable and liable. Sanctions in such cases must be commensurate and seen to be commensurate with the offence. A year’s sabbatical from Harvard or merely moving across town to be employed at another university does not seem to be in balance with the weight of the misconduct.

The employment contract of a researcher with any institution no doubt has the appropriate language which allows sanctions (including dismissal) for breach of contract. However the liability of a fraudulent researcher – especially with published papers and books – goes beyond a simple breach of contract with his employer and extends to the entire community of workers in the field and even to all readers who may be influenced by the fraudulent work. For commensurate sanctions to be possible it becomes necessary for the concept of tort to be introduced and for  “product liability” to reside with the researcher whereby he can be held accountable by the entire audience his “product” is addressed to.

Authors of scientific papers and books need to be responsible and liable for their products.

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Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, Law, Philosophy, Science | 4 Comments »

Now Wall Street to crack down on insider trading

November 20, 2010

Two days after the Tokyo Stock Exchange attacked the “rampant” insider trading prevalent in Japan, US federal authorities after a three-year investigation, “are preparing insider-trading charges against consultants, investment bankers, hedge-fund and mutual-fund traders and analysts across the nation” according to the Wall Street Journal. Where Tokyo calls it “rampant” the US calls it “vast” and “pervasive”.

The criminal and civil probes, which authorities say could eclipse the impact on the financial industry of any previous such investigation, are examining whether multiple insider-trading rings reaped illegal profits totaling tens of millions of dollars, the people say. Some charges could be brought before year-end, they say.

The investigations, if they bear fruit, have the potential to expose a culture of pervasive insider trading in U.S. financial markets, including new ways non-public information is passed to traders through experts tied to specific industries or companies, federal authorities say.

Among the expert networks whose consultants are being examined, the people say, is Primary Global Research LLC, a Mountain View, Calif., firm that connects experts with investors seeking information in the technology, health-care and other industries. “I have no comment on that,” said Phani Kumar Saripella, Primary Global’s chief operating officer. Primary’s chief executive and chief operating officers previously worked at Intel Corp., according to its website.

In another aspect of the probes, prosecutors and regulators are examining whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bankers leaked information about transactions, including health-care mergers, in ways that benefited certain investors, the people say. Goldman declined to comment.

Independent analysts and research boutiques also are being examined. John Kinnucan, a principal at Broadband Research LLC in Portland, Ore., sent an email on Oct. 26 to roughly 20 hedge-fund and mutual-fund clients telling of a visit by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Today two fresh faced eager beavers from the FBI showed up unannounced (obviously) on my doorstep thoroughly convinced that my clients have been trading on copious inside information,” the email said. “(They obviously have been recording my cell phone conversations for quite some time, with what motivation I have no idea.) We obviously beg to differ, so have therefore declined the young gentleman’s gracious offer to wear a wire and therefore ensnare you in their devious web.”

The investigations have been conducted by federal prosecutors in New York, the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Representatives of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, the FBI and the SEC declined to comment.

Another aspect of the probe is an examination of whether traders at a number of hedge funds and trading firms, including First New York Securities LLC, improperly gained nonpublic information about pending health-care, technology and other merger deals, according to the people familiar with the matter.

Read the article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704170404575624831742191288.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

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Posted in Business, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud | Comments Off on Now Wall Street to crack down on insider trading

Belated action on scientific misconduct in India

November 18, 2010

The Calcutta Telegraph carries the sordid story of scientific fraud, establishment denial, paper retractions and finally establishment acceptance of the misconduct.

The Gopal Kundu controversy

A controversy erupted in National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune in 2006 when an anonymous mail alleged that the authors (H. Rangaswami and Colleagues from the group of Dr. Gopal Kundu) may have misrepresented data in a paper published in Journal of Biological Chemistry. The allegation was that they had rehashed the same set of data which they had published earlier. An internal committee of the NCCS advised the authors to take back their paper, however an independent committee led by G. Padmanabhan, a former director of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, concluded that there was no manipulation in the data. This led to some heated debate between Indian Scientists with several viewpoints being presented. On 23 February 2007, the Journal of Biological Chemistry withdrew the paper amid allegations of data manipulation. The authors still maintain that the two papers used different set of data though similar experiments.

However the panel set up was not as independent as claimed. Its members were chosen by the Government and – as often when things get politicised in India – they returned a “politically correct” white-wash. But now as The Telegraph reports:

An apex association of Indian scientists today debarred for three years a senior biologist who had been accused of plagiarism by international scientific journals three years ago but was exonerated by a government panel of top scientists.

The unprecedented action by the Bangalore-based Indian Academy of Sciences, after an internal investigation by its ethics committee, appears to vindicate claims by some scientists that the government-appointed panel had tried to shield the accused.

At its annual meeting in Goa today, the academy endorsed the decision by its ethics committee (which was accepted by the academy’s council in July) and barred Gopal Kundu from participating in the academy’s activities for three years, beginning August 2010.

Nor can Kundu, a research scientist at Pune’s National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), propose any candidates for fellowship of the academy during this period.

The prestigious US-based Journal of Biological Chemistry(JBC) had in February 2007 withdrawn a research paper by Kundu, accusing him of reusing images he had published in an earlier paper.

Another journal, Glycoconjugates Journal, too, had withdrawn a paper by Kundu because it had substantial similarities with a paper he had himself published previously in the JBC.

Better late than never but what is more important is the relatively low value given to ethics by the scientific establishment. Ethics, misconduct and scientific rigour can always be trumped by political correctness. Rahul Siddharthan writes in his excellent post:

An internal investigation at Kundu’s institution found him guilty of misrepresenting data, but a subsequent investigation by an external committee of six eminent scientists exonerated him completely, declaring themselves entirely satisfied that the images, though visually similar, were “indeed different.” I subsequently made my own analysis and published it in Current Science, who followed it with a response from G Padmanaban, the head of the committee that exonerated Kundu.

………

To me, this case is not really about Kundu. It is about our complete lack of appreciation of scientific ethics, and our tendency to “close ranks” when trouble arrives. To succumb to this tendency even after an international journal has conducted its own investigation and made its own decision, and to justify it with a paltry two-page report, merely makes us a laughing-stock.

So it is a good thing that the Academy has, belatedly, tried to correct this.

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Posted in Ethics, India, Peer review, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Belated action on scientific misconduct in India

Problem with Trent 900 was known before accident and raises ethical questions

November 15, 2010

The diagnosis of the problem with the Trent 900 has come in a matter of days and the solution has already been identified and is under implementation. This convinces me that the problem was already known and so was the solution.

There are at least two  important ethical questions which are raised by the Trent 900 story.

1. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), in August, apparently  relaxed a directive regarding the frequency with which Trent 900 engines were to be inspected. The Directive had been issued originally in January. That in itself  should primarily be a technical judgement call and judgements – especially in hindsight – can always be found to be faulty without raising any issues of ethics. However the ethical issue arises if – as it seems to be – the relaxation in August was initiated by representations from a party (Rolls Royce in this case) who found the original directive too onerous. The ethical standards of both the Regulator (EASA) and of the petitioner (Rolls Royce) then give cause for concern.

2. The second ethical issue arises if Rolls Royce knew in advance of the accident to the engine on QF32 that the engines in use were at risk and that the consequences could have been catastrophic. If this was just a judgement of the probability of failure and that this probability was judged insignificant then it is an issue of bad judgement but not unethical. But an insignificant probability of failure should not have initiated the programme of engine modifications that was apparently ongoing even before the accident. Therefore, if Rolls Royce, knowing full well that the risks were sufficiently high to require that the engines had necessarily to be rectified, kept quiet in the “gamble” that no accidents would occur before they had managed to modify all the “faulty” engines,  then it becomes a case of low ethical standards and not just poor judgement. Reports suggest that Rolls Royce knew that the modifications were necessary more than a year ago but also that the mechanic who revealed this was forced to speak anonymously. This does not give any confidence that there is full transparency and, in fact, strengthens the view that Rolls Royce knew there was a problem. The speed (days rather than months) with which the diagnosis has been made and the solution defined also indicates that the engine failure did not come as much of a surprise and that the problem and the solution were already known.

The mainly technical issues with the engine indirectly raise a more general question for the aviation industry of whether there are conditions where competitive pressures  can be damaging because they increase the risk of potential harm to the general public (who unwittingly become guinea pigs for testing new technologies).

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Posted in Aviation, Engineering, Ethics, European Union, Technology | 5 Comments »

Did Rolls Royce know about the risk for a Trent 900 failure before the Qantas accident?

November 14, 2010

Another new twist to the Rolls Royce Trent story.

First it appears that the regulators (EASA) relaxed their original inspection requirements in their Directive of August. It is not clear if this relaxation was in response to the airlines or to the engine maker requesting a change.

Now it seems that Rolls Royce may well have known (perhaps a year ago) that a number of their engines on “older” A 380s were susceptible to oil leaks and therefore to the potentially catastrophic consequences of a fire. About 40 engines on the Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa A 380s have to be changed out.  The newer engines have undergone two modifications compared to the older engines. It seems that Rolls Royce started modifying oil systems on some engines almost a year ago.

If Rolls Royce knew about the risk to the Trent 900 before the flight of Qantas QF32 on November 4th, there is an ethical dimension which needs to be considered.

According to the Herald Sun,

Fourteen of the 24 Trent 900 engines fitted to the six A380s Qantas has grounded are suspected of having an oil leak problem. Another 24 “faulty” engines are on Singapore Airlines jets. The airline has grounded three A380s. Two have been found by the German carrier, which has suffered two Trent incidents.

Revised versions of the engine are being rushed to Qantas.

Sir John Rose, chairman of the British engine maker, issued a statement late on Friday in which he admitted a “specific component in the turbine area of the engine caused an oil fire”, which led to a turbine disc hurtling out. He offered “regret” for causing “disruption”. But he failed to reveal when Rolls-Royce discovered the turbines of the Trent 900 were being exposed to the dangerous oil leaks and the dates of the two upgrades.

Qantas, Singapore Airlines and German carrier Lufthansa installed the original-spec engines on some of their jets. It is understood Qantas has begun record checks to see whether Rolls kept its engineers informed of the design changes to the $25 million engines.

An aircraft mechanic with one of the three airlines claimed Rolls-Royce began modifying the oil lubrication system on the Trent 900 engine in the second half of last year.

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Posted in Aviation, Business, Engineering, Ethics, Technology | 5 Comments »

Geoengineering possibilities threaten the CO2 reduction advocates

November 11, 2010

The global warming brigade and their funding is dependant upon carbon dioxide being considered a villain and being banned. Global warming dogma does not like geoengineering solutions which may make doomsday scenarios irrelevant.

When geo-engineering – that is human intervention directed to adapting to climate  – suggests ways in which we could successfully keep climatic conditions suitable for human development, the global warmists are appalled. To suggest alternatives to banning carbon dioxide suddenly creates “ethical issues” whereas alarmism and doomsday scenarios do not!!

But if it is unintended human intervention which creates a problem then surely it is the only “right and proper” course to use intended human intervention to rectify the situation (even though man-made carbon dioxide is of little significance and totally irrelevant as far as climate change is concerned).

In fact – I would suggest – it is unethical to stifle human ingenuity and the march of technology.

Human development cannot be based on “not doing something”. Strategy must be based on the positive choice of “what to do” which may – as a consequence – lead to certain other things not being done. But when environmentalism or conservation or climate change lead only to lists of “what not to do” they degenerate into cowardice where actions are subordinated to “fear” and  lose credibility.

The Guardian tells us:

The problem is that proposals to geo-engineer the climate come loaded with social and ethical concerns. Is it acceptable to intentionally intervene in the volatile climate system? How would it be governed? What would prevent the abuse of climate-controlling technologies, and whose hand would be on the global thermostat?

Geoengineering or climate engineering solution to climate change: marine cloud whitening

A geoengineering solution:Spraying seawater droplets into marine clouds from ships could make them reflect more sunlight. Photograph: Nasa

The growing number of scientists working on different aspects of geo-engineering research – from climate modelling, to lab experiments with reflective particles that could be injected into the stratosphere – are anxious to emphasise that they are not geo-engineering cheerleaders. They simply want to understand the pros and cons of different technologies, in case the day came when they might be needed, a day they hope will never come.

The Royal Society itself has taken great care to indicate that it does not advocate geo-engineering – and certainly not in the place of deep global cuts in greenhouse gases. But it does advocate research on geo-engineering, and that’s where the dilemma for many scientists kicks in.

On the one hand, it is clearly prudent to understand more about geo-engineering – the worst of all scenarios would involve a government deploying a technology without knowing what its effects would be. Initial evidence suggests that spraying the skies with reflective particles of sulphate would have a major impact on patterns of rainfall. Surely it is better to know this sooner rather than later?

On the other hand, conducting research on geo-engineering is one of the main factors that will make the deployment of the technologies more likely. Most scientists are deeply sceptical about the use of such “remedial” action on global warming. But scientists won’t be the ones to decide whether the technology is used. So are they unwittingly clearing the path for future deployment?

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Ethics, Geoengineering | Comments Off on Geoengineering possibilities threaten the CO2 reduction advocates

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