Cameron Neylon

There has been much talk about both "academic freedom" as well as the
responsibilities of scholars over the past few weeks. Both of these are
troublesome concepts, not least because one person's "freedom" is
another's irresponsible conduct. But particularly in the context of
"academic freedom" the question of freedom to do or say what, and what
responsibilities come with that is complex. And of course the freedom to
speak is not the right to an expectation to be taken seriously. Any such
right or authority is also tied to certain, usually unspecified
responsibilities.

The question of academic freedom has been most visibly raised in the
context of Tim Hunt's reported comments at a Korean conference. As it
happens I have my own story involving Hunt and misintepretation, once
which might provide a useful way in to the issue.

At the closing panel of the Berlin11 meeting I spoke in a discussion
panel about the progress towards open access and the future of scholarly
communications. The meeting, in Berlin, was held in an old building that
had been wonderfully refurbished as a conference space. In my remarks I
drew an analogy with the building, the idea of taking the best of the
past and repurposing it to support the future, noting that the building
literally showed the scars of history, in this case the damage inflicted
by allied bombing in World War II.

It was later related to me that Hunt had said that this was a very
eloquent defence of journals like *Nature* and *Science*. Of course
anyone who knows me will know that was absolutely not my intended
meaning. What I meant, and what I said, were not congruent with what was
heard. My intent was to provoke thought on what was worth keeping, not
to defend the status quo. But who is responsible for the
misunderstanding? What is my responsibility for greater clarity?

It may seem like a trivial misunderstanding, but it could have not been.
We were in Berlin. The building might have a very dark history,
certainly it is a near statistical certainty that some members of the
audience had lost family members to allied bombing. My comments could
have been misintepreted as saying that the building was more important
than their relative's suffering. That issue did not occur to me at the
time, and looking back today I am ashamed by that. It may not have
changed what I said, but it would certainly have changed the way I said
it. As a sufficient authority to be asked to offer my views in the final
session of an important meeting I had a responsibility to take care that
my comments *were* authoritative but also that they were responsible.

Nobel Laureates travel a lot. They are in demand as speakers because
they have authority. They have authority obviously in their area of
research but also as senior members of the research community they bring
a perspective as leaders who have been involved in the governance and
strategic development of the research community. When that authority is
assumed without sufficient care, or in areas where the person in
question is not well informed, the result tends to rebound badly â€" Jim
Watson's comments on race, Pauling's on vitamin C come to mind.

To those who are given great authority, whether in the form of Nobel
prizes or large twitter followings, is also given great responsibility.
Sometimes discharged well, sometimes not. Academic authority and
academic freedom are not easy bedfellows. The right to speak one's mind
is freedom of speech. The ability to deploy one's authority is not a
right. Authority is the ability to be *listened to* not the ability to
speak freely. And that ability comes with responsibility. Academic
freedom is *not* the right to speak one's mind. It is rather the
responsibility to speak on issues, with the authority that arises from
scholarly rigour. It is the tradition that *employment* should not be at
risk when a scholar speaks in their area of expertise.

The most damning indictment therefore of the cries of "Academic Freedom"
in the defense of Hunt is *that his comments were bad science*. They
were spectacularly uninformed by the large quantity of literature that
shows virtually the opposite of what he said (see [Curt Rice's
blog](http://curt-rice.com/) for an up to date summary). Further the
defence that "it was just a joke" can only be made by failing to engage
with the literature that shows that not only do jokes surface real bias
and real issues, but that asking a disdvantaged group to accept
something as a joke normalises that disadvantage. Hilda Bastian has
covered this in [her excellent
post](http://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-maybe/2015/06/22/just-joking-sexist-talk-in-science/).

The question of responsibility has also been raised in the furore of
John Bohannan's recent exposes, first on [fly by night scholarly
publishers](http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.342.6154.60) seeking to
fleece researchers, and [more
recently](http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800)
on the reporting, review and publicity around poorly run "medical"
studies. In both cases questions are raised of methodology. In the Open
Access sting many commentators, myself included, excoriated Bohannan for
not running a proper control, in essence not running a proper scientific
study. In the more recent chocolate study issues of ethical oversight
and risk to participants were raised. If Bohannan was a scientist,
speaking with the authority of a scholar then this would be a reasonable
criticism. His own claim of the title "gonzo scientist" raises some
interesting questions in this regard but fundamentally he is a
journalist and writer, governed by different rules of authority and
responsibility.

In the case of the OA sting those questions of authority were muddied by
the publication of the piece in *Science*. Online the distinction
between this journalistic piece and a research article is not
immediately clear. To be fair, in the piece itself John does make the
point that conclusions on the prevalence of poor peer review practices
in subscription vs open access journals cannot be drawn from this work.
Indeed his aim is a different kind of "proof", in this case an existence
proof of the problem â€" there are "journals" that do little to no peer
review, and many of them are open access.

The problems I have with the piece, and they are many, arguably conflate
my expectations of a piece of scholarly research and the
responsibilities of a scholar â€" the need to tell us something *new*
orÂ *useful* *â€"* with the very different aims of a journalist, to
expose an issue to a wider audience. Indeed the very establishment power
structures moving into place to defend Hunt are the ones that I,
arguably hypocritically, deployed to combat Bohannan. "The problem has
been known for some time" "Quiet work was being done on it" "Leave our
community to get on and sort out our problems". But did we need an
outsider to make it public enough and urgent enough to drive real
action? Did Bohannan have responsibilities to the Open Access community
to tell us more about the problem, to do a proper study, or as a
journalist was his responsiblity to publicly expose the issue?

Alice Goffman is another researcher facing a different set of tensions
over responsibility, freedom and authority. Her book *[On the
Run](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo18039324.html)*
gives a challenging account of inner city life amongst deprived black
american youth. Published in 2014 it can be seen as a warning of the
subsequent events in Ferguson and Baltimore and other places.

Goffman is an enthographer and her book started life as a scholarly
monograph, but one that has gone on to have success as a mainstream
non-fiction book. Ethnography involves working closely with, often
living with research subjects, and the protection of the privacy of
subjects is held as a very high principle. As described [in this Slate
article](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/06/alice_goffman_s_on_the_run_is_the_sociologist_to_blame_for_the_inconsistencies.single.html)
(which is my main source) this generally means obscuring locations,
names, even the chronology of events to create a narrative which
surfaces a deeper underlying truth about what is going on. Goffman took
this responsibility particularly seriously given she observed events
that could land people in jail, going so far as to destroy her notebooks
so as to protect her research subjects.

But as this uncomfortable narrative became more public and transformed
into a mainstream non-fiction book the responsibilities of the author
(no longer a scholar?) seemed to change. General non-fiction is supposed
to be "true" and Goffman's rearrangement of facts, people and timelines
breaks this expectation. What is interesting is that was in turn is used
to raise charges of *scholarly* misconduct. The responsibility of the
author to the reader is in direct conflict with the responsibility of
the scholar to their subjects, yet the critic chooses to attack the
scholarship. Indeed, given that the criticism and claims of misconduct
are based on a forensic analysis of the text in some sense Goffman is
under attack because she didn't do a good enough job of hiding the
process of discharging her scholarly responsibilities, leaving
inconsistencies in the timelines and events.

Which responsibility trumps which? What does "integrity" mean in this
context, or rather disparate and competing contexts, and how does a
public scholar working on important and challenging problems navigate
those competing issues? Where is Goffman's academic freedom and where do
her academic responsibilities lie? In restricting her space for
communication to the academic world? In speaking (her) truth to power?
Or is that space left for those licensed to speak through mainstream
books? Is it left for Bohannan because only the outsider can make that
transition?

The question of research integrity in Goffman's case is challenging. Her
destruction of notebooks certainly disturbs me as someone concerned
primarily with the integrity of the research record. But I can respect
the logic and to the extent that it is seen as reasonable within her
disciplinary context accept that as appropriate scholarly practice.

The question of fraud in natural and social science research may seem
much clearer. [Diederik
Stapel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diederik_Stapel) (I could have
easily chosen Jan Hendrik SchÃ¶n or many others) simply made up
datasets. Here it seems there are clear lines of responsibility. The
scholar is expected to add to the record, not muddy it. As we move
towards digital records and data sharing these expectations are rising.
Reproducible research is a target that seems plausible at least in some
disciplines, although ironically we are perhaps merely returning to the
level of record keeping recommended by [Robert Boyle in
1660](http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A29007.0001.001/1:3?rgn=div1;submit=Go;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=Boyle).

Does academic freedom mean the right to publish results based on made up
data? Of course not. The scholar has a responsibility to report
accurately when speaking in a scholarly context. It is not a crime to
make up data, even in a research context. Ideas might be expressed
though imagined or constructed datasets, they may even be an integral
part of the research process as test sets, statistical tools or training
sets. It is a "crime" to misrepresent or mis-use them. Even carelessness
is treated a significant misdemeanour, leading as it does to retraction
and consequent embarassment. Where does "carelesness" of the type that
leads to retraction become "foolishness" that only requires mild rebuke?

But the idea of a "complete record" and "reproducibility" is a slippery
one. In Goffman's case reproducibility is impossible even in principle.
Ethnographers would I imagine regard it as deeply problematic. The
responsibility here is not even to report true facts, but the deeper
truth â€" as the scholar sees it â€" that underlies the events they
observe. Stapel may well have thought he was also telling "a truth",
just one for which the data wasn't quite clean enough. A serious issue
behind Bohannan's chocolate expose is that p-value hacking, searching a
weak dataset for "a truth" to tell, is endemic in many disciplines and
that peer review as currently constructed is impotent in tackling it.
Peer review assumes that authors have taken on board the responsibility
to tell the truth (something Bohannan explicitly didn't do for instance
in the [correspondence he had with PLOS One
staff](http://scicomm.scimagdev.org/data/journals/530/) in the technical
checks done before formal peer review).

Many of the technical discussions of reproducibility and data sharing
founder on issues of reproducible for who? At what level? In what way?
Bohannan shared his data, but you could not now reproduce his
"experiment" precisely. His actions make that impossible. Goffman's data
does not exist but events in Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere arguably
confirm her claims and narrative. Does [Amgen's failure to
reproduce](http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/483531a) the vast majority of
findings published on cancer biology in "top journals" mean we have a
crisis?

Perhaps better to ask, what is the responsibility of authors publishing
in cancer biology to their readers. To tell the truth as they see it?
Obviously. To use all the tools at our disposal to prevent us fooling
ourselves, to prevent us seeing what we want to see? Certainly. To
provide the data? Increasingly so. To ensure the materials (cell lines,
antibodies, reagents) are available to those who do want to do direct
replication? Oh, that might be too much to expect. Today at least, but
tomorrow? This is a discussion about responsibilies. Not technical
details. Responsibilities to who, and for what, and how does that vary
across disciplines. Perhaps focussing on "reproducibility" is the wrong
approach.

As freedom of speech is merely right to a voice, not to a listener,
academic freedom has its limits. The boundaries between scholarly
speech, within a scholarly community, and wider public speech is
blurring, as Goffman and Hunt have found, and as Bohannan has shown us.
Context matters, whether the context of my previous writing on the
merits and de-merits of *Nature*, the history of a building, or in the
choice to make a joke of the wrong type in the wrong place. And the
authority that comes from experience and responsibility in one space
does not always travel well into a different context.

Does this mix of contexts and expectations mean we should simply give
up? Just be quiet and retreat? That would be the easy answer. But the
wrong one. Academic Freedom, or Academic Responsibility comes with the
responsibility to speak. But it is a responsibility to be exercised with
care. And with empathy for the different contexts that different
audiences may find themselves in. Showing our working and showing our
thinking. Showing the disciplinary traditions and expectations, the
responsibilities that we have assumed, explicitly will help.

Above all, speaking from a position of authority (and I have chosen to
use the word authority, rather than power deliberately) means assuming a
higher level of reponsibility. This is perhaps best summed up in the
direct advice "never punch down". When speaking from a position of
scholarly authority the limits of that authority, the limits of the
experience, and the care expected in having mastery of the evidence are
higher. And this is reasonable. And more and more important if
scholarship is to be part of the wider world and not something that is
done to it. If, after all, scholarship is about informed criticism and
discussion, we all have a responsibility not just to speak, with care,
but also to listen.

*This piece has been very strongly shaped by a range of recent
discussions, most strongly with Michael Nielsen (on John Bohannan's
work) and Michelle Brook (on diversity, power relations, integrity and
the tensions between them), but also the ongoing discussion on twitter
and more generally about Tim Hunt's comments and Bohannan's recent
"sting".*


There has been much talk about both “academic freedom” as well as the responsibilities of scholars over the past few weeks. Both of these are troublesome concepts, not least because one person’s “freedom” is another’s irresponsible conduct. But particularly in the context of “academic freedom” the question of freedom to do or say what, and what responsibilities come with that is complex.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Freedoms and responsibilities: Goffman, Hunt, Bohannan and Stapel