(audience applause)
- Good morning.
For the past three years, I was a researcher
at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
at Harvard University, where I examined corrupting influences
and hidden biases in the pursuit of knowledge.
During this time, I conducted in-depth interviews
with professors from medicine, business, law,
the natural life sciences, as well as the humanities
and social sciences.
My goal was to try to understand the everyday life
of scientists and professors across all the disciplines.
In the end, I ended up with close to 10,000 pages
of interview transcripts.
Today I would like to share with you
some of the ethical dilemmas that professors face.
In particular, whether they experience an increased risk
of bias depending on who is funding their research.
Now, why should we be concerned about the ethics
of knowledge production?
When I first started university, I had this idealistic,
and perhaps naive, view of science.
I believed that scientists inquired about the world,
practiced the scientific method with integrity,
and made new discoveries that drive progress forward.
But close examination of how scientist conduct research
reveals that what we can know depends not only
on the scientist, but also on the structures
and institutions that give scientists the means
to pursue knowledge.
As I interviewed scientists and professors,
I began to uncover patterns of scientific distortion,
or what some might call "the corruption of knowledge."
However, the majority of these distortions
were not produced by bad people behaving unethically
or illegally, although this does happen.
But rather by good people, like the people
sitting beside you right now: your friends and your family
who in response to the daily pressures
of work may simply begin to rationalize
to themselves little ethical lapses here and there.
Now by ethical lapse, I mean scientific integrity lapses
that appear to be very small, or inconsequential,
at the time.
One of the most common examples of this
involves a scientist thinking,
Maybe I won't ask Question A when pursuing
my research because my funder who may be relying
on the results of this study to obtain regulatory approval
for potential commercialization may not be too happy
with the higher risk of a negative result
which might also affect my future funding.
So maybe instead I'll self-censor myself
and ask a different question of the data
where the possible outcome will most likely
not ruffle too many feathers and I will then answer
that question honestly and with scientific integrity.
Now these types of rationalizations,
these little compromises, where we convince ourselves
in the moment that what we're doing is okay,
help to neutralize any guilt we might experience
in our ethical decision making.
However, over time the accumulation
of these little ethical lapses is leading
to a broader system of knowledge production
that is becoming increasingly distorted
and more difficult to trust.
I want you to think about that word for a moment: trust.
And how it plays a role in your daily activities.
For instance, plastic water bottles.
They're so common that when we pick one up,
we're probably not thinking anything
other than, "I'm thirsty."
We don't ask ourselves, Hmm, does bisphenol-a,
or BPA, a common compound used in hard plastic products,
lead to cancer, behavioral disorders,
or reproductive problems?
No, of course not.
We take a drink and we go on with our day.
We trust that drinking from the water bottle
can't be bad, or at least bad enough to worry about.
While on the one hand, you can feel safe
because every study performed by scientists
funded by the industry concludes, "No harm from BPA."
In other words: it's okay, you can trust BPA.
But, at the same time, 93% of the non industry
funded studies show that there might be cause for concern.
And that maybe we should be a little less trusting
the next time we pick up a hard plastic water bottle.
So who do you trust?
And how is it possible that the industry funded scientists
studying BPA are so certain that there is no harm?
Is it simply because they're better scientists?
Have bigger data sets?
Know the compound better?
Maybe, perhaps, but we see this pattern
often called the funding effect,
across many different areas of research
from cell phone safety to climate change to soft drinks.
In each case, scientists funded by the industry,
or industry supported think tanks, reached conclusions
that overall tend to deny or downplay any harm.
While non industry funded scientists overwhelmingly
find evidence of harm.
Among the professors I interviewed in food and nutrition,
there was acknowledgement of this funding effect bias.
When food scientists said, "There is a tendency for people
in my discipline to develop sympathies
with the food industry and to say
'Yeah this is definitely safe.' Rather than to say,
"Okay, here's this research study,
and this research study, and this research study.'"
When I interviewed another professor, who was also
an editor of a scientific journal in nutrition,
he said the following to me, "So we get some manuscripts
that are industry sponsored and one senses
that their story is a little slanted towards the benefit
of whatever it might be.
Their product did this, never mind that
it didn't do 10 other things.
The most frequent scenario is not that the study
is done poorly, but that the questions themselves
are kind of selective."
Now if a funding effect bias does exist,
then surely the regulatory bodies who look out
for our safety must be aware of it, right?
For instance, what about our prescription drugs?
Pharmaceutical companies must first obtain
regulatory approval for their products, right?
Yes, however, many of the drug evaluation
and research advisory committee members
who vote on whether a drug should be granted
regulatory approval also have financial conflicts
of interest with these same drug companies.
These voting members often serve as consultants
and have ownership interest in the same drug companies
seeking approval.
They also sit on their advisory boards
and even receive funding from these firms
for their own individual research.
In other words, they might be experts,
but they are not independent experts.
As you know, in 2008 the world suffered
a major financial crisis.
The Oscar-winning documentary, Inside Job,
suggested that economics professors were being corrupted
and blinded through their consulting relationships
and conflicts of interest with the financial sector.
It was so serious that even an upset Queen of England
(audience laughs)
visited the LSC, the prestigious London School
of Economics, and sternly asked her top
economics professors, "If the problem was so widespread,
"then why didn't anyone notice it?"
The Director of LSC's Management Department,
who was standing beside the Queen at the time,
said to her, "At every stage, someone was relying
on somebody else and everyone thought
they were doing the right thing."
In my interviews with business and economics professors,
it was observed, as it was with professors
across all the disciplines, that a lack of independence
can distort the production of knowledge.
One economics professor, who researches
private equity finance, told me during an interview,
"The only way to get the data is to get
"the private equity firms to give it to you.
"If you then say these people don't know what they're doing,
or they only make returns by taking excessive risks,
then there is the potential you simply will not
get data going forward and you will be forced
to leave the field of economics.
So you have to worry that the research that comes out
is more favorable to the private equity industry
than otherwise it would be."
Now despite all these cautionary examples
of corrupting influences and hidden biases,
some of you out there, I'm certain,
are still thinking to yourself, "Okay, Gary,
I hear what you're saying, but I would never distort
my work, and no conflict of interest would change
how I pursue my research."
Fair enough, many of us do believe
that we can manage any conflict of interest
and still maintain our own personal integrity.
However, we should never forget that the power
to rationalize our own little ethical lapses
is remarkable.
Consider this everyday example.
Statistics demonstrate that there are disturbingly
high rates of accidents and deaths
due to cell phone related distracted driving.
Yet, despite knowing this, many of us will continue
to use cell phones when we drive,
even after we leave here today.
Studies show that more than half of us believe
that when we use cell phones and drive,
it makes no real difference on our own
individual driving performance.
Yet, when we switch from being the driver to the passenger,
90% of us now will suddenly state, " I would feel
very unsafe if I observed my driver using a cell phone."
So saying you have integrity is easy.
Practicing integrity is not easy.
And recognizing our own little ethical lapses
and rationalizations is even more difficult.
So what does this all mean in the context
of knowledge production?
First, we should be aware that funders increasingly want
more influence over what questions scientists can ask,
what findings they can share, and ultimately
what kind of knowledge is produced.
So ask yourself, "What are the strings attached
"when we accept funding?"
Are the strings visible, where the scientist is told
that she cannot publish her work until given approval
to do so by the funder?
Or does the funder require that the data
remain confidential so that the research conclusions
can never be verified within the scientific community?
Or are the strings invisible?
Increasingly, scientists and professors are self-censoring
their work in order to appeal to funders.
And in so doing are sidestepping important questions
that may be critical to the public good
and society as a whole.
My interviews make clear
that the funding effect bias is real.
And, if left unchecked, will continue to have a real impact
on what we can know.
So next time you pick up a book or a research article,
check to see who is funding the author's work.
And pay close attention to the author's affiliations.
In order to be informed in this information age,
we need to take extra measures to vet the legitimacy
of the content that we rely on, to develop a critical eye
for independence, and to value scientific integrity
above anything else.
Information and knowledge require science,
unfettered and unbiased.
And it's time we all take measures to demand it.
Thank you.
(audience applause)