Tail spins

comment on essays from students in other countries, and — worst of all — provide information for incessant bureaucratic enquiries that should not be taking place at all. Non-compliance is rapidly followed by a further enquiry or a thinly veiled reprimand for being forgetful or hurtful or not attending to emails. It is madness. Is science organised effectively? Science can be pricey and the public pay for most of it. So scientists are accountable. Fortunately most of them appreciate this. Some areas of research can only be carried out in centres of excellence with shared expensive facilities, like high energy physics or high-field magnetic imaging. However, bureaucratic attempts to make diverse scientists from different laboratories and even nations collaborate in the name of efficiency and international development are often spectacular failures. Scientists usually know who best to collaborate with and usually manage to do so. And it is important that they should like each other. Friendship is the best catalyst. You study the behaviour of animals and humans: are there serious ethical issues in doing so? Yes. It is possible to exploit the good will of human subjects and even to harm them physically or mentally. Obtaining genuine informed consent from a patient is not trivially easy. Fortunately the scientific community is aware of this and local, national and international legislation at least means that research proposals are scrutinised and must be approved by knowledgeable and disinterested bodies. Investigators mutter about how long it can take to obtain permission to do certain things but I have not yet met any investigator who thinks that the legislation should be swept away. The ethical issues involving research on animals are much more controversial and depressing. Most of the 'debates' are little more than a heated ritualistic exchange of insults, slogans and physical threats. A proper discussion of what constitutes an animal's rights, or the nature of pain and suffering and how they can be detected and minimised, or whether the ends ever justify the means, rarely takes place except in esoteric books that are not widely read. The public debate is intellectually impoverished and lacks a genuine meeting of minds. In this respect little has changed in a century. Are you concerned about deliberate falsification of results in science? It is difficult to say no to this question for there are now several well-known examples in biology, some of them with a …