Professional ethics and publishing.

We are all troubled by ethics violations we see in the newspaper and other media outlets. Are there similar areas of concern in the sciences and in poultry science? Recently there have been a number of cases in some of the most prestigious scientific journals, including Science, of papers being withdrawn because the results were not replicable due to scientific misconduct or fabrication of results (reviewed by LaFollette, 2000). The extent of the ethics problem has not been examined quantitatively but, whatever the level of scientific misconduct, it is totally unacceptable. The essence of scientific fraud is the intent to deceive. An unprincipled scientist may commit fraud due to blind ambition or career pressure, sloppiness, laziness, malice, or even greed. Irrespective of the underlying motive, those who commit scientific fraud devalue or destroy the careers of their students and collaborators, bring discredit to the field and to science itself, defraud sponsors and the public, and mislead colleagues throughout the world. The reason for this editorial is that it is our responsibility as editors to attempt to prevent scientific misconduct (Office of Research Integrity, 2000).