Let’s just imagine together: you’re a senior researcher in charge of prestigious research institution. This institution produces its own in-house journal, which you are heavily involved in the editing of and have used to publish a number of your own papers over the years. Suddenly, you become aware of some rather unsavoury accusations being aimed in your direction, of not one, but three, instances where you have used your association with the in-house journal to “claim jump” research – rushing out a publication to claim precedence over someone else’s work that you had learnt about through back-channels. Of course, you are completely innocent, but you have to admit that as presented, the case reflects extremely badly on you, your institution, and your field in general. Your accusers – junior researchers who are of course quite sensitive about getting due credit for their work – are clearly upset by what they consider to be theft of their ideas. Should you:
(a) Act quickly to repair the damage, by publicly explaining the mistakes which led to this depolarable situation. Constructively engage with the injured parties, working to alleviate their hurt feelings, and towards finding ways to prevent similar unpleasantness in the future.
(b) Say nothing. Allow your bosses to convene an “independent inquiry” where two of your mates ask, “it was all just a misunderstanding, wasn’t it?” and close the book after you say “yes.” Look on mutely when a letter written by one of them hits the public domain three days before the inquiry is due to convene, proclaiming your innocence and dismissing the injured parties as embittered junior academics trying to blame someone else for their own inadequacies.
A no brainer, right? Right?
As it turns out, it really does depend: most sane people would choose option (a), but it seems that if you work at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, currently the centre of “Aetogate Scandal”, option (b) is the clear winner. Innocent or guilty, these people are nuts.
The truly depressing thing about Norman Silberling’s letter is the tone of righteous indignation that permeates it: how dare young scientists have the temerity to question the actions of their elders! It doesn’t matter whether this was “claim-jumping”, or if it was indeed just a Rube Goldberg-like mess of innocent “oversight and missed communication”: the fact remains that something seems to have gone seriously wrong in the world of vertebrate palaeontology, and it’s in everyone’s* interest to understand how, so that we can reduce the risks of it happening again in the future. I don’t buy this “shit happens. That’s just the way it is” attitude that is the all-too-common response to a whole raft of what should be important structural, professional and ethical issues in academia: the way it is isn’t the way it has to be. Perhaps the positive thing to take from this is that it’s clear that there’s a fair number of people out there who feel the same way, and with a bit of mutual internet encouragement perhaps some of us can make it to tenure with our motivation to actually improve things intact.
*yes, yes, but if I can lay aside the cynicism for the sake of argument, so can you.
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