Tag: ethics

Scientists get frustrated with paperwork. No surprise there — we all do. But when the paperwork has to do with the very conditions under which new knowledge can be produced, its consequences are more significant than a mere waste of time or the emotional anguish of deciphering bureaucratese. Science can be risky in a number of ways, and in the past half-century or so there has been an efflorescence of efforts to formally manage that risk without undermining scientists’ ability to do what we value them (and pay them) for: find out new, fascinating, and potentially useful things about the world. That balancing act hasn’t always been easy — rather, hasn’t ever been easy — to perform. Continue reading “science vs. paperwork”