{"id":24266,"date":"2014-04-09T12:49:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T18:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/?p=24266"},"modified":"2014-04-10T10:18:48","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T16:18:48","slug":"enfuriating-concealment-the-prequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/2014\/enfuriating-concealment-the-prequel\/","title":{"rendered":"Infuriating concealment: The prequel."},"content":{"rendered":"

As I noted in comments in Fury: if you can harm, you need consent.<\/a>, I am trying to identify possibly ethics issues with shallow<\/I> fact patterns. I’m doing this because there seem to be scads of possibly ethics issues, but many are complicated and require understanding the timing of multiple facts and the interlacing of many rules. Today, I think I uncovered an possible ethics issue that predates<\/i> the deep fact pattern related possible ethics problem related to “active concealment or explicit deception” that affects “Fury”<\/a> which has been discussed by Steve McIntyre. <\/p>\n

This possible ethics issue discussed in today’s post is this:<\/p>\n

Concealment of Lewandowsky’s identity on the online survey in ‘Moonhoax’ may have violated provision 2.3.2(c) of Australia’s “National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research”, which is as follows:<\/p>\n

2.3.2 Where limited disclosure involves active concealment<\/em> or explicit deception, and the research does not aim to expose illegal activity, researchers should in addition demonstrate that:
\na) participants will not be exposed to an increased risk of harm as a result of the concealment or deception
\nb) a full explanation, both of the real aims and\/or methods of the research, and also of why the concealment or deception was necessary, will subsequently be made available to participants
\nc) there is no known or likely reason for thinking that participants would not have consented if they had been fully aware of what the research involved.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

–<\/center>
\nLet’s now being to consider the following question: Did “Moonhoax” involve concealment? To answer that, we need to learn what information needs to be disclosed<\/p>\n

2.2.6 Information on the following matters should also be communicated to participants. Except where the information in specific sub-paragraphs below is also deemed necessary for a person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s
\nvoluntary decision to participate, it should be kept distinct from the information described in paragraphs 2.2.1 and 2.2.2:
\n[…]
\n(e) contact details of the researchers;<\/b>
\n[…]\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The lead researcher involved in “Moonhoax” is Lewindowsky. I am no expert and so could be mistaken. But I think 2.2.6(e) indicates that informed consent ordinarily requires them to include contact details for the researcher or at least one of researchers, not some other person. If this is not so, the ethics issue whose existence I am suggesting exists vanishes.<\/p>\n

It appears Lewandowsky may have believed so because he evidently made this request of Kate Kirk<\/a>,<\/p>\n

One question: would it be possible to mention only my assistant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name, Charles Hanich, on the online survey? The reason for this is that I have been writing on the climate issue in public e.g. [here] and my name alone routinely elicits frothing at the mouth by various people, not to mention the hate mail I receive.<\/p>\n

Because I am interested in soliciting opinions also from those folks<\/i>, I would like to withhold my name from the survey as I fear it might contaminate responding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the request, Lewandowsky refers to Hanich as an “assistant” — not a researcher. Hanich is not a named coauthor; it appears he may be a lab manager<\/a>. So, it appears Hanich was probably not considered to be acting in a ‘research’ capacity with respect to “Moonhoax”. If he was, them possibly that would justify giving his name.<\/p>\n

The reason provided reason for concealing Lewandowsky’s name is that he fears receiving hate mail<\/em> from people who he hopes<\/I> will participate. <\/p>\n

At this point: unless<\/I> giving the Lewandowsky’s assistants name is not concealment, then the request should have been declined because concealment is not required if there is a “no known or likely reason for thinking that participants would not have consented if they had been fully aware of what the research involved”.<\/p>\n

The request for deception says he would like people who hate enough to send hate mail to participate, but he fears their knowing he is the lead researcher would “contaminate” the results (in some unspecified way). I would suggest that participants who disliked Lewandowsky enough to send him hate mail<\/i> would not have consented to participate in his survey if they had know it involved participating in a survey whose data would later be processed, accessed or reported by Lewandowsky<\/I>. <\/p>\n

So: it appears permission for concealment was granted even though there was a likely reason<\/i> why some participants who the researchers wished<\/i> to invite and who may have participated<\/I> would not have participated willingly had they been aware the concealed information. This is a violation of 2.3.2(c). . <\/p>\n

I do see a caveat here: There is no violation of 2.3.2(c) if the requirements of 2.2.6(e) are met when researchers substitute their contact details with that of an assistant or if Hanich is somehow seen as a researcher and substituting his name is seen as apppropriate. If so, Lewandowsky’s request to Kate Kirk was superfluous as in that case, substituting “Hanich” for “Lewandowsky” would not be seen as “concealment” and 2.3.2 would not apply.<\/p>\n

But assuming the substitution of Hanich for Lewandowsky was concealment, if we end the narrative here, this ethics violation realted to 2.3.2 affects “Moonhoax” the paper that precedes “Fury”. <\/p>\n

Update<\/b>: April 10. I need to remember to look at the glossary. These definitions seem to apply to terms of art in rules that govern whether limited disclosure is permitted.<\/p>\n

community
\nA collection of individuals, which may extend from the whole population to a smaller grouping associated by cultural, ethnic, geographical, social or political factors or some other commonality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

consent
\nA person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s or group\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s agreement, based on adequate knowledge and understanding of relevant material, to participate in research<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

deception
\nWhere relevant material is withheld from research participants. and\/or they are intentionally misled about procedures and\/or purposes of research<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n harm
\nThat which adversely affects the interests or welfare of an individual or a group. Harm includes physical harm, anxiety, pain, psychological disturbance, devaluation of personal worth and social disadvantage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I noted in comments in Fury: if you can harm, you need consent., I am trying to identify possibly ethics issues with shallow fact patterns. I’m doing this because there seem to be scads of possibly ethics issues, but many are complicated and require understanding the timing of multiple facts and the interlacing of … Continue reading Infuriating concealment: The prequel.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[429],"class_list":["post-24266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-lewandowsky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rankexploits.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}