This post is not about building the atomic bomb or chemical weapons. It is about being sensitive to a basic and yet very important ethical issue in producing and publishing science: Honesty. Publishing in science is based upon trust. No review mechanism, no matter how sophisticated its design is, can overcome systematic fraud when it is practiced by a major part of the scientific community.

Honesty measures can be categorized to different levels based on the number of scientists who practice them. At the bottom of the dishonesty pyramid lies acts like plotting the data in the graph such that the agreement with the theory is exaggerated or underestimating the error-bars to beat the exactness record. One level higher in the pyramid could be keeping it silent when you find out that your already published results are not as correct as you have claimed, if no one else is pointing that out (Yes! I think this latter behavior is so common that is it ranked near the bottom of the pyramid).

On top of the dishonesty pyramid one would find plagiarism and data fabrication. These are among the most unforgivable sins that may terminate one’s scientific carrier, at least in socially responsible scientific communities to be more precise.

You may have read in nature about Iranian ministers’ in plagiarism row. I do not want to go into the details of these ministers’ response in defending their act, since reminding it makes me sleepless for the whole night. What made me so bitter that I am writing this post is the reaction of the Iranian scientific community to this issue. One of these so-called ministers is holding the title of “minister of knowledge and technology”. His department is responsible for all of the public universities and is THE responsible organisation for imposing the ethics on the scientific outcome of Iran. And yes, he is the same guy who partly oversee the famous last presidential election in Iran.

I am sure that there are many honest scientists working inside Iran that follow the universal ethics of scientists in their research. Some of them even have a Blog for fighting against scientific fraud (It is in Farsi but thanks to google translator service, everybody can understand its content).  What has surprised me is their indifference to this issue. Following the Farsi and English media on this issue, I have not seen a single reaction from inside Iran to condemn the ministers’ unethical act. Not even a simple anonymous comment under the nature‘s news item. In one case, I have heard that a Physics professor has responded to a younger colleague who has suggested to write an open letter by telling him that the Mechanical Engineering department should do it since the published articles were about their field.

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