Comment by kwdc
4 years ago
I didn't read this bit: "The IRB of University of Minnesota reviewed the procedures of the experiment and determined that this is not human research. We obtained a formal IRB-exempt letter"
Um. Ok.
4 years ago
I didn't read this bit: "The IRB of University of Minnesota reviewed the procedures of the experiment and determined that this is not human research. We obtained a formal IRB-exempt letter"
Um. Ok.
Some people are questioning whether banning the entire university is an appropriate response. It sounds to me like there are systemic institutional issues that they need to address, and perhaps banning them until they can sort those out wouldn't be an entirely unreasonable thing to do.
I think banning them for now is appropriate. Its a shot across their bow to let them know they have done something wrong. Moving forward if it was me I'd later re-evaluate such a wide ban because of the collateral damage. But at the same time, there needs to be redress for wrongdoing since they were actually caught. I'd definitely not re-evaluate until apology and some kind of "we won't waste time like this again" agreement or at least agreed-upon understanding is in place. Whatever shape that needs to be.
As for systematic issues, I'm not sure. But moving forward they'd want to confirm there aren't glaring omissions to let this happen again. Giving them suitable Benefit-of-doubt niceties might imply these are isolated cases. (But both of them?! Perhaps isolated to a small group of academics.)
Messy situation.
The university should be policing its researchers. Banning the whole university reinforces the incentive to do so. Otherwise the fact that a contribution comes from a university researcher would bear no added trust versus a layperson.
The ban was 100% political. Greg wanted to shine the spotlight as negatively as possible on the bad faith actors so enough pressure can be out on them to be dismissed. I guarantee hell reinstitute it the moment these people are let go.
Kernel maintainers are not human. TIL
this is the comment I came for, and perhaps the most damning oversight from the IRB that could put the university in a liable position.
How does an IRB usually work? Is it the same group of people reviewing all proposals for the entire university? Or are there subject-matter experts (and hopefully lawyers) tapped to review proposals in their specific domain? Applying “ethics” to a proposal is meaningless without understanding not just how they plan to implement it but how it could be implemented.
I'm guessing its a committee of people almost operating just via a checklist, questions and their own general/specialist experience. They aren't necessarily specialists in what is being considered and are just there to provide basic sanity checks. But if some-complex-issue is not explained well in general terms, I'm sensing that this checking process fails in various ways.
Kind of like:
A: we're going to experiment with humans.
C: are you going to extract fluids?
A: no.
C: (ticks no) are you going to cut into them?
A: no.
C: (ticks no) ...
And so on.
Perhaps a new set of questions might help.
C: is what you are intending going to anger the subjects to the point they will take retribution?
A: yes
C: (ticks yes) how will it anger them?
....
And then expand from there. I'm sure they don't just stay within the checklist like robots.
Then again I'm probably wrong. Its just my imagination. But it could be true.