Comment by elliekelly
4 years ago
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.