2013 Volume 10 Pages 69-81
This article intends to analyze the problem of misconducts in scientific practice not in the manner of individual problem of research ethics, but as a certain kind of ‘barometer’ of the condition of the organizational defense mechanism against such misconducts. Extending the earlier researches on the limits of peer-review, referee system and the replication in scientific community in the face of seemingly every growing number of such incidents, I argue that the very problem has a visible kinship with what has been discussed as the problem of organizational safety by sociologists on accidents and researchers on HRO’s (High Reliability Organization). Despite of such kinship, however, the community of scientists defined as the organization in need of the ceaseless innovation requires us to modify the theory of organizational safety as these safety-seeking organizations are usually very conservative in terms of its adoption of new idea and technology, in sharp contrast with what scientists are usually demanded to do. This article ends by suggesting that by analyzing the complex backgrounds such misconducts are a sort of barometer thereof, the role of regulation will be better understood in such a complex configurations of factors not easily reducible to an easy solution.
