Perfect Storm

One thing that always makes me shiver in science is the sheer breath of moral behavior. While in other areas I worked in, behavior was normal constrained to a certain limit (either bad or good), in science you can really find anything.

1. People that want their names in all papers that they can put their name on. I know so many cases where people have their names and have not even read the text.
2. People who, having developed some lab methodology, refuse to make it public. If you want to use it, you have to send it to their lab (and, of course, give co-authorship).
3. People who complain about other people moral behavior (like complaining of the above) but do exactly the same thing. Talk about cognitive (and moral) dissonance.

But, I also know the exact opposite kind of behavior: People who go to great lengths to try not being credited when they think they don’t deserve credit. To the point where when sometimes they deserve it (in my subjective assessment), but, as in their conscience they have not done enough they still insist in not being credited.

All things being equal, I try to work with honest people. If whatever I do becomes fruitful I appreciate the idea of crediting people that are honest and moral. Success can also be defined as cooperating with people with good morals. If with cooperation one can help honest people climb to the top of the hierarchy, it is better for the common good. Now, one might suggest that this is excessively pragmatic and on the border of unacceptable. But I am quite comfortable with this.

But, sometimes things are not equal. Sometimes there is somebody who has scientific merit and that you want to work with albeit you really don’t appreciate their moral stance. From a personal perspective I have the utmost dislike for this, but from a professional one, it is sometimes needed.

All in all, in such an individualistic and atomized field as science, merit and morals have no correlation (I do believe that, in more collective endeavors, morals are needed for merit). Both should be maximized, preferably in conjunction. What is really disgusting (and easy to be found) is when one is forced to cooperate with dishonesty and incompetence (happened to me in the past).