I would, for the start, note that the "cases of scientific fraud and misconduct in the headlines" are mostly committed by the faculty, not by the graduate students.
A conduct becoming a scientist can be taught and learned, no question about this. But I have problems with the way fraud is treated by the academia. I believe that it is being more and more downplayed. The terminology tells the tale: fraud came under "misconduct", then - violation of integrity rules, then - ethics violation. Various universities give recommendations on how to "avoid" plagiarism. But, wait a moment, plagiarism is a fraud. The rest of "misconduct", fabrication and falsification, are also fraud. Will the Ethics course teach how to "avoid" fraud? The authors of the articles and recommendations seem to be confused and are obviously "in denial" about the reality with which they have to deal. They often change definitions, they bring up "explanations", such as increased competition in science, etc.
I speak here as an expert-victim, if there is such a category. Probably few people on this forum don't know about my case (for those who don't, it's at
http://ca.geocities.com/uoftfraud/). In this case, plagiarising my PhD research and making a fraudulent academic decision by the supervisor was fully documented and easy to handle, but the corrupt Canadian system had turned an easy case into a war against me. From my perspective I can say that teaching Ethics is the most ridiculous means of "avoiding" fraud. In such cases, we deal with the deviant character and the criminal intent.
Therefore, it would be necessary to separate "misconduct" and "Ethics" from fraud (it doesn't matter where the fraud occurred, in bank or in university). Lumping it all together only helps criminals.
The present guidelines and policies only serve (as in some cases of corporate fraud) to reduce what should have been prosecuted as crime, to a mere violation of the internal rules. And, while this confused state of university politics persists, science becomes increasingly the preferred field of activity for dishonest people - the money and the opportunities to live a wonderful life, being never even worried about the quality of your product, are there.
Ethics is something that is not covered by the law, and, please notice - not even by a civil law. Those are variations of individual behaviour that differ even in different systems of religious beliefs. Relying on ethics or calling impermissible, causing harm behaviour an ethics is very foolish. Therefore, there must be created a third category of impermissible behaviour
in an institution that is punished by expulsion, but no other punishment applies. And this category should be, indeed, the subject of rules which necessarily must be taught in a university course and be a subject at the examinations. Ignorance of law is not taken as justification in court. But, what I call a third category - the professional rules, must be proved as learned by the graduating student. I must notice here that such work of separating different types of "misconduct", giving the definitions and methods of teaching has not even started, all time and money being wasted on politics and on sweeping it all under the carpet.
I return to an example brought up in the article by Jeffrey Brainard. No harm is seen in both solutions. One of the solutions, however, can prove to be a mistake. My answer to the dilemma would be this. It has to be determined
whose research it is, student's or mentor's. And the final decision should belong to the author. There is apparently no "ethics" here, and no rules, just the science with all its dilemmas.
Concluding:
1. Fabrication, falsification and plagiarism are crimes of dishonesty. The teaching needed in childhood. The punishment is for the court, with the institution as a witness or victim.
2. Ethics is not a proper terminology, its use is the result of corrupt politics, official cover-up strategy and public confusion.
3. Professional rules must be taught and learned.
