Glossary letters N-P

Machiavelli's Laboratory is a free ebook that I published on April 13, 2010. It is a satiric discourse on scientific ethics, from the perspective of an unethical scientist. Please don't take any of the advice and opinions in the book (or the excerpts featured in this blog) seriously. The ebook has been downloaded well over 10,000 times since its publication. This blog site features excerpts from the book and provides a forum for readers who would like to comment publicly.

GLOSSARY (letters N-P)

Nepotism - Nepotism is the blood-borne form of cronyism.

New idea - An old idea that you are hearing for the first time.

Obliteration by incorporation - As per Robert K. Merton (1910 - 2003), applies to ideas that are so broadly popularized that the original creator of the idea is forgotten. For example, do we know who invented the wheel, the fruit pie, or the back scratcher?

Obviousness in patents - For a device to be patented, it should be new, useful and non-obvious. In KSR v. Teleflex (April 30, 2007), the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, reversed a Court of Appeals decision, and determined that a prior patent was unenforceable because it was obvious (163). The opinion discussed, at length, the principles of obviousness. In particular, the Supreme Court indicated that merely putting together prior art to make a new device can only qualify for a patent if the resulting device is unexpected by people working in the field; hence, not obvious. The decision may have raised the bar for patents, particularly patents that are built on prior art (e.g., all software and most software standards).

Off-label use - In 1962, Congress required that drug manufacturers produce scientific evidence that a marketed drug is both safe and effective for a specific use. When a drug company receives FDA approval, the approval is restricted to the specific use demonstrated in an FDA-approved clinical trial. All other uses of the drug (for populations and conditions not included in the clinical study, or for doses not deemed safe in the study) are not covered by FDA approval and cannot be marketed by the drug company. Off-label use occurs when the approved drug or device is used for a purpose other than the purpose approved by the FDA. The FDA controls drug companies, not doctors. Physicians are permitted to use drugs and devices for off-label uses, if they wish.

One field one book rule - The evil scientist does not waste time reading books in his field. At most, the number of books that an evil scientist will read is "1". Every field has a so-called bible, so named because it is contains contradictory, incredible, and merciless doctrine, often written by a committee, and altered by succeeding generations of scientists who are angry about being left out of the first edition. If you refuse to read more than one book, then you must read your field's "bible."

Orphan drug - A drug needed by a small number of people. In the past, drug companies were reluctant to manufacture drugs for rare diseases. The small population with the disease cannot produce an adequate return on investment for the manufacturer. Nowadays, drug companies produce orphan drugs charging up to thousands of times the manufacturing costs. Th idea is that third party payers (such as health insurers) will pay any fee for a medically required drug, so long as no competitors offer the same drug at a lower price.

Ownership - Ownership is a mercantile concept that bestows an entity with the right to sell. If you own a horse, that means that you alone have the right to sell the horse. If you own a tissue sample, that means that you have the right to sell the tissue sample. A long-honored tradition has prohibited the sale (hence ownership) of human tissue. This tradition was broken by a recent court ruling that assigned ownership of a collection of human tissues to Washington University (317)

Panglossian - Blind optimism, after Pangloss, the optimist in Candide (1759), by Voltaire (1694 - 1778).

Parker, Janet (1938 - 1978) - The last person on earth known to die from smallpox (100). In 1978, Janet Parker was a 40 year old photographer who lived in Birmingham, England. She worked on the floor above Henry Bedson's smallpox research laboratory. Virus particles escaped from Bedson's laboratory and infected Ms. Parker. After learning of Parker's infection, Bedson committed suicide (100).

Patent farming - Planting (usually, surreptitiously) patented intellectual property within someone else's intellectual property. The patent farmer reaps his crop by surprising users of the aforementioned intellectual property with notice that their activities rely on a patented process or device owned by the patent farmer. An example occurs when patented methods are included within technical standards. Hidden patents within standards can be asserted against anyone who implements the standard (318).

Patent holding company - Private entities that buy many patents, thus building portfolios of patents to assert intellectual property rights in strategically chosen business sectors.

Peer review - A venerable tradition, in which clueless editors, funding agencies, and awards panels ask scientists to spend their time and energy reviewing the grants and manuscripts written by their fiercest competitors. Not surprisingly, peer review provides reviewers with the risk-free opportunity to ravage their enemies and steal their ideas. Peer review has never been shown to serve a useful purpose; yet we persist (69).

Pharma - Slang for pharmaceutical industry. Used in conjunction with, and following, "big."

Ph.D. M.D. - A person who is qualified to be incompetent in two fields. If you're lucky enough to have these both degrees, you can parlay them into a lifetime of leisure. Basically, you can use your research activities to cover poor clinical acumen ("Sorry, I was busy in the lab"), and your clinical activities to cover poor research ("Sorry, I was in the clinic"). Because researchers seldom speak to clinicians, your colleagues on either side of your job will be unaware that you actually spend your afternoons in salacious trysts, with their wives.

Pilfer - Scientists don't steal from other scientists; they pilfer. Pilfering is a time-honored way of taking some scientific advancement produced by another scientist and using it to advance your own research agenda. One of the most successful acts of pilferage occurred when James Watson and Francis Crick got hold of Rosalind Franklin's X-ray photographs of DNA (without her permission). Watson and Crick have acknowledge that the photos were of critical importance in their work, which culminated in their discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA. Watson and Crick received the Nobel price. Rosalind Franklin received their gratitude. Though pilferers sometimes receive criticism from their peers, they never get into any serious trouble, because pilfering is not a crime. If you are ever accused of pilfery, the best defense comes from Isaac Newton, who famously said, "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." In other words, great science is accomplished by peering over the shoulders of your colleagues.

Plagiarism - Taking credit, through a literary device, for another person's intellectual contribution. Plagiarism is often confused with intellectual piracy. If I take an idea, developed in a book that you published, and I include it in my book, as though it were my original idea, without citing your book as the source of the idea, that would be plagiarism. Publication piracy is the copy-theft of a literary work. If I take your book, re-publish it, sell copies of the re-published work, and keep all the money paid to buy the re-published book, that's piracy. As books go, scientific works have negligible value, and are seldom pirated. Ideas are the currency of scientists, and plagiarism is rampant.

Predicting the future - The thing about predicting the future is that you need to start with a good understanding of the present. Nobody really understands what is happening in the here and now. So it is very unlikely that anyone can see the future.

Privacy - The right not to be bothered. Often confused with confidentiality, the right to keep a secret. See Confidentiality.

Proprietary Standard - A Standard that belongs to some entity and that cannot be used freely (i.e., without obligation, or restriction).

Prostitution - Currently the world's oldest profession, but at the time when it was invented, it was the world's youngest profession.

Publication dishonesty - Falsifying or fabricating data, lying about the original source of the data (e.g., plariarism), adding co-authors who did not contribute to the paper or whose contributions were marginal, failing to cite the proper precedent papers, and listing as co-authors persons who did not read and approve the final version of the paper. In the case of journal articles, duplicate publications are usually considered a form of publication dishonesty, because the appearance of the publication implies originality.



- © 2010 Jules Berman