CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES: SCIENCE
· All aspects of human social behavior should be open to unfettered empirical investigation without fear of reprisal or career harm.
· All scientific findings should be viewed with caution if not skepticism, especially those not subject to experimental conditions.
· In the social sciences, professional bodies should agree on minimal scientific standards and on what constitutes meaningful effect sizes.
· Potentially controversial studies should be published as should studies that show a null effect or that fail to replicate the findings from other studies.
· Constructive scholarly exchanges should take a higher priority in scientific journals.
· All data collected with taxpayer funds should be open to legitimate investigators and should be as useful to scholars as possible.
· Institutional Review Board (IRB’s) should be reformulated and definitions of what constitutes “harm” should be narrowed considerably.
· Conflict of interests statements should include language requiring authors to specify any political or ideological conflict of interest that may affect their work. This would include political donations made to political parties or interest groups and it would include work for or being a member of those groups. Conflict of interest statements should also outline any ideological sentiments that may affect the published research. The point is make political-moral biases transparent so others can better scrutinize the study.
· All scientific findings should be viewed with caution if not skepticism, especially those not subject to experimental conditions.
· In the social sciences, professional bodies should agree on minimal scientific standards and on what constitutes meaningful effect sizes.
· Potentially controversial studies should be published as should studies that show a null effect or that fail to replicate the findings from other studies.
· Constructive scholarly exchanges should take a higher priority in scientific journals.
· All data collected with taxpayer funds should be open to legitimate investigators and should be as useful to scholars as possible.
· Institutional Review Board (IRB’s) should be reformulated and definitions of what constitutes “harm” should be narrowed considerably.
· Conflict of interests statements should include language requiring authors to specify any political or ideological conflict of interest that may affect their work. This would include political donations made to political parties or interest groups and it would include work for or being a member of those groups. Conflict of interest statements should also outline any ideological sentiments that may affect the published research. The point is make political-moral biases transparent so others can better scrutinize the study.
