This post is not about building the atomic bomb or chemical weapons. It is about being sensitive to a basic and yet very important ethical issue in producing and publishing science: Honesty. Publishing in science is based upon trust. No review mechanism, no matter how sophisticated its design is, can overcome systematic fraud when it is practiced by a major part of the scientific community.

Honesty measures can be categorized to different levels based on the number of scientists who practice them. At the bottom of the dishonesty pyramid lies acts like plotting the data in the graph such that the agreement with the theory is exaggerated or underestimating the error-bars to beat the exactness record. One level higher in the pyramid could be keeping it silent when you find out that your already published results are not as correct as you have claimed, if no one else is pointing that out (Yes! I think this latter behavior is so common that is it ranked near the bottom of the pyramid).

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