My Institutional Review Board Nightmare
The author doesn&#x27;t seem to take the history of medical research ethics (e.g. the Tuskegee syphilis experiments [1]) seriously. Having a sophisticated understanding of the ethical risks of research is a huge part of doing good science, and this post certainly doesn&#x27;t communicate a high level of sophistication. If the author thinks that ethics review is &quot;Blindly trusting authority to make our ethical decisions for us&quot;, then he clearly doesn&#x27;t understand what ethics review is or how it works.<p>IRBs have well-documented flaws (for a more comprehensive look, read Laura Stark&#x27;s book on IRBs [2]) but &quot;IRBs are bad because they say I can&#x27;t do whatever I want even though it&#x27;s obviously the right way to do it&quot; is not one of them.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment</a><p>[2]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;press.uchicago.edu&#x2F;ucp&#x2F;books&#x2F;book&#x2F;chicago&#x2F;B&#x2F;bo12182576.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;press.uchicago.edu&#x2F;ucp&#x2F;books&#x2F;book&#x2F;chicago&#x2F;B&#x2F;bo1218257...</a>