Science, Race and Ethics

Moodley, Keymanthri

doi:10.18820/9781928480495/16

Fault Lines: A Primer on Race, Science and Society 2020

DOI: 10.18820/9781928480495/16

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Science, Race and Ethics

Keymanthri Moodley¹

Abstract: The use of racial and ethnic categories in the conduct of research has resulted in deep divisions in the scientific community in South Africa. Given our history of racial segregation and the subsequent democratic dispensation in a nonracial country, this type of division ought not to occur in the twenty-first century. Good science ought to be based on strong ethical principles. This chapter will explore the delicate relationship between science and ethics. As a point of departure, the historical origin of raci… Show more

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2020

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Lessons in our faults: Fault lines on race and research ethics

Msimang

2020

S. Afr. J. Sci.

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Addressing the question of race in scientific researchSince the publication of the now infamous paper 'Age-and education-related effects on cognitive functioning in Colored South African women' by Nieuwoudt and colleagues where they claim the cognitive functioning of coloured women is defective in some ways, 1 there has been renewed doubts about the legitimacy of race in research at Stellenbosch University and the controversy has become a matter of concern for universities and research ethics boards across the country. Because of the harms the Nieuwoudt paper has caused, the question of the use of race in research has re-emerged as a central concern. What researchers want to know is how to assess whether race is relevant to some question(s), how to use racial classifications if race is relevant, and when to leave race out.The attention which this paper has received is perhaps related to how it is a caricature of a more common and mundane problem about the status of race in research. Considered responses to the paper have centred on the question of how we are to use race in academic settings if at all. The Nieuwoudt paper is a caricature of the problem because the study it presented was fundamentally misguided, it relied on racist stereotypes in a quite explicit fashion, its claims about the homogeneity of the group it studied are patently false (to bolster their claim, they cited a paper that actually makes the opposite claim), and it did not meet basic scientific standards in both its claims and their assessment. 2 Because of its basic scientific failings, some academics have asked how the Nieuwoudt paper managed to pass peer review and how the research protocol managed to attain ethics approval in the first place. 3 A speculative conjecture in this regard is that the reviewers themselves may have held uncritical beliefs about race that made them overlook what, for many researchers and concerned South Africans, were glaringly dubious and problematic claims about race. 3 After a year-long investigation at Stellenbosch University, it was finally announced that 'the article was not aligned with the Research Ethics Committee (REC) approved protocol', meaning that it is arguable that this research did not follow the recommendations of the REC. 4 That the article was soon retracted by the journal for its lack of scientific merit suggests that there was a failure of quality control at the level of the peer review that the journal recognised on a second assessment. 5

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Lessons in our faults: Fault lines on race and research ethics

Msimang

2020

S. Afr. J. Sci.

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Science, Race and Ethics

Cited by 1 publication

References 25 publications

Lessons in our faults: Fault lines on race and research ethics

Lessons in our faults: Fault lines on race and research ethics

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