Bending the Truth

(Adapted from Making Good: How Young People Cope with Moral Dilemmas at Work.)

In high school science, competition is a reality, especially for those who take part in the Intel Science Talent Search. These high school students want everything that Intel has to offer: the recognition, the money, the elite status, the social networks, and the personal satisfaction. For many, the competition is fierce-so much is at stake-and the students' standards of honesty and accuracy prove vulnerable. In the case of a high school senior named Allison, the drive to win ultimately eclipses her scientific conscience.

Allison has always enjoyed science more than any other subject. At a prestigious exam high school, during the second semester of her sophomore year, she enrolled in a research program that connected students with local research institutions to help them conduct a project for the Intel competitions. Allison was introduced to a well-known professor at a major university in New York City, who immediately invited her to work in her neurobiology lab.

At their first meeting, the professor offered Allison a number of different projects on which she could work. This was an unusual and fortunate circumstance, since high school students are normally assigned to whatever projects that need help. Allison decided on her own to work on a learning experiment involving mice. This was not an easy choice, for two reasons: she does not like handling animals (especially mice); and more important, the professor warned her that projects based on neurology and behavior of live animals do not seem to capture the fancy of the Intel judges. This advice did not deter Allison, however; over the years, the Intel competitions have been characterized by inconsistent judging.

During the summer between her junior and senior years in high school, while working at the lab, Allison received additional training through scientific reading and writing workshops. Like many high school students, Allison has had a hard time balancing her social life with her academic obligations and her commitment to her position in the lab. She often stayed up until two in the morning to finish her homework, and met her friends at the lab when she had a break. It was hard work sometimes, but I think it was worth it, she says.

Allison maintains strong values about the ways in which scientists should work. She believes in honesty-in not fabricating data, not stealing data, and not taking credit for work that is not one's own. She is aware that nowadays not all scientists honor these norms. In her opinion, appropriate punishment would be public humiliation. ... I think that just goes against the way the scientific field should work, and I guess they'd be blacklisted if they worked like that. Allison also feels responsibility to the domain of science: she believes that the purpose of experiments is to build knowledge for the field. She talks about the importance of honest reporting: If you lie in the course of an experiment, or if you take information from other scientists, the stuff that can happen-you really see the effects and it's hard to tell a little white lie when you're doing a big experiment, because you're affecting data.

But there is another side to Allison: her fierce desire to win a competition, for herself, for the personal recognition, and for the scholarship money. She enjoys the competition inherent in Intel and thinks of it as an athletic event. She speaks admiringly of The Double Helix, a book that chronicles the intense competition for the discovery of the structure of DNA and suggests that scientific ends may justify unethical means.

This tension between what Allison wants (and feels she deserves) for herself and the standards she holds for scientific work becomes palpable when she faced the decision about how to write her research paper for the Intel competition. Knowing that she was unlikely to win because she worked directly with animals, Allison decided to hide the truth. I had to phrase my paper really particularly so it didn't look like I was actually touching the animals and stuff like that. I had to say that I had watched videos: I didn't think it was fair that I couldn't get rewarded for my work because I worked with animals.... That just made me mad, so I didn't care... Maybe it was lying in a way, but I didn't think that it was wrong, because I deserved to be rewarded... I did the work-it wasn't that someone else did it. It was my work, and I did record it. I did make videos and stuff like that, but I thought that it was fair because I think that I deserved the recognition that other people did that worked just as hard if not less than I did.

In the end, Allison was named a semifinalist and won a college scholarship worth $2,000. It is unclear whether her professor in the lab or her teachers at school knows that she withheld important information in her final research report. It is clear that she does not feel remorse about what she has done, nor does she feel that she should be "blacklisted" from the scientific community. In fact, Allison was accepted at an Ivy League university, where she has chosen to pursue scientific research. Her professional goal is to conduct research in molecular or cell biology and teach at the graduate level.