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Lewis College hosts Kevin Elliott to speak on the importance of values in science

Reno Waswil
DISTRIBUTION MANAG ER

Science is held by a good many
people, to be an objective—or at least one of
the most objective—practices in which we can
engage. It is for this reason that often it is seen
as advantageous or even necessary to remove
personal, social, and commercial values from
the process.

Kevin Elliott, an associate professor
at Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State
University and author whose book, “A Tapestry
of Value: Inevitability and Social Goals,” being
released January 2017, argues against this
notion. He presented his arguments to the
Illinois Tech populous in a talk hosted by
Lewis College of Humanities in the Rettaliata
Engineering Center (Crawford) Auditorium
entitled “Values in Science: How to Throw Out
the Bathwater and Keep the Baby,” on Friday,
September 23, at which ample refreshments
were provided, drawing in students and faculty
alike.

Elliott began the presentation
proposing two projects for the talk: defending
“science values” and arguing that values
should not be excluded from the process of
doing science. Values, he defines, are desirable
qualities or states either of a personal or societal
nature, such positive health, environmental
protection, etc. The problem, as well as much
of the criticism, comes when these values start
to influence scientific reasoning.

He lists some popular examples
for how valuation has been of detriment to
science: citing studies showing that over half
of research fail reproductions and instances
of design bias, publication bias, falsification of
data, and misleading rhetoric. He also spoke
to the all too well known cases of corporate
biasing of science, such as has been committed
by certain pharmaceutical and pesticide
companies about the effectiveness and harm
of their products as well as by the tobacco
industry about the dangers of the substance.

However, Elliott claims that values,
in addition to being unavoidable in some sense,
have a huge relevance to scientific work given
the role of science in society. By the nature
of values, they often result in research being
done to fit social priorities. It may be said that
scientists have something of an obligation on
what questions to focus their attention. What
is studied possibly has a huge social impact,
and choosing what to study (maximizing the
yield of a crop,) how to study it (how long
to run the experiment, scales,) and how to
interpret the available data (whether it is
better in any given situation to overestimate
or underestimate effects) are all questions that
require evaluation.

Thus, Elliott proposed, instead, for
a focus on three criteria for the evaluation of
science that will, ideally, help with the negative
effects of valuation within it: transparency,
reproducibility, and critical review. He then
proceeded comment on each one.

For transparency, he concluded that
the attempts at it has had mixed success. The
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enacted
in 2007 that all pharmaceutical companies
were required to register all of their trials after
reporting results. The effectiveness of this
suffered due to spotty compliance, exceptions
from this act, limited requirements within
the act itself, and that it was not retroactive.
Attempts have been, according to Elliott, even
less effective in chemical safety as well as other
sectors where it is necessary.

As for reproducibility, there is
an interesting dynamic where industry
laboratories actually have more reproducible
data than independent/ academic ones due
to more access to funding. However, Elliott
said that there are problems even with this,
arguing that “results can be reproducible
without addressing the questions being asked.”
Inadequate endpoints, doses, and lack of
population variability in experiments severely
limit the real world applications of many of
this research. As an example, he cited that
although a few academic tests, particularly
one published in Andrology, have shown
endocrine disruptive effects associated with
Bisphenol—A (BPA), very little is being done
because the vast majority of journal accepted
results are the ones being done by industry that
do not show these effects. These are signs of a
systematic problem with the way experimental
results are being verified and accepted.

As a response to these issues, Elliott

proposed the necessary practice of critical
review in quality controlling research, with an
emphasis on the word critical. This can be best
done with oversight from boards of qualified
individuals making sure that the research
and results that are approved are up to snuff
and are, more importantly, relevant to the
questions that they are proposing.

Strengthening critical review
relies on strengthening the involvement of
regulatory agencies, advisory boards and
panels, and funding boards and governments.
These organizations can—and should—focus
more on informatively deciding what studies
are good studies, and making sure that the
criteria for being so do not discount academic
and independent researchers or studies that
are actually relevant in comparison to ones
that may seem more reproducible at face value.

Elliott concluded by reaffirming that
he firmly believes that science should try to
exclude values, but needs to be scrutinizing
them with effective critical review. There are
numerous limitations, he admits, as nearly
two—thirds of scientific funding comes from
industry, which makes legitimate review much
more difficult to impose. However, he sees this
as the best method to ensure science can thrive
given its heavy role in society.

ITT's abrupt closure may permanently put decades-long confusion to rest

Steven Milan Moreno
TECH N EWS WRITER

For years, the acronym for Illinois
Institute of Technology (IIT) has been confused
with that of another, more well—known
institution. Many have seen the commercials
on TV: “ITT Technical Institute, education
for the future.” For over twenty years since the
for—profit college started airing commercials,
the two institutions have been easily mistaken
for one another. Many students here at IIT
may know from first—hand experience that this
confusion is widespread among the general
population. This is never more obvious than
when students are asked by loved ones or
friends which college they are attending. The
student must reluctantly either use the full
name of the university or use the acronym
but then specify that it is different from the
one on television. Even Google, known for its

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accurate searches, has trouble discerning the
two schools as links to IIT can be found when
searching ITT and vice versa.

With this ever growing problem of
confusion and misidentification, the school
has begun the transition from IIT to Illinois
Tech, which has steadily caught on amongst
students and faculty alike. The transition to
this new shorthand term for the university
still has a long way to go, as numerous signs,
advertisements, and logos seen across the
campus still bear the IIT acronym. The
confusion between ITT Technical Institute
and IIT may soon come to an end, however, as
recent developments suggest that one player is
out of the running for good.

Last month, ITT Technical Institute
shut down all of its nationwide campuses
and their online computer servers without
so much as a warning. This has left many of
their enrolled students questioning their

future as their college has left them up a
creek without a paddle. The collapse was
not without warning signs, however, as the
school in recent years had been plagued with
numerous complaints from students, declining
enrollment numbers, and investigations by the
court system for suspected fraud on the part
of the school’s executive board. Many of these
problems created a negative reputation for the
school in recent years, something IIT Office
of Admissions wanted no ties or connection
to whatsoever. With the end of the for—profit
school and their barrage of commercials on
television, the confusion may soon pass with
time as ITT Technical Institute fades away
from mainstream knowledge.

The use of IIT may still prove to
be a problem internationally however, as the
acronym is shared by another institution in
the country of India: The Indian Institute of
Technology. While it is usually unheard of in

the United States, the same cannot be said for
the one billion people living in India. With
over 60,000 students and 23 campuses across
this large and populous country, the school is
a behemoth when compared to our relatively
small university, with a student population
of less than 8,000. In addition to the IIT in
India, the acronym is used by several other
smaller universities and colleges around the
world such as the Institute of Investigative
Technology in Madrid, Spain and the Islamic
Institute of Toronto in Canada. Even here in
the United States, the acronym is also used
by the Indiana Institute of Technology. All of
these schools lack the mainstream knowledge
of existence, and therefore are nowhere as near
a problem for Illinois Tech as ITT Technical
Institute has been for the past two decades.

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Photos by Iamshzd Tokhzrov