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Interpretations
(a) to (e) attempt to provide guidance to engineers on
how to make objective and truthful public statements.
Interpretation (a) suggests that engineers should strive
to prevent misunderstandings of engineering achievements,
but does Canon 7 require engineers to respond to statements
by others that give an incorrect account of engineering
achievement? For example, suppose your local newspaper
reports a self-proclaimed inventor has created a perpetual
motion machine and is holding a demonstration to prove
his invention. Do you feel an obligation to attend the
demonstration and challenge his claim?
This scenario has less to do with professional ethics
than personal ethics and value. Professionally, you are
not obligated to prevent or correct misunderstandings
about engineering other than to be objective and truthful
in your own public statements and with your affiliates.
The decision whether to attend the demonstration and voice
your objection to the claim is a matter of personal choice.
Interpretation (b) requires engineers to include all pertinent
information in professional reports, statements, and testimony,
but should a report omit data that is inconclusive (either
because of experimental errors or because the phenomenon
is not well understood)? Perhaps the motivation behind
the omission is the determining factor. If the purpose
is to deceive the audience, then clearly the omission
is unethical. Consider the case, "Falsified Data," published
in Chemical Engineering (May 5, 1980, pp. 100-107) by
Roy V. Hughson and Philip M. Kohn. In this case, a young
chemical engineer collected inconclusive data on two catalysts,
but his division head asked him to write a report favoring
one catalyst and to "make the numbers look good" by doing
the math backwards. What would you do?
If you "cook" data, then you violate Canon 7.
Interpretation (c) requires that engineers who make statements
in legal proceedings, offering expert witness testimony,
for example, must base their statements on adequate knowledge
of the facts, their competence in the subject matter,
and their belief in the accuracy and propriety of their
testimony.
Interpretation (d) requires engineers to provide all background
information when they render an engineering opinion so
the general public or client can be sure it is unbiased.
Interpretation (e) dovetails with Interpretation (d) of
Canon 5, which requires engineers to recognize the contributions
of co-workers to their work. While guidelines exist for
recognizing collaborator contributions, and for using
others' unpublished works, it is less clear how to recognize
others' contributions and data in a less formal setting
such as a job interview. On one hand we want to prove
to a prospective employer that we are capable and multi-dimensional,
but on the other hand, professional ethics require that
we do not promote our self-interest at the expense of
our collaborators. The situation described earlier in
Jack
Fry's Interview asks us to consider how to adequately
acknowledge the contributions of others in a multidisciplinary
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