“Social scientists have to get better at recognising and responding to ethical problems. Although economists, political scientists and psychologists have not been responsible for the same level of abuses that have occurred in biomedical research, the social sciences have witnessed their share of old-fashioned scandalous behaviour.

Social scientists were co-opted into American intelligence and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Political scientists at Stanford University and Dartmouth College involved in experimentation on voter participation may have disrupted judicial elections in Montana. Harvard sociologists studying Facebook failed to protect the anonymity of their students.”