fizix

Hi folks, here are a few hypothetical questions:

1) Would you approve of technology that a hostile country or terrorist could easily use to spread disease throughout an entire nation?
2) You are a grad student who just discovered this technology. You know that if you published it, you would be hailed internationally as a brilliant scientist. Would you publish your data?
3) You show your results to your advisor. Your advisor is bent on publishing them, despite objections. To what lengths would you go to prevent him from publishing? Reasoned discussion? Data theft? Would you disassociate yourself from the lab group?
4) How would your answers to the above questions change if this technology could also be used to eradicate diseases such as malaria and dengue?

neutralnuke

1) would I get $$ for it
2) yes
3) kill him and my lab group so I get all the credit
4) would they?

InquilineKea

1) yes
2) yes, for the money (grad students are poor). Then I'd give out all of my blog posts and forum posts that I've archived (all the way back to 2001) for psychologists to peruse. Then I'd try to hide from the publicity, changing my name if at all necessary.
3) I care about research results, irrespective of author. As long as I can get money somewhere, I'm fine.
4) nah