Canon #7

Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner and shall avoid any conduct which brings discredit upon the profession.

Our interpretations of Canon 7 are as follows:

1. Engineers shall endeavor to extend public knowledge, and to prevent misunderstandings of the achievements of engineering.
2. Engineers shall be completely objective and truthful in all professional reports, statements or testimony.
   They shall include all relevant and pertinent information in such reports, statements or testimony.
3. Engineers, when serving as expert or technical witnesses before any court, commission, or other tribunal, shall express an engineering opinion only when it is founded on their adequate knowledge of the facts in issue, on their background of technical competence in the subject matter, and on their belief in the accuracy and propriety of their testimony.
4. Engineers shall issue no statements, criticisms, or arguments on engineering matters which are inspired or paid for by an interested party, or parties, unless they preface their comments by identifying themselves, by disclosing the identities of the party or parties on whose behalf they are speaking, and by revealing the existence of any financial interest they may have in matters under discussion.
5. Engineers shall be truthful in explaining their work and merit, and shall avoid any act tending to promote their own interest at the expense of the integrity and honor of the profession or of another individual.

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, for example offering expert witness testimony, 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) attempts to prevent potential or apparent conflicts of interest. One of the characteristics of a profession is that society invests members with a level of trust so that when we speak on matters (for which we are assumed to be competent), then society expects an honest, unbiased discussion. The existence of a fee or other compensation arrangement for a presentation of some form (public statement, competitor critique, etc.) potentially compromises this presumption of honesty. As with other types of conflicts of interest, prior disclosure helps ameliorate any concerns. As a common example of this type of problem, consider the issues that are currently being raised about medical journal articles where one or more of the authors was compensated by a medical device or pharmaceutical company.