Investigator/Researcher Code of Ethics
SeanFromIT
It's now been a couple of years since drafting an Investigator/
Researcher Code of Ethics for our field of study, and I'd like to make
one last call for comments before publishing it. Many of you have
shared your comments with me either through the Google Doc or in
person, and hopefully they've made the document what it is today. I'm
attaching the draft below; feel free to reply with your or your
groups' final comments.
Investigator/Researcher Code of Ethics
Abstract: A set of ethics guidelines for professional investigators
and researchers of the paranormal.
Purpose: This document attempts to provide the public with a means of
evaluating the professionalism of people involved in areas outside of
mainstream science. It has been developed through online collaboration
between investigators/researchers of diverse backgrounds in multiple
fields.
PREAMBLE
Paranormal investigators shall commit themselves to making the
recording, analysis, testing, and public dissemination of the
paranormal a beneficial and respected profession. The terms
'investigator' and 'researcher' will be used interchangeably
throughout this document.
In accordance with their commitment to the health, safety and welfare
of the public, paranormal investigators shall adhere to the following
principles:
PUBLIC - Paranormal investigators shall act consistently with the
public interest.
CLIENT - Paranormal investigators shall act in a manner that is in the
best interests of their client consistent with the public interest.
METHOD - Paranormal investigators shall ensure that their
investigative methods meet the highest professional standards
possible.
JUDGMENT - Paranormal investigators shall maintain integrity and
independence in their professional judgment.
ORGANIZATION - Paranormal organizations and their leaders shall
subscribe to and promote an ethical approach to investigations and
research.
PROFESSION - Paranormal investigators shall advance the integrity and
reputation of the profession consistent with the public interest.
COLLEAGUES - Paranormal investigators shall be fair to and supportive
of their colleagues.
SELF - Paranormal investigators shall participate in lifelong learning
regarding the practice of their profession and shall promote an
ethical approach to the practice of the profession.
Article I. Transparent Organizational Structure
Organizational structure must be transparent within and without the
particular organization of investigators.
Within a particular organization, all investigators, regardless of
status, shall be notified of every member's status within the group's
structure. Notifications of changes in membership rolls, and
promotions and demotions within the organization's structure, shall be
made as soon as feasibly possible.
Listings of a group's organizational structure shall be made available
to the public at large. The listing of both the hierarchy of the
group, and the group's member rolls of members in good standing, shall
be kept as up-to-date as feasibly possible.
An independent organizer shall never present his- or herself as
affiliated in any manner with any paranormal investigation
organization, either directly or indirectly. An investigator working
as the member of a group shall never present his- or herself as being
independent, directly or indirectly.
Article II. Responsible Reporting and Online Publication of Data
As poetic license often results in elaborations that never really
occurred, poetic license should not be used to add extraordinary
descriptions, to eliminate or omit certain facts, or for the sake of
time or space. Words should be chosen wisely.
All facts should be recorded and presented whether they support a
hypothesis or not. Objectivity should be maintained as much as humanly
possible.
All attempts should be made to avoid inaccurate documentation. Events
should be written down as soon as possible, no matter how
insignificant they might seem at the time. Time and location should be
noted as exact as possible.
All final reports should be published online for free, and witness
contact information should not be released to the public.
For privacy reasons, witnesses should always be asked whether they
want their real name or an alias used in a report.
All collected data should be submitted to a respectable, freely
available database to allow statistical analysis.
Sources should be credited appropriately.
All possible explanations should be explored, and a worldly
explanation should always be assumed until proven otherwise.
Conclusions should not be based on intuition or "gut feeling."
Article III. Respect for the Law and for Private Property
All local laws should be researched and followed at all times.
Permission to visit a property should be sought out in advance, in
writing if possible.
Article IV. Interactions with Members of the Media
Special care should be given to fact-checking before speaking with any
member of the media. An investigator's personal beliefs or unproven
suspicions should not be communicated in such a forum.
If misquoted or misinterpreted by the media, corrections should be
made immediately through a public channel (i.e. paranormal
organization website).
Due to sensationalism, media sources should not be accepted as
completely accurate by an investigator, although they can provide
leads.
Article V. Monetary Donations
The sale of books is only advisable when the books contain freely
available data. If an investigator does not publish his or her data
online and only provides it to the public for a fee (i.e. the price of
the book), his or her motives may be questionable. Yes, the book would
then be available at a library, but if the book is copyrighted other
scientists and researchers would have trouble using the data to
further the search for the truth. Such withholding of data can only be
viewed as an attempt to profit (after all, the libraries do have to
pay for those books and a portion of that money would go into the
author's pocket).
Any organization who approaches an investigator for an investigation
to "prove" their location as being "haunted" or otherwise unusual
should be reminded that we cannot prove anything, we can only
objectively investigate it.
Donations are advisable so long as they only benefit the group as a
whole and fall into one of the following categories:
travel expenses including food and lodging;
speaking or making appearances at for-profit venues;
fund raising.
All donations should be itemized and expense reports should be
publicly available online for free for accountability purposes.
Consulting to outside organizations (for example, film, television and
radio producers) for a fee should be considered fund raising as long
as the income benefits the group as a whole (not any single
investigator).
An individual doing consulting to outside organizations on their own
time is only advisable so long as he or she is honest with other
members of the community about how much he or she is making for the
consulting work and so long as he or she is not making a living off of
the consulting.
Special exceptions are made for individuals or groups who have been
contracted into doing season-long broadcast shows: due to the enormous
amount of commitment and sacrifice required to produce such shows, it
is understandable that they should receive some sort of monetary
payment. However, the data produced during these investigations should
still be made available as outlined in Article II.
Article VI. The Use of Controlled Variables
"Spiritual" elements such as Ouija boards, séances, psychics, and
"asking spirits for permission to do things" should not be used in
anything other than a controlled experiment specifically about that
element.
Article VII. Trace Evidence Handling
Sites should be visited as soon as possible after an alleged
environmental effect.
Sites should be treated as a crime scene and, with the permission of
the owner, cordoned off immediately to prevent interference or
tampering.
Collected samples, including control samples, should have a chain of
custody document attached immediately. Their whereabouts should be
secure and known at all times.
Lab analysis should be done by someone not connected to the
investigation, and preferably by someone not connected to the field.
Bibliography
O'Brien, Christopher. Suggested Rules of Investigation for Unusual
Claims. The Anomalist. <http://www.anomalist.com/features/rules.html>
Winters, Dayna and Patricia Gardner. Paranormal or Poetic License.
ISIS Investigations. <http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/
viewnews.php?id=81780>
IEEE-CS/ACM Joint Task Force on SEEPP. Software Engineering Code of
Ethics and Professional Practice. <http://computer.org/certification/
ethics.htm>