Conflict of interest or contravention of science?

Invasive conflict of interest disclosures are now normative requirements for participation in the operations of science, pursuant to a sea of ink intended ostensibly to advocate for objectivity. Far too little ink has been devoted to a serious discussion of how well such disclosures comport with the fundamental precepts of science, whether personal disclosures are the best method to accomplish the alleged intent, how objectively decisions can be made on the basis of information about experimenters rather than on information about experiments, and whether the practice of science might actually have been subverted, rather than supported, by those requirements. This short commentary is a modest payment on that ink deficit. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.