1.  1. Does the contradiction between Millikan's unqualified statement that he has published all the oil-drop data and the evidence of unpublished oil-drop measurements in his notebooks prove that he is guilty of unethical scientific behavior? If Millikan had not claimed to have published all the data, would he still be guilty of questionable behavior?

    Yes the unpublished measurements are proof that he is guilty of unethical scientific behavior. He stated that he published all results, when he did not. The fact that he lied has taken away all opportunity for new discoveries. If he would have published all data, then the whole “sub electron” controversy would have taken place.
If Millikan would have said he did not publish all of his data then he would have looked very guilty. Either road that he would have taken would have made him look suspicious and possibly guilty.

2.  Should the fact that Millikan was a highly successful scientist, and that he got the right answer in the controversy about the charge on the electron be a consideration in judging his scientific ethics?

No, Even though Millikan was a very intelligent scientist, he is still responsible for the unethical choices he made. He does not have the right to choose the results he published. Millikan should have published all the results, whether he thought they were “correct” or not.

3. What criteria should be used in deciding whether data can be legitimately discarded? When a scientist uses his or her "intuition" as the basis for deciding whether to ignore certain data, is the question of the ethics of this action dependent on whether the conclusion reached by the scientist is later proven to be correct?

The only way that information could be considered to be discarded, is if the equipment is knowingly not working. If the experimenter knows for certain that the materials are tantalized or broken then he should be allowed to let go of the information. I believe that scientific intuition shouldn’t be a basis for ignoring certain data, even if it’s proven to be correct. You should allow the data to rule itself out, not your said “intuition”.

4. Is the intentional manipulation and selection of data in order to falsely prove a scientific premise less of a violation of acceptable ethical standards than the outright fabrication of data?

The intentional manipulation and selection of data is just as unethical as fabrication of data because either way, the person is lying about the outcome of their experiment. If the person does not give the real outcome of their experiment, they are lying to the public. When other people attempt to recreate the experiment and find different results, they will probably think they did the experiment wrong. This could cause problems because the public will think the results of the experiment are factual, but the results are actually not accurate.

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The Millikan Case

A major ethical dilemma in science is manipulating data. If the results don’t equal what is expected, it is easy to change or drop the data. Robert A. Millikan was an example of this.

J.J. Thompson discovered the electron in 1897 and also found the ratio of the electrons charge to its mass. However, it wasn’t enough information to find the actual charge and mass of the electron; therefore it was useless. Thirty-seven years later, Millikan used Thompson’s discoveries and found the charge of the electron. In the experiment, Millikan observed electrically charged oil droplets. The droplets would fall between two plates, which would then create an electric field. He measured how long it took for a drop to move a certain distance, which determined the charge of the droplet. When he published the results, the charges of the drops shown were multiples of the same number. This means that all drops must have had the same charge. After many years of researching, scientists found that Millikan didn’t publish all of his results in his papers. Felix Ehrenhaft claimed to have found “sub electrons”, and he said that his discovery was backed up by Millikan’s findings, but were never published. In the end it was determined that Millikan was right and Ehrenhaft was wrong.
Some scientists and scholars believe that Millikan was wrong in his doings because he should’ve published all of his collected data. Knowing all of the information that was found would have helped other scientists. Others believe he was not necessarily wrong because they believe in “scientific intuition”, and he had the ability to reason and only publish what he thought should be published. They believe that he didn’t publish all of the results because the equipment that he used wasn’t properly working. Either way, the decision he made can be argued to be ethical or non-ethical.