At a meeting of the Physical Society of London in 1925 participants expressed their concerns regarding a recent suggestion by the Australian physicist T. H. Laby for replicating the established value of the mechanical equivalent of heat. This rather controversial discussion about the value of redetermining this numerical fact brings to light different understandings of the moral economy of accuracy in scientific work; it signals a distinctive new stage in the historical understanding of accuracy and precision and the moral integrity (...) in conducting research. (shrink)

This introductory article frames our special issue in terms of how historicizing research integrity and fraud can benefit current discussions of scientific conduct and the need to improve public trust in science.

This introductory essay frames our special issue by discussing how attention to the history of research integrity and fraud can stimulate new historical and methodological insights of broader import to historians of science.