John Kagel and his colleagues must take into account how their own behavior might influence the behavior of the rats they study. But they need not worry at all about the influence of their research on the behavior of other rats. Other rats do not read or understand economists’ conversations about rats; the behavior of those other rats will remain totally unaffected by the reporting of the results of the experiments or by new analyses ‘explaining’ such results to economists.

G. Brennan/J. M. Buchanan, Is Public Choice Immoral?, Va. L. Rev. 74 (1988), 179, 182