Science is a system that aims to explain the workings of the world
independent of how we see it. That world covers many many things, it
covers the chemistry of how we get fat, the physics of why babies get
so much bigger so quick and it covers the investment in our. Science
not only affects us on the tiny levels, as science requires the most
investment , it affects how we plan society in the future.
I am no professional ethicist. Such people spend years on one or two
questions. I cannot, what I can do is give a reasoned, intelligent and
hopefully clearly argued answer. It is personal, please note that.
Please note also I will add to the answer if need be.
Ethics means three things primarily. It is a system of assessing how
to act in the right way. It is also the system of moral rules
governing the actions of a person and finally it is the rules
governing the actions of a professional community, like those who work
in bio-engineering for example.
( http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ethics&r=67)
Let us look at the bio-engineers a little more. They have a problem
and have to engineer a form of worm that will clean soil of dead
insects more effectively than natural engineered ones. Trouble is,
they do not know how many other underfoot organisms eat dead insects
too. So the new eating habits of the worm may cause other species to
die out more quickly. On land, animals may lose the insects they need
as food and attack unpredictably for food. They may attack people.
The scientists are just part of the decision making chain. Let us say
the scientists are working for Massive Company X of Texas which has
spent $110 million dollars developing the worm to this point. The boss
of the scientists convinces them to make the worm, against their
wishes. This gets me back to a point I made to start, science is not
just a scientific concern. Science is about planning society. Let us
assume the worm went ahead and was released into the wild in 1990. Now
twelve years later let us see what we can learn.
Massive Company X is very pleased, the worm has eaten $85 million
worth of dead insects in Texas alone. This means new plants have been
made providing more and cheaper food than before and there is room
enough for some cool trees. Not only that, but the technology has been
sold on ten year contracts in India and China where new food areas are
being cultivated and lots and lots of really cool trees are going up.
The company now has made $300 from the technology of the worm and the
research shows how the different objects in an ecosystem relate to one
another.The Company is putting $150m dollars into non-western
environments per 5 years to make more wealth there so all humanity is
richer. It looks good all round. Humanity has more to eat, humans are
wealthier, there are positive points for the environment.
Farmers in the original worm launch location are complaining though.
They have a massive loss of the number of hedgehogs and birds. This
means rats can now move up a bit in the food chain. Rats are for the
farmers a problem, they have to cover their household rubbish much
better. It costs them money and Company X’s lawyers have made sure
Company X is not liable for a penny.
Oh dear, word has just come in that one of the farmers has shot dead
another farmer and all of his family. It seems famer B left the lid
off his rubbish and a rat jumped out at one of farmer A’s kids. Kid
was real scared, was bitten, and had to have a nasty tetanus jab to
ensure there was no infection. Kid died, rats were part of the worm
food chain. The changed worm changed the rats making the tetanus jab
useless. We now have a strain of killer rats loose.
So who caused the outbreak of the killer rats? The scientists could
have been more assertive with their boss. They could have explained
the knock-on effects were too wild to be predicted. They could blame
the boss, the boss could say he was badly briefed about what could
happen. The farmers blame the scientists as they installed the system.
Government officials in India and China read about the worm causing
the ecosystem damage and cancels the contract. Wealth diminishes in
the world, people have been killed, the worm has messed up the
ecosystem. So there is our musical, got no songs yet but, hey!
Science cannot be seen as a term in itself, there are chains of
decision making affecting managers, scientists, farmers, lawyers, etc.
Science, it can be argued, is part of all of our lives. “Only an alert
and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge
industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods
and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” So said
Eisenhower in his last speech:
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
• Scientists have an ethical responsibility to make non-scientists
understand science or democracy will be somewhat undermined.
• Wherever we need to understand how objects work we use science.
Objects are now proteins and biological molecules, science is much
much more the basis of life than ever before. Sciences’
interrelationship is becoming total, no aspect of our life is not an
object as object is defined here.
• Ethics in science is about assessing the knock-on effects of
actions. Due to the interrelationship of science and society, science
is increasingly exerting power.
I think, at the end of the day that we must take risks with science.
Things go wrong in any endeavour, we need to build a database of
knock-on chains. America is the richest country in the world as it is
the one most based on science. I think it is ethical to try and ensure
most of the world does not lack the science it needs to make its own
money.
War is our biological heritage, we must change ourselves genetically
and overcome the need for war. “I have found the missing link between
the animals and civilized humanity, it’s us,” wrote the great Karl
Lorenz. Much of physics is about missiles, war has been the investment
opportunity of choice, of necessity. With genetics we may be able to
overcome the economy we have inherited in the form of our bodies. I
think it is ethical we try.
For a view from the web you may look at the work of the radical author
Wae Han-Ho. http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/MaeWanHo/ and here are
a set of more general
links. These are on bioethics,
http://medicine.indiana.edu/news_releases/archive_01/mes_bioethics01.html
http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/home/
http://business.hol.gr/~bio/HTML/PUBS/VOL4/ec-kanaz.htm
http://www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~macer/aiba.html
http://www.library.yale.edu/scilib/biol/bioethic.html
http://psci-com.org.uk/browse/detail/eba80e3fe40b8805aae7c297b2bfd15d.html
These are on general ethics in science,
http://www.chem.vt.edu/ethics/ethics.html
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/research/ethics.html
And on computer ethics ( halfway down page, under just published )
http://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~floridi/index_files/maintext.htm |
