🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Sep23.163322.28379@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> sticklen@cps.msu.edu (Jon Sticklen) writes:
>From article <4904@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu>, by drbob@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Robert H. Woodman):
<my stuff deleted.  Bob>

>I sympathize with Woodman's thurst, but the conclusion is very circular.
>What constitutes "ethical vacuum" for a particular research
>direction? To avoid this horrible state (ethical vacuum) what can I do?
>
>	a) Do I have to know what my results are going to be, 
>	   then consider the ethical implications of those results, then
>	   NOT do the experiment if the implications are somehow not meeting
>	   my ethical standards? Most scientists would claim you cannot do
>	   that because you cannot know what experiemntal results will be in
>	   any a priori way. 
>
>	b) So if (a) will not work, then should I go on and do experiemnts
>	   in which results are not certain, but if the results are
>	   not meeting my "ethical standards" maybe I should suppress
>	   the results? Somehow that does not sound too scientific either.
>
>
>So what should a scientist do?
>
>	---jon---

Jon,

     Suppose that you are pursuing a line of work which involves the com-
parison of human and chimp genes.  You follow that line scientifically.
As you go, you consider the ethical consequences of what you have learned
and what future research results might, or might not, yield.  Now let us
suppose that you have found, from your experimental results, data which
points the way towards species engineering.  What are you to do?

     a.  Sit on the data, and never publish.  If you've got tenure and
         lots of grants, that may be viable, but a young, untenured pro-
         fessor with a family may not find that option so good.  The high
         moral ground is not so easy to take when one's future is at stake.

     b.  Publish the data, continue the research, and hunker down when
         the public finds out and explodes in anger [or at least when
         Jeremy Rifkin explodes in anger :-) ].  That may not be good
         either.  In fact it is probably far *less* helpful, since you
         then run the risk of press and public hysteria and a political
         solution (read Congressional imposition on research) being im-
         plemented.  Your research may then sway in the political winds
         for quite a while with no direction.

     c.  Publish the data, but drop the research.  Find a different line
         of inquiry in the system you are studying and go down it.  This
         is probably not the best solution, but it is better, IMHO, than
         solutions a and b.  If you have clout, or affiliation with sci-
         entists with clout, and if you are feeling particularly "moral"
         about the potential ethical problems of your work, you can call
         an international conference of bioethicists and researchers in
         the same field.  In that conference, you would discuss the re-
         search, the results, and the problems, and then you would seek
         a moratorium on future research along those lines by the whole
         scientific community.

    One of the things that I have noticed about scientists is that they
are perceived by the public as being so focused on the science that they
ignore any ethical problems.  I know that this is not true; it is far too
broad a generalization, but it is, nonetheless, the perception which people
have of scientists.  Furthermore, scientists (or at least many scientists)
encourage this stereotyping by the nonscientific public by *not* paying
attention to the ethical problems inherent in their work.  They give off
an air which says "Only the research is important.  Who cares about any-
body's moral hangups?"

     We as scientists have an obligation to the public, especially if we
are being funded by public money, to consider the ethical implications of
any line of research we pursue.  Furthermore, when we present our findings
to the public, it would behoove us to note and even discuss the ethical
implications of the work.  If all we care about is the research, we run
the risk of offending public sensibilities when we find results from 
certain lines of inquiry which contain potentially explosive ethical
implications.  It is past time to quit acting as though we don't under-
stand, or care about ethics, and start demonstrating that we can balance
on the thin wire of "ethical responsibility" versus "scientific freedom."


-=-
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*Bob Woodman                  * "A job not worth doing well is not  *
*INTERNET:  woodman.1@osu.edu *  worth doing."--Salvador Luria      *
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