Science and Ethics
by MikeGenePZ Myers does nothing more than scoff at Sen. Santorum, who apparently said/wrote, "Most scientists unfortunately, those that certainly are advocating for this [embryonic stem cell research], and many others feel very little moral compulsion. It's a utilitarian, materialistic view of doing whatever they can do to pursue their desired goals."
Yet the June 13, 2006 issue of Cell has an article by Paul Root Wolpe, from the Department of Psychiatry and Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Wolpe's article is entitled, "Reasons Scientists Avoid Thinking about Ethics." Some excerpts from the article are below the fold:
Scientists, however, are often wary of ethical scrutiny, and generally reluctant to engage the public in moral conversation about their work. Why aren't scientists more engaged in the ethical debates that characterize the public discourse about science? Why are scientists not more effective advocates of their own work? There are a number of reasons that scientists offer, and each is worthy of examination.
Science has become one of the most powerful and pervasive forces for change in modern society. As the professionals at its helm, scientists have a unique responsibility to shepherd that change with careful ethical scrutiny of their own behavior and thoughtful advocacy of scientific research. If scientists find reasons not to do so, the public will find ways to do it for them, and the results may not always be in the best interests of science or society.
July 25th, 2006 at 11:02 am
I heard a lecture from Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome project, recently, and I was impressed with the amount of energy they're pouring into the ethical issues connected to that program. Collins is a believer in Christ, by the way, and not ashamed for it to be known that his ethical concerns are motivated in part by that.
What you have pointed out here, though, MikeGene, may be another symptom of the larger problem we deal with. It's scientism in another guise, the doctrine that science itself is the grand route to all knowledge. It doesn't direct us very grandly to ethical conclusions, unfortunately. So we have to resort to (horrors!!!) philosophy and theology to guide us. Or we shortcut the process and go straight to politics, which is the way it's being perceived now.
Another sign of this is that those who oppose embryonic stem cell research are often derided as "opposing science." It's a silly charge. I'm quite sure that many or most of us who oppose ESCR are in favor of other kinds of stem cell research, and maybe even seismology or ichthyology or cybernetics or high-energy physics or some other science.
But when some scientists (those of the scientism variety) see people questioning their programs, they cannot seem to grasp that there are other categories of knowledge and decision making that these people are attending to. Just maybe, to them, there are no other categories of knowledge and decision making.
Comment by TomG — July 25, 2006 @ 11:02 am
July 25th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
There is, I think, an unwritten code within the scientific community that says: "anything that's possible should be". That at least is the public perception based on what science and scientists often advocate. There's a disconnect between pure research and the ramifications of the results of that research in the real world.
Perhaps it is too much to ask scientists to voluntarily place moral restraints on their research, perhaps not. Someone else can debate that. What is clear is that society has no such luxery. Indeed, most societies place moral constraints on all sorts of behavior all the time. We call them "laws", and there isn't a single law, statute or rule that isn't based on some moral premise. Why should scientists be exempt from laws that place restraint on their scientific behavior in the same way other laws place restraints on economic behavior, or social behavior, or community behavior? Why is it 'anti-science' to create such laws in the interests of the common good? After all, we have elected bodies whose charge is (at least in part) to debate, discuss and create laws to secure the common good. If certain scientific enterprises are deemed to be at odds with the common good, then these elected bodies would be shirking their duty to society at large to not take action to secure the common good through the passage of laws that may restrict such scientific enterprises.
Either that or we accept scientific anarchy, I guess.
Comment by DonaldM — July 25, 2006 @ 4:45 pm
July 25th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Science does not take place in an ethical vacuum - the scientific community actually voluntarily places many ethical restraints on what sort of research can be done, and how it can be done. They establish what are known as ethics committees, which govern how scientists should perform their research. These ethics committees contain scientists and non-scientist "stake-holders" (which can include people like veterinarians, patient group representatives, professional ethicists, and interested lay-people). All new research in contentious areas, such as research involving animals or human subjects, must be reviewed and approved by these committees before it can begin. The paperwork involved can be horrendous, but scientists accept this as the price we pay to ensure that research is carried out in an ethical manner.
So scientists fully accept that we must operate within an ethical framework - we're moral humans, after all, not the ivory-tower idealists that DonaldM describes. However, we generally believe that the ethics committee review system that has been put in place to govern research ethics is the best way to decide what research is permissible. Good ethics committees consist of individuals who are in a position to evaluate both the potential benefits and the ethical problems associated with a particular project. In contrast, politicians would like to be able to constrain researchers based on the views of a constituency who are largely unable to make such an informed decision, but instead tend to react with knee-jerk moral outrage.
DonaldM draws a parallel between the laws guiding social behaviour and the rules that should govern scientific research. It is important to remember that laws aren't decided by politicians, or by public vote, but rather by a select group of law-makers who have been trained to make highly informed decisions about what is or isn't legally acceptable. The same should (and currently largely does) apply to scientific research.
Comment by Mesk — July 25, 2006 @ 7:26 pm
July 25th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Mesk:
In the United States that select group of law makers are called congressmen/women and senators who are elected politicians. Also, some laws are decided by public vote. Consider the many state referendums that get on ballots every election. Those referendums decide law and policy on many issues. So contary to what you say here, laws are decided quite often by politicians and public vote. In fact, the only bodies empowered under our constitution to make law are, in fact, these elected bodies. Same for each of the 50 states and virtually all municipalities. Only elected politicians, elected by the people are empowered to make laws….no matter what some jurists might think.
I wasn't intending to imply that scientists are ivory tower idealists. My only point was that whether or not scientists can effectively self-police is, to me, a separate issue. I'm well aware that many scientific organizations have ethics committees of all sorts. But, in spite of that the world has gained nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, bombs…to mention just a few things we could have done without. Where were the scientific ethical committees when the sceintific research on all those things was being done?
In practice, Mesk, I think scientists often do operate in an ethical vacuum. The only guide often seems to be the scientific imperative that "anything that is possible should be."
Comment by DonaldM — July 25, 2006 @ 7:56 pm
July 25th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Mesk writes:
My my….such a low opinion of your fellow citizens. Au contraire…I think most people know in thier gut what is right what is wrong. Whenever I see a phrase like "knee jerk moral outrage", it usually means something like: "strongly disagrees with what I think the correct position is!" This uninformed, ignorant constiuency to which you refer is more informed and less ignorant than you suppose….they're called voters, and their collective wisdom has served this nation fairly well for over 230 years. Sure some are more informed than others and some not informed at all. But collectively…its a pretty formidable group. I'd be more respectful if I were you!!!
Comment by DonaldM — July 25, 2006 @ 8:06 pm
July 25th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
Mesk:
Hear hear.
Anyone wanna take a guess as to how many times a month the IBC and IRB for the Discovery Institute meet? Or the ICR? How many protocols Wells, Behe, Dembski, Nelson et al. have submitted for their ID research? Anyone here actually think these organizations, that purport to be interested in research that touches on biology, actually have such committees (not on-paper shadows, but groups that meet and weigh substantive issues on a regular basis)?
That says it all. When it comes to real-world ethics and morality, ID proponents are about as low on the totem pole as the politicians they have chosen to push their agenda. A movement whose bank accounts depends on lies, deceit, and misrepresentation isn't the one to be blathering on about ethics. And commenters here who have zero inkling as to what actually happens in the lab, or what really runs thru the minds of scientists whose work impacts real people, ought to stifle their impulses to be stupid.
[Crude, even rude, to be sure. But the first two comments in this thread are much more rude than this. And it's a sure thing that the anti-science and anti-scientist crew at TT - which appears to be everyone - isn't going to do anything but defend such remarks.]
While the anti-intellectuals here wallow in their smug faux moral "superiority", other readers are invited to peruse some of the documentation that guides real biological research (well, probably not at places like ICR or the DI - religious entities pretty much avoid the trappings of federal oversight by hiding behind the First Amendment):
The NIH Guidelines for research involving recombinant DNA
The CDC manual dealing with infectious agents
USDA regulations that deal with agricultural commodities (includes guidelines for field research)
Risk group categorization of infectious agents
Animal welfare regulations
Other links that researchers need to be aware of
Just some light reading before one sets up one's lab.
Comment by Art — July 25, 2006 @ 8:19 pm
July 26th, 2006 at 12:18 am
First, a quick correction to my previous post. I said:
Of course they are decided by politicians, and thus indirectly by the public. I wrote this in a hurry, but I think my original point was intended to have more to do with how laws are interpreted and enforced by police, lawyers and judges, i.e. expert individuals not directly elected by the public. However, I can't muster the energy to pull that analogy into any sort of useful state, so I'll let the point slide for the moment.
Weapons development occurs in sealed-off government labs well out of the scrutiny of ethics committees. In fact, nuclear weapons development is a pretty classic example of what happens when politics drives science.
I can't emphasise enough just how completely mistaken this view is - to be honest, it sounds as though your views of how scientists operate have more to do with science fiction movies than with reality. In fact, virtually everything we do has to be justified to ethics committees and funding bodies. In addition, as I said in my post, we are moral creatures like any other human. There's plenty of things that scientists could be doing now - like engineering giant mice with poison for blood, perhaps - that are unlikely to get past an ethics committee.
It's a simple fact that most members of the public know basically nothing about embryonic stem cells, therapeutic cloning, genetically-manipulated food, anthropogenic climate change or any other hot-button scientific issue beyond the usual cliches voiced by partisan commentators (on both sides) in the mainstream media. However, this widespread ignorance doesn't stop most members of the public from voicing strong support for one side or the other on these issues. Clearly these aren't informed opinions; rather, as you say yourself, "most people know in thier gut what is right what is wrong". These are visceral positions, not rational ones.
I'm not saying most people are stupid - far from it. It's just that these are complex issues, and it takes a great deal of time to build up a sufficient knowledge base to understand them. Most people don't have that sort of time, as they're just too busy making their house repayments. There's nothing inherently wrong with ignorance about specific topics - hell, I know basically nothing about cars, root vegetables or climate change, and I don't mind admitting it. The problem arises when people come to believe that their plainly ignorant opinion is somehow equally valid to that of the panel of experts who have spent twenty years researching the topic.
Western-style democracy has succeeded largely, IMO, not because it relies on the "gut" opinions of the masses, but rather because voters have generally been willing to rely on expert representatives to do much of their thinking for them.
When you call a plumber in to fix a leak, you're unlikely to look over his shoulder and insist that the leak is coming from a different pipe, and he should fix it using a blowtorch instead of a wrench. Instead, most of us defer to a large extent to the expertise of the plumber. This is straightforward thinking in our daily lives, yet for some reason people feel that a different standard applies when it comes to topics of a scientific nature that are vastly more complex than plumbing.
Comment by Mesk — July 26, 2006 @ 12:18 am
July 26th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Let me again remind people of the title of Wolpe's article - "Reasons Scientists Avoid Thinking about Ethics." Let me again remind people that the article was published in Cell.
Comment by MikeGene — July 26, 2006 @ 8:21 am
July 26th, 2006 at 8:42 am
I don't have much free time these days, so this post is apt to be "cryptic."
I want to draw your attention to the quote. I want you to think about the assertions explicit and implicit in the statement:
I want you to consider every sentence in that quote, but especially the last. This is a reflection of the mindset which can be called "the Cult of the Expert."
"Strangelets." I realize that is likely to be very cryptic, but I don't have more time to expand upon it as it deserves.
The main thing about "strangelets" is that some scientists (specifically at the CERN facility a number of years ago, but apparently in other experiments at other facilities continuing to this day) intentionally performed experiments that the theories under which they were operating indicated could result in the creation of theoretical particles called "strangelets." Further, were "strangelets" to be created, there is some concern that they may destroy the entire earth. (Wikipedia article on strangelets)
For all I know, the scientists may actually and intentionally be attempting to create "strangelets." The after-the-fact justification (of the CERN experiment) by some "scientific expert" was that there was only a one-in-[X] (I don't remember the exact number he pulled out of his … ear … two million, three million, something like that) chance that such experiments would lead to the destruction of all human life.
Well, yes, when it's put that way, I can see that it's well worth the risk of destroying the entire race just to satisfy the idle curiosities of a few hundred particle physicists. After all, if you can't trust "scientists," whom can you trust!
This, of course, is NOT true. This is not how or why our society works; though it certainly is in the self-interest of "experts" for the members of society to believe that this is the case.
And when the plumber *says* he has successfully fixed the leak, but your own reasoning (based in this case upon your sense-perceptions) indicates to you that he has not only not fixed it but has made it worse, whom do you believe? Him, or your own lying mind?
.
Whether the plumber is or is not an "expert" at plumbing, *you* always retain the right (and the responsibility) to judge him in that capacity. He has no right nor ability to wave around his "expertise" as the means to silence your critique.
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The "experts," or whatever area of expertise, are nothing but hired-hands; the "employer" retains sovereignty in the particular area that the "experts" are hired for. By the "Cult of the Expert," certain "experts" seek to overturn this true (and natural) order of life.
Comment by Ilion — July 26, 2006 @ 8:42 am
July 26th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Wolpe made some good points, but I wanted to draw attention to this one part:
Now, I agree that scientists as a whole should take more care to control themselves, but there also seems to be an assumption in there that scientists are morally and ethically superior to the average citizen, and better judges of what's good for society. So the contempt for the public of those that Wolpe is criticizing may not be totally absent from Wolpe himself.
Comment by Deuce — July 26, 2006 @ 9:36 am
July 26th, 2006 at 10:23 am
It's an aside point, but I strongly, strongly disagree on this. It's certainly true that the public must and in many cases do defer to expert opinion, however, the statement that "western democracy has suceeded largely…because the voters have generally been willing to rely on expert representatives to do much of their thinking for them" smacks of totalitarianism - meritocratic totalitarianism but totalitarianism nonetheless. "Totalitarian" here subsitutes precicely for "tyranny".
From my own experience of the Academy (which, granted, centred around the humanities rather than the sciences) my perception is that many of the worst people in the world to run anything are scholars. I would personally sooner trust a parliament of illiterate peasants to rule me than a cartel of academics.
[/rant]
On topic, two thoughts:
1 - I've seen and heard nothing to make me think that scientists are particularly more or less moral than members of any other vocation.
2 - I often see a conflation between scientific and moral issues. For instance, some animal rights activists who oppose using animals in trials have been labelled 'anti-science'. I don't see how a particular view on the rights of animals constitutes 'anti-science'. Nor indeed do I see how scientists have any special authority in proclaiming the rights of animals.
Comment by BenK — July 26, 2006 @ 10:23 am
July 26th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Don't forget that one part of American history involved Experts convincing others to implement sterilization laws. See here, for example.
Comment by MikeGene — July 26, 2006 @ 10:31 am
July 26th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Not all ethical dimensions of scientific research end up as public political debates, as is the case with embryonic stem cell research. Here is a NYT essay from 1999 describing the Brookhaven "singlet controversy" (and other probabilities theorists had raised the alarm about, like local black holes) in a dismissive tone.
The concern was that our unstable universe (instability allowing for dynamics and life) is a 'false vacuum' condition a completely stable form of matter might cause to collapse - thereby causing a universal phase change, either instantaneously or in a 'bubble' expanding from what used to be the earth at the speed of light.
The probability was small, but present in the equations nonetheless. Enrico Fermi once entertained bets on whether or not the Trinity nuclear test in 1945 would ignite the atmosphere and destroy all life on earth. He pooh-poohed the notion because the probability was slim, but the probability did exist in the equations.
Stem cell ethics aren't on the same consideration level as physical nullification of the entire planet or universe. So we do get some public debate on the subject. I for one do NOT "just trust" science to decide for everyone what's best - any more than I "just trust" wannabe tyrants in government. I want public oversight because we pay the bills as well as the ultimate price - there's not enough of it now.
The public and its politicians aren't privy to high energy physics book-making, because the the annihilation of life is the whole point of the exercise. IOW, if the research itself is unethical, the ethics of worst case scenarios is entirely irrelevant.
Scientists are no more ethically constrained or concerned than the average person who works cooking the books for an amoral corporation. Such collective endeavors are amoral (not immoral,) by design. Because the FAPP job description is about power. There are laws governing corporate conduct - often ignored but there nonetheless - in whole corners of science ethical oversight simply isn't practiced at all.
Comment by Joy — July 26, 2006 @ 11:02 am
July 26th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
Mesk:
So naturally if a scientist is employed by the government, ethics be damned. For that matter, ethics be damned in politics, too. What you've provided an example of, Mesk, is not what happens when politics drives science, but what happens when ethics doesn't drive anything.
Mesk:
Are you suggesting that the public be given an exam to pass before being allowed to express their opinion (or vote on) matters of importance to the public at large? And precisely who determines the level of knowledge necessary for someone's opinion to be considered valid? Some scientific committee? (one devoid of any political concerns, of course!)
When it comes to escr, most of the "uninformed" "ignorant" huddled masses to which refer know the one thing that is important regarding it: escr proceeds only at the expense of dead embryos. ESCR is 100% lethal to the embryo. Knowledge of this simple fact doesn't require a degree in science or spending hours upon hours of study poring over scientific literature. If one believes (as I do) that all forms of human life are valuable (regardless of where they fall on the timeline of existence between conception and death) and deserve to be protected and not preyed upon, then opposition to any scientific research that results in the death of human life is justified. It doesn't require one to be a member of the scientific elite to reach such a conclusion, nor does it require understanding the intimate scientific details of the process. It requires understanding one basic fact about the research: embryos die. I think most of the "uneducated" rabble can grasp that simple fact and reach a very informed opinion accordingly.
Mesk:
And how many years of research would you say are necessary to reach the conclusion that performing scientific experiments on human beings, especially if it results in the death of those human beings, regardless of what stage of development those humans are at between conception and death, is wrong? The way you argue here, I almost think you believe that only the educated can have correct ethical positions on most issues. Is that what you think, Mesk? If so, I'd say you're dead wrong!!
Comment by DonaldM — July 26, 2006 @ 6:18 pm
July 28th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
DonaldM,
On reflection, I will broadly concede your point regarding opposition to ES cell research - it's a valid moral argument to oppose such research on the basis that embryos must be destroyed (undeniably true), that embryos constitute persons (arguable, but defensible), and that destruction of persons is a fundamental moral wrong (again, a defensible claim). Perhaps the only point in this argument where scientific complexity rears its head is the second point, i.e. whether an embryo constitutes a person. However, although I think a panel of scientific experts could provide assistance in deciding this issue (for instance, by discussing precisely when in development certain features that may be associated with "personhood", such as higher cognitive functions, arise), ultimately this isn't a scientific question.
So I guess my argument is weak for issues that can be boiled down to such basic (non-scientific) moral calculus, but strong for some other issues. For instance, I would certainly claim that most arguments from both sides of the anthropogenic climate change debate are based on near-complete ignorance of the underlying science, and that in such situations governments are better off relying on the scientific consensus than on the opinions of the masses. However, I'm veering pretty wildly off-topic here; perhaps this is an argument for another thread.
Just as a final summation, though: I'm not arguing that all moral decisions are better made by experts than by lay-people, but rather that many moral decisions need to be informed by complex scientific facts, which are better evaluated by experts than by the masses. For some topics, such as ESCR, certain moral decisions can be made without complete reliance on complex scientific matters. However for other issues scientific reasoning is absolutely critical for even basic decision-making, and in these cases I would argue that the arguments of the largely ignorant public, however ferocious, should be ignored in favour of expert consensus.
Comment by Mesk — July 28, 2006 @ 8:37 pm
July 29th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Wolpe's premise is in gross error. Researchers in biology go through more rigorous ethical discussion of their work than any other profession, by law.
Anyone engaged in research dealing with human subjects must go through an institutional review board for approval. Almost all research done on human health is reviewed multiple times.
When creationists start with absolutely erroneous premises, they arrive at good results only randomly. In this case, Wolpe misses.
Comment by edarrell — July 29, 2006 @ 8:42 am
July 29th, 2006 at 8:54 am
So now Wolpe is a creationist????
Comment by MikeGene — July 29, 2006 @ 8:54 am
July 29th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Mesk:
Hi, Mesk. First, I appreciate your stepping away from the assertion that ethical decisions must be made by scientists pushing some possible application of research findings, over any ethical objections lodged by the "ignorant" public. But I think you harbor an erroneous overall conception of ethics, the depth of ethical considerations, and the contexts of analysis per applications of technologies spun-off scientific cause-effect knowledge.
1. Scientists have no greater grasp of ethical questions, depth, context or analytical ability than any other human being on the planet. Their sheepskins come from mastering specific bodies of cumulative knowledge, then learning how to apply methodology, hypothesizing skills and simple logical analysis of extrapolative findings in their field. Way too many biologists (as opposed to 'harder' sciences) display such a positive disdain for the philosophy of science itself that there's good reason to distrust any claims of ultimate expertise in making ethical decisions on applications for the whole of humanity!
2. Over the past couple of decades there has been a significant shift in focus for broad swaths of biological science - and applications enabled by new technologies - that is a whole lot more about wealth and power than about the practice of science or analysis of its ethical dimensions. Crude genetic manipulation technologies deployed prematurely upon falsified assumptions without proper ethical analysis have killed more than one human being, and the long term effects of transgenes loose in the natural world complete with promoters designed to defeat natural boundaries are still unknown. Many "ignorant" members of the public could have mentioned ethical considerations the scientists and their corporate sponsors never thought about, but they weren't asked.
3. Science - put to work directly for corporations, military, government regulatory agencies, and individual scientists as corporate entities to enrich themselves - have demonstrated a willingness to ignore ethical issues that should properly have been analyzed long before technologies were deployed. Humanity has a large stake in the world, and research science was designed to work FOR humanity. Thus science has no business ignoring human ethical considerations, even for "the usual" self-aggrandizing reasons (greed, mostly).
Had proper ethical analysis been done, long term feeding studies for GMO crops would have been required prior to deployment. Long term monitoring of animals involved in gene therapy research would have informed researchers that their promoters might trigger fatal disease before human children died of crude techniques. A simple sociological background check would have informed the CEO of Monsanto that there are whole cultures of humanity that view food as a binding ritual, and who flat won't eat tomatoes with pig genes [etc.] and will object strongly to the attempt to force it on them.
Now we've got the issue you and Donald have discussed, which you are just now acknowledging does indeed have an ethical depth science is dismissing outright. I see no justification to leave the ethical dimension of scientific knowledge - for purposes of deployment - to scientists or their for-profit or for-power sponsors. Wolpe is right when he says…
Comment by Joy — July 29, 2006 @ 10:25 am
July 29th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Please allow me to expand a little on the difference of opinion displayed so well by Mesk's assertion that "…the arguments of the largely ignorant public, however ferocious, should be ignored in favor of expert consensus." Because the arguments are in this instance about ethical dimensions of deployment of technologies gifted to humanity by science, and some of the most notable examples of this very "ignoring" of public arguments - or possible arguments, since a lot of the damage was imposed by fiat and the public didn't learn about it until it was already done.
"The public" is a statistical construct, not a monolithic entity. As reported by Mike back in April in a blog about Liza Gross' article in PLoS Biology [Scientific Illiteracy...], scientific literacy has doubled in the last generation. Overall it's still a dismal 17%, but only as measured on particular subsets. This doesn't mean all members of the public are literate on 17% of science. In publicly highlighted science, such as the fact that antibiotics don't kill viruses, a majority of the public [54% on this] can claim literacy.
This means that individual members of the public will educate themselves about issues that matter to them, even if they remain ignorant on issues that don't matter to them. Obviously, since public scientific literacy in the US is higher than in Japan, Canada and Europe, public exposure of scientific issues and public discussion of them does work to expand literacy. But once the public has been engaged on any scientific issue, scientists have no reason to expect that public opinions about the ethical dimensions can be properly (or 'safely') ignored based on fallacious appeal to their own claimed 'ethical' authority.
In a world with technological/medical rationing by class, WMDs, unchecked proliferation, and organized state-sponsored terrorism, science - as 'orthodox' consensus or authoritarian dictatorship - doesn't have an ethical leg to stand on. Human beings are quite capable of grasping that much, even if they don't know how to build an atomic bomb or genetically engineer a doomsday plague. Science just doesn't get an ethical free pass from humanity on deployment of any derived technology. It doesn't deserve such a pass, even if in the end deployment is deemed reasonable with oversight.
Interesting current example - Science tends to get so overexcited about its discoveries in biology these days, often promising grand cures for common diseases and other, more ethically questionable applications the public is simply informed about in sensationalistic terms. In Researchers Show How the Brain Turns On Innate Behavior, the lead author goes ahead and mentions an ethical issue after the research is extrapolated beyond the actual evidence…
It's good to mention the ethical dimension now, when the research is new. Yet are we supposed to presume that this particular researcher - himself a member of the statistical construct known as "The Public" - is ignorant of the fact that his knowledge can now be developed and deployed in corporate basement labs and government/military Top Secret projects to do the very thing he warns about? Without any public discussion of the ethical dimensions that come attached? A good many biological discoveries have attached ethical dimensions. A good many human beings don't trust biologists to determine that these dimensions don't count.
Mesk might very well rest comfortably trusting that deployment will never touch him or those he loves. I don't rest so comfortably, and neither should a majority of the "largely ignorant public" he disdains. This isn't about whether the autonomic expression of these processes were designed by God or by accident. Deployment is always about intelligent design by human beings. Who require ethical oversight because humans are notoriously amoral unless subjected to oversight.
Comment by Joy — July 29, 2006 @ 12:23 pm
August 6th, 2006 at 4:40 am
Odd. The comments in the subsequent thread have disappeared. Tech support?
Comment by edarrell — August 6, 2006 @ 4:40 am
August 6th, 2006 at 4:58 am
I think Ed means this one. The comments aren't gone, Mike just closed the thread.
Comment by Krauze — August 6, 2006 @ 4:58 am