Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!sharkey!msuinfo!sticklen
From: sticklen@cps.msu.edu (Jon Sticklen)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Human/Chimp Hybrids?
Message-ID: <1990Sep23.163322.28379@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: 23 Sep 90 16:33:22 GMT
References: <4904@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu
Organization: Michigan State University
Lines: 28

From article <4904@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu>, by drbob@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Robert H. Woodman):
<a lot of stuff deleted...>

> ....  Conducting science in a ethical vacuum (partial or com-
> plete vacuum is irrelevant) is a prescription for either future catas-
> trophe or a future shutdown of science by an outraged public.
> ....

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---