Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu!hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu!drbob From: drbob@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Robert H. Woodman) Newsgroups: sci.bio Subject: The Ethics of Species Engineering ( WAS: Re: Human/Chimp Hybrids?) Summary: Ethical balancing acts are not easy. Keywords: ethics Message-ID: <4909@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu> Date: 23 Sep 90 20:37:54 GMT References: <4904@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu> <1990Sep23.163322.28379@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> Sender: news@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu Organization: The Ohio State University (IRCC) Lines: 87 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): >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." -=- ********************************************************************* *Bob Woodman * "A job not worth doing well is not * *INTERNET: woodman.1@osu.edu * worth doing."--Salvador Luria * *********************************************************************