Last week I wrote my response paper partially on unethical scientists who put their aspirations for eternal glorry in front of reality, and eventually paid the price. I think that it correlates with our discussion both weeks that scientists need to maintain an objective stand point during a study, otherwise they will get too invested in it and be tempted to do unethical things. However, that is obviously easier said than done. Thankfully, we have peer review and boards that review scientists' work to make sure it is legitimate before it can be published.
Here is a link if anyone wants to read about some very unethical science.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6501/is_1-2_37/ai_n29323967/
I quite agree that sometimes scientists get caught up in the glory of science and forget morals. On a similar note, while researching for my presentation last week I found this article http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/naziexp.html titled "The Ethics of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments" by Baruch C. Cohen. It raised the interesting question of should information that was obtained unethically be used to support other research that is done ethically. This paper raises great points, but the topic will probably remain debated for some time.
ReplyDeleteAdam,
ReplyDeleteYour post really got me interested in finding out more about the role of ethics in science. Obviously, ethics plays an important role in scientific experiments, yet it is very interesting that the lack thereof actually plays an equally important role in scientific history. Upon searching this topic, I found a webpage on WordPress.com entitled "Top 10 Evil Human Experiments." The Nazi experiments mentioned in the comment above are, unsurprisingly, ranked as the number 1 most evil experiments. Other experiments that are particularly gruesome include the Unit 731 experiments, which took place in Japan and are very similar to the experiments performed in Nazi Germany. Reading about these horrific events really increased my appreciation for the strong emphasis on ethics within American science.
Here is the link to the webpage I mentioned. I strongly recommend it since it is such an interesting piece.
http://listverse.com/2008/03/14/top-10-evil-human-experiments/