Science and Public Responsibility

The Need for a Science Code of Conduct?

These evolving materials are provided to encourage continuing and new thought about science and its role in culture and, in particular, about the possible need of both scientists and others to clarify the ethical responsibilities inherent in scientific research. Your thoughts are welcome in the on-line forum area below.

Had I stood firm the scientists could have developed something like the doctor's Hippocratic Oath, a vow to use their knowledge exclusively for mankind's benefit. As things are, the best that can be hoped for is a race of inventive dwarfs who can be hired for any purpose

.... Bertold Brecht, Galileo, Scene 14

Is science made up of "a race of inventive dwarfs who can be hired for any purpose"?

Should scientists pay more attention to and accept more responsibility for the impacts of their work?

Should scientists and others more clearly distinguish among work done for the sake of knowledge, work done for the benefit of humanity, and work done for commercial gain?

Should there be some kind of ethical code of conduct for science?

"Perhaps the oldest and most persistently problematic ethical ambiguity in contemporary views of science relates to the question of the degree of responsibility that scientists have for the social consequences of their activities. Conceiving of science as the pursuit of "Truth", or of short-term human well-being, permits scientists a posture either of moral and ethical "neutrality" or of assumed virtue neither carefully thought through nor genuinely earned."

A Vision of Science (and Science Education) in the 21st Century

Resources (to come)