I have been reading the posts on human cloning and student questions with
great interest. Both have melt with, to some degree, the question of moral
and ethical behavior, and I would like to start a side discussion concerning
bioethics in general.
The training group I am part of as a graduate student recently met and
discussed a small portion of bioethics - specifically that of "animal rights".
I felt that it was an extremely useful and informative discussion - not only
to help us clarify our positions on some of the issues raised, but to present
us with the full range of arguments against a given position, so that we were
ready to defend them if need be.
In fact I was quite surprised at the breadth of views held by the professors
and students, as well as by the number of people who appear to have put no
previous thought into the matter what so ever. I later found out that while
there is no graduate level course dealing with bioethics, there is an
undergraduate honors seminar on the subject. And we are now trying to
organize an informal discussion group that will meet on a regular basis. I
think it is very important that as part of our training we receive a grounding
in ethics, so that it automatically becomes something we consider at each
step. Not just animal rights, but end uses, questions of plagiarism,
falsification of data, etc, etc. We are, after all (or at least training to
be) (mostly) doctors of *Philosophy*.
As the recent discussions on human cloning and K-12 & undergraduate student
use of the net have shown, biotechnology is on a cutting edge, and is raising
questions of what is moral and acceptable behavior, to which the INTERNET
merely adds another dimension. From these and past discussions it is obvious
that many of us at least do make a practice of considering the questions
raised. However, as I noted I was surprised at the number of people (PhDs and
students) who had not, did not, and were not doing so. Do you find that to be
the case where you are as well? Do you have a program - course work,
seminars, whatever - that deals with these issues on a regular basis? If so,
how does it work? If not do you think you should, do you think this is
something that we should be working to institute at our universities and
companies? Should we be focusing on ethical training for graduate students,
or include post-docs and professors as well?
Obviously I think it is important, but I am curious to hear how you feel about
it.
Eric Anderson
brownbrd at iastate.edu
--
------------------------------ Eric H. Anderson -------------------------------
BROWNBRD at IASTATE.EDU | Science II room 339 | I sincerly hope that all
| Iowa State Univ. | my opinions are my own,
| Ames, IA 50011 | and not theirs.
