Raising Bioethical Consciousness in an Introductory Life Sciences Course
| Autor: | Betty B. Hoskins |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1976 |
| Předmět: |
Higher education
business.industry media_common.quotation_subject Social science education Bioethics Social value orientations Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous) Science education Education Dignity Mathematics education Engineering ethics General Agricultural and Biological Sciences business Objectivity (science) Curriculum media_common |
| Zdroj: | The American Biology Teacher. 38:533-541 |
| ISSN: | 0002-7685 |
| DOI: | 10.2307/4445736 |
| Popis: | VALUES QUESTIONS must be raised in science courses. In this article, I will outline my reasons for this belief, showing a shift in societal concerns and in the training of biology teachers and researchers. Objectives and exercises for lecture, laboratory, and discussion in high school and college survey courses will then be suggested. Social weighing of such issues as environmental development for recreation, industry, and wilderness; of energy versus ecology; of uses of genetic engineering, require an input not only of scientific facts but also of considered opinion. Traditionally the nonmajors biology course contained "interesting" units on pollution, birth control, and drugs. Biology majors memorized the carbon cycle, Krebs cycle, reproductive cycle, and DNA helix without being invited to explore their implications. Yet science is not value-free; that contention in itself implies a high value on objectivity. Visscher, in calling for a science based on a humanistic system of personal and group ethics (1975) noted that the intrinsic ethic of science is a devotion to verifiable truth. But biologists have learned values implicitly-values such as curiosity, search for truth, precision of knowledge-and since we have also valued hierarchy, people-centered values have ranked below objectivity. It was not part of the curriculum in our training to discuss scientists' responsibility for, or prediction of, possible applications of our discoveries. Did you discuss Social Darwinism, for example, in the genetics course? Appropriate use of herbicides in botany? Costs of synthetic vs. natural vitamins in biochemistry? Probably the personality profile of scientists as selfless, logical, choosing things over persons, avoiding the human world of complexity and ambiguity (Holton 1975), which drew us to science in the first place, was reinforced by our professional training, which stressed research design, regarded teaching as a nuisance, and deemphasized social issues. Now social circumstances have made us aware of our need to clarify our own values and to take part in social decisions. Molecular biologists have found it necessary to pause and consider appropriate containment of gene transplants (Berg et al. 1975). Experiments indicating subject willingness to inflict pain under experimenter authority have raised questions about appropriate research. Premedical students are urged to develop awareness of issues such as human dignity, autonomy, and nontherapeutic research prior to entry into the busy medical curriculum. Increased federal funding of research and education has increased the demand for social accountability and for the use of technology for national goals. Doubtless all will benefit from our asking: what is important to us? A conscious effort has been made to introduce such considerations into our life sciences courses at Worcester (Massachusetts) Polytechnic Institute (WPI). The WPI plan of education includes a degree requirement examining the reciprocal shaping of technology |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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