on moral grounds: bioethics training for scientists
TRANSCRIPT
On Moral Grounds: Bioethics Training for ScientistsAuthor(s): Natalie DawsonSource: BioScience, Vol. 59, No. 2 (February 2009), p. 112Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological SciencesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bio.2009.59.2.4 .
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The philosophical exploration of eth-ical concerns in the life sciences—
“bioethics”—has focused largely on re-search protocols involving researchsubjects in medical studies. Now, how-ever, the application of biotechnologyto environmental problems is trigger-ing ethical questions.
Today’s scientists confront this ques-tion: “Can an understanding of climaticprocesses associated with global warm-ing help us understand the sociologicalimplications of how humans relate to thenatural world?” They must also deal withother such questions that are outside thetraditional framework of human/medi -cal bioethics but pertinent to the growinginterdisciplinary applications of the nat-ural sciences to the solution of environ-mental problems. Holmes Rolston, atColorado State University, says buzz-words in bioethics now include “sustain-ability, biodiversity, global warming, andintrinsic values in nature.” What are theimplications of these and other topics fortraining scientists in contemporaryethics for research outside human healthand medical programs?
In 1998, UNESCO (United NationsEducational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization) established the WorldCommission on Scientific Knowledgeand Technology (COMEST) to “formu-late, on a scientific basis, ethical princi-ples that can shed light on the variouschoices and impacts occasioned by newadvancements in scientific and techno-logical fields.” Topics of discussion attheir November 2008 conference in-cluded the ethics of climate change, science outside of medicine, and nano -technology, as well as the ethical di-mensions of the information society.COMEST has also set up the Ethics Ed-ucation Programme, which is focusedon training teachers in bioethics; 108 of these teaching modules have been established around the world, although
none has yet been used in the UnitedStates.
The National Institutes of Health(NIH), through the Fogarty Interna-tional Center, offers funding opportu-nities for organizations and institutionsto expand graduate training in bio -ethics in developing countries. In No-vember 2008, Indiana University wasawarded a grant to partner with MoiUniversity in Kenya to develop parallelmaster’s degree programs in bioethics.
Independent of international fund-ing efforts, individual universities andeducation groups are providing oppor-tunities for bioethics training. The Uni-versity of Verona, Italy, offers a bioethicscourse for graduate students enrolled in agricultural biotechnology. The UKscience syllabus dictating curriculumrequirements for students ages 11 to 18now includes a bioethics training com-ponent. UK policymakers recently es-tablished two programs—the BioethicsEducation Project and the Physics andEthics Education Project—to trainteachers to teach ethics in the sciences.
Within the United States, several organizations focus on bioethics in human medicine, but fewer organiza-tions and institutional frameworks existto address ethical concerns outside thehealth sciences. The NIH and the Na-tional Science Foundation (NSF) rec-ommend that bioethics training be acomponent of their research awards.The NSF has funded the University ofPennsylvania’s Jackson Laboratory toprovide bioethics training to highschool students and college studentsparticipating in summer research pro-grams at the laboratory.
A 2001 survey conducted by theAmerican Society for Bioethics and Hu-manities found that most graduatetraining programs in bioethics werehoused in schools’ medicine or philoso-phy departments. For example, theAlden March Bioethics Institute, which
offers graduate training in bioethics, ishoused within Albany Medical Collegein New York. Many universities offermajors and minors in bioethics, and agrowing number of students are pur -suing advanced degrees in bioethics, according to a study published in Na-ture Biotechnology. These advanced de-gree programs offer classes rangingfrom medi cal ethics to environmentalethics and ethical reasoning courses.Often the interests of faculty membersin these pro grams guide the design ofthe curricula.
Universities are taking other steps toincorporate bioethics training in theirprograms. Iowa State University’s grad-uate programs in bioinformatics and incomputational biology require studentsto participate in the Scientific EthicsWorkshop and to take at least onecourse in bioethics. In the workshop,students discuss scientific misconduct,ethics in research, and related topicsaimed at helping them become ethicallyresponsible scientists. The University ofChicago offers a course on ethics andpublic policy in the Harris School ofPublic Policy. Stanford University re-quires life science graduate students toenroll in a course on “responsible con-duct of research.”
Whether requiring training in bio -ethics will produce the desired results,however, is not yet clear. David Magnus, aStanford University professor and asso -ciate editor of the American Journal ofBioethics, comments: “I’m not sure thatcourses are the best way to really addresskey issues,...partly because many issuesthat arise are specific to a field or even aresearch project. In addition, the data on‘misbehavior’ seem to indicate thatcourses have only a very limited impacton people’s behavior.”
Natalie Dawson (e-mail: [email protected])
is a freelance writer based in Anchorage, Alaska.
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.2.4
On Moral Grounds: Bioethics Training forScientistsNATALIE DAWSON
Washington Watch
112 BioScience • February 2009 / Vol. 59 No. 2 www.biosciencemag.org
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