Ethics and Technology

Last December, The Sunday Times in London reported an American scientist’s research for finding fundamental mechanisms of “homosexual” sheep’s sexual orientation. The research was intended, said Dr. Charles Roselli , to determine the characteristics that make rams not “into” ewes, to further apply this mechanism for enhancing their breeding.

After the news was published, PETA and scientists across the world started criticizing the research, pointing out the likelihood of misuse of this biotechnology by choosing out gay fetus.

Actually, all of these kinds of “God play” research deserve debates and discussion, in a concern that people would use this technology to control gay child’s birth. Abortion of girls in some of Asian countries would be a good example of men’s ignorance of life ethics.

This human-ethics related research has always brought scientific dilemma in deciding the priority between ethics and technology. Compromise would be an ideal solution but, how do we know whether some technology would be against or consistent with ethics? How could we draw the line that optimizes the value of both ethics and technology? What should scientists do ahead of some valuable research as they believe, but having some possibility that may be against common ethics in the future?

Andrew Sullivan, in his column for Time magazine , properly pointed the axis of this debate, saying “Scientific truth, after all, is neither morally good nor bad. It just is.” I agree with his point that science is just factual phenomenon that the value of itself could not be judged by ethics. Rather, typical idea that assumes some "abnormality" in gays, should be judged and changed. This may be the fundamental approach on the debates of biotechnology and ethics.

Sullivan even emphasized the importance of scientific knowledge in that it may bring concern rather than hating by referring that“centuries of brutality, bigotry and murder”were caused by the ignorance of homosexuality.

“Maybe deeper scientific knowledge could even lead us away from moral dangers rather than towards them. A better understanding of foetal development, for example, might prod us to do far more to reduce the number of abortions, because we can see more intimately the humanness of the life at stake. Deeper knowledge of the emotions of animals can persuade us to alleviate cruelty towards them in farming.”

Public Understanding of Science

Scientists’ effort to emphasize public understanding of science should not be “non-responded echo” anymore. As many people have recognized, science has become an important part of public life, making it hard to live without technological tools even for a day. Furthermore, biological issues such as the avian flu crisis or the production of genetically modified foods have yielded social economic concerns including debates on food production and safety. Such a link between science and our lives confirms the idea of learning science as common sense.

However, although science has been increasingly taking part in the public life, the public has shown little interest in learning science. Experts say the lack of interest in science is the result of the belief that science is a “special field” that belongs to scientists, but not the lay public. Additionally, since most scientific technological tools require little knowledge to use it, the public often doesn’t feel a need to understand complex mechanisms of science.

In the meantime, some insist that the enhancement of public understanding of science depends on the scientists’ ability of explaining and teaching it in an understandable manner. However, so-called scientific knowledge is what scientists have earned after spending tens of years researching. So they can hardly interpret complicated phenomena in a simple way.

However, even without the help of scientists, the public by themselves can absolutely earn enough knowledge to understand scientific issues. Newspaper coverage and Internet news web sites have become highly specialized in organizing important information for the public. They also can search more in depth by reading magazines and books.

The New York Times set up a special report section “Times Topic” for noticeable social and scientific issues. Once you enter interested topics in search engine of The front page of the New York Times, you can access to the Times Topic session. What I have recently enjoyed reading is news on Avian Flu . I will update recent news on avian flu soon.

Introduction

The blog title “Science Communication” came from my idea that the popularization of science should turn into the public understanding of science. I would like to share interesting and important scientific news from Nature.COM, Sciencedaily.COM and many other web sites. I would appreciate your active responses. Thank you!