Chemistry Everyday for Everyone
Scientific Ethics in Chemical Education Jeffrey Kovac Department of Chemistry, University of Tennessee, Knoxville,TN 37996-1600
In recent years ethics in science has become an important issue. Cases of alleged scientific misconduct appear regularly in both the popular and the scientific press. Several books examining the problem have been written (1–3). The National Academy of Sciences has published a two-volume report entitled Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process that examines the issue in depth and makes twelve recommendations to strengthen research practice and to clarify the responsibilities of individuals and institutions in this area (4). Recommendation 2 in that report concerns the teaching of scientific ethics: Scientists and research institutions should integrate into their curricula educational programs that foster faculty and student concerns related to the integrity of the research process.
The practical question for chemical educators is how to implement this recommendation in our undergraduate and graduate curricula. In this paper I will discuss the nature of scientific ethics and present some ideas as to how it can be successfully incorporated into chemistry courses. Three Meanings of Ethics The word ethics has at least three different meanings (5). In common language we usually take it to be synonymous with morality, the universal values and standards of conduct that everyone (every rational person) wants every other to follow. Morality is the same for everyone. In childhood we all learn rules like “don’t steal” and “don’t kill”. Later, we learn that there can be exceptions to these rules and sometimes we change our interpretations of them. By the time students enter college they are, more or less, morally mature people; their basic values are generally well established. A second meaning of ethics is ethical theory, a wellestablished branch of philosophy that studies the sources of human values and standards, and struggles to locate them within theories of the human individual and social condition. The third meaning, professional ethics, is the main topic of this article. Professional ethics is not universal, nor is it ethical theory. Instead, it refers to the special codes of conduct adhered to by those engaged in a common pursuit. These codes only obligate members of a particular group: legal ethics is only for lawyers; scientific ethics is only for scientists. In some cases, professional codes of conduct are informal and unwritten agreements that have developed along with the profession. In other cases they are quite formal. Professional ethics is an integral part of the concept of a profession. Concept of a Profession A profession derives from two bargains or contracts: an internal bargain that members of the profession make with themselves and an external bargain that the profession makes with society. The details of these two agree926
ments depend on the specific profession, but a number of general features are common to all (6). The internal bargain consists of several parts. First, the profession sets standards of education and training. Some professions have a formal accreditation process for the institutions that provide this training; some require a licensing examination or other certification procedure for practitioners. In science the standards of training are less formal. The American Chemical Society does certify undergraduate departments through its Committee on Professional Training, but a certified bachelor’s degree is not a universal requirement for employment as a chemist. An earned doctorate from a reputable university is ordinarily considered to be acceptable training for research, but it is also possible to be accepted as a research scientist with different academic credentials after the publication of research articles in refereed journals. Charles Pedersen, industrial chemist with a Master’s degree who won the Nobel Prize for his work on crown ethers, is an outstanding example. Along with the standards of training the profession adopts an internal code of practice, a set of standards about how practitioners operate on a day-to-day basis. The internal code of practice often includes a written code of ethics. Some of the most important aspects of the (unwritten) code of practice of science are: 1. Experimental and theoretical procedures are reported accurately so that independent investigators can replicate the work if they so choose. 2. The data reported are complete and correct and the limits of uncertainty are also noted. Scientists are not supposed to suppress data that do not agree with their expectations. 3. The interpretation of the data is done objectively. Prior expectations should not interfere with data analysis, and nonscientific factors such as politics or the expectations of the funding agency should not influence the analysis. 4. Credit is given where credit is due. Scientists are expected to cite previous work where appropriate and to give credit to those who have aided in the research. Conversely, it is assumed that all the authors of a scientific paper have contributed to the research.
These and other standards of conduct define proper scientific investigation. While they have never been formally adopted by any scientific society, all working scientists understand and support them (7). In addition, various scientific societies have adopted formal codes of ethics. For chemists the American Chemical Society has adopted “The Chemist’s Code of Conduct” and “Ethical Guidelines for the Publication of Chemical Research” (8). A profession also has a bargain with society. The profession lays claim to certain specialized knowledge and training not easily accessible to the general public. In exchange for a monopoly on that knowledge and training the profession agrees to use it in service to society and to render professional judgments when asked. For some professions such as law, medicine, and engineering the contract with society is highly structured; in science the agree-
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Chemistry Everyday for Everyone
ment is more informal. Since World War II and the advent of major government funding of scientific research there has been a tacit understanding that in return for government grants the scientific community would produce knowledge and inventions that are useful to society. Scientists serve on various government advisory committees to provide professional advice on technical problems of public interest. Government and the public have looked to scientists for solutions to a variety of important problems. In any agreement between people, the key to success is trust. In a profession the internal bargain breaks down if practitioners cannot trust that others in the profession are following the standards of conduct. If the public begins to feel that the profession is not delivering on its promise of service the bargain with society will also break down. Because of the recent erosion of public trust in science it is imperative that we take seriously the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences that we incorporate the teaching of scientific ethics into our curricula. Teaching Scientific Ethics When I talk to colleagues about teaching scientific ethics I hear two primary objections: (i) you can’t teach ethics; people either are moral or they are not, and (ii) ethics is best learned in the research group; as situations arise the research adviser will either demonstrate the correct behavior or discuss the issues with the group over a cup of coffee. The first objection comes from a confusion of two of the meanings of ethics discussed above. It is true that students come to school with most of their basic values already determined. Scientific ethics is something different. It refers to standards of behavior that are specific to science. For example, most, if not all, students would agree that it is wrong to lie. They will probably not make the connection between lying and the correct reporting of significant figures. To report a number with more significant figures than you have actually measured is an example of lying that can have serious consequences. Even when students come into school with exemplary values they are still inexperienced ethical decision makers, particularly in a professional context. Two goals of instruction in scientific ethics are to teach students how to recognize and analyze ethical questions and how to evaluate which of various possible courses of action is the best one to follow. In the best of circumstances, undergraduate and graduate students in chemistry will have perceptive and attentive mentors who can instruct them in proper ethical professional behavior. It is unrealistic, however, to expect that every student will receive the appropriate education in scientific ethics in informal conversations. We need to build it into the curriculum. Science is filled with ethical decisions. Many of the day-to-day choices made by working scientists have both a technical component and an ethical component. For example, research chemists often discard discordant data points. There are statistical guidelines for this decision, but often it is a matter of professional judgment: the solution must have been contaminated or the instrument was not working properly. Making a professional judgment is an issue in scientific ethics. Writing a paper for publication can raise a number of ethical issues. A scientific paper is not a dispassionate record of an investigation; it is an argument for a particu-
lar point of view (9, 10). There are a number of ways to present the case. In many investigations, there are nagging loose ends. Should they be mentioned? In what way should they be raised, buried in a footnote or placed in the body of the text? Which references should be cited? Who should be a coauthor? What should be the order of the authors’ names? Who should be acknowledged? All these are questions in scientific ethics. These are only a few examples; the list is long. Proper professional education of chemists should include a consideration of issues like these and practice in how to resolve them. If students are not trained to recognize and think clearly about issues of professional ethics, then, as practitioners, they may make poor decisions. Poor ethical decisions can lead to sloppy science—or at worst, to scientific misconduct. The best way to teach scientific ethics is through the case method, in which students are introduced to ethical questions through realistic situations. Both hypothetical and real situations can be used. It is essential that students be able to relate to both the context and the characters. If the people and the scenario are too distant, students will tend to see the situation in simplistic right-orwrong terms. If they identify with the situation they will see the subtleties that are always present in real ethical questions. I have written a series of cases and instructor commentaries entitled The Ethical Chemist, to introduce undergraduate and graduate students in chemistry to scientific ethics, and I have used them for several years in one of my courses and in seminars (11, 12). The Ethical Chemist contains more than forty cases raising a wide variety of issues, both large and small, that arise in chemical research. The issues mentioned above are all included. The cases are intended for use in small group discussions and can be used in a special course devoted to scientific ethics or incorporated into the regular chemistry curriculum as the issues arise. In a discussion the instructor can help students learn to identify and analyze the ethical issues in the case. As the students suggest possible courses of action the importance of differing value systems naturally comes out. Students learn that an ethical problem is more like a design problem than a mathematics problem. In a design problem the overall objective, the important design considerations, and the constraints are known but the solution can take a variety of forms depending on the relative importance given to the multiple parameters in the problem. The same is true in ethical problems. I have found that students respond very well to the cases. The discussions are lively and thoughtful. In their end-of-course evaluations of these otherwise traditional courses, the students comment that the ethics discussions were among the best parts of the course. There are other ways of including scientific ethics in the curriculum. For example, Illinois Institute of Technology has instituted an “ethics across the curriculum” approach to science and engineering education (13). Ethical questions can be raised in the course of regular classes. For example, one could begin a lesson on significant figures by introducing the proper reporting of experimental measurements as an example of truth telling. Homework and examination problems can be written to raise ethical issues. As part of an organic synthesis problem the student could be asked to think about the toxicity of compounds and whether this would be a safe procedure to use in a research laboratory or an industrial setting. It is actually quite easy to find opportunities to discuss issues in scientific ethics.
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Chemistry Everyday for Everyone
Conclusion Viewing science as a profession brings into sharp focus the need for including scientific ethics in the curriculum. Chemical educators have long realized the need to introduce students to the “culture of the discipline”, but we have assumed that informal discussions and personal modeling of behavior would be sufficient. Because of the larger and more diverse clientele of students in our courses I feel we can no longer rely on these informal mechanisms, but need to systematically incorporate ethics into our curricula. Some materials and strategies are available, but more need to be developed. My own experience is that the teaching of scientific ethics is valuable and rewarding for both faculty and students. Acknowledgments I am grateful to the special grants program of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and to the College of Arts and Science at The University of Tennessee for financial support of my work in scientific ethics. My ideas on professional and scientific ethics have been developed and clarified in discussions with Michael Davis
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(Illinois Institute of Technology), Donald Gotterbarn (East Tennessee State University), George K. Schweitzer (University of Tennessee), Roger Jones (University of Kentucky), Priscilla A. Frase, and Susan Davis Kovac. Literature Cited 1. Broad, W.; Wade, N. Betrayers of the Truth; Simon and Schuster: New York, 1982. 2. Bell, R. Impure Science; J. Wiley and Sons: New York, 1992. 3. LaFollette, M. C. Stealing into Print; University of California: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992. 4. Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research. Responsible Science; National Academy: Washington, DC; Vol. I, 1992; Vol. II, 1993. 5. Davis, M., J. Tenn. Acad. Sci. 1995, 70, 55. 6. For a detailed discussion of the various views of professionalism, see Harris, C. E., Jr.; Pritchard, M. S.; Rabins, M. J. Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases; Wadsworth: Belmont, CA, 1995; Chapter 2. 7. The expectations of scientific conduct have been nicely summarized in the National Academy of Sciences booklet On Being a Scientist; National Academy: Washington, DC, 1994. 8. For an excellent example of a professional code of ethics and its use in decision making, see Anderson, R. E.; Johnson, D. G.; Gotterbarn, D.; Perolle, J. Commun. ACM 1993, 36, 98. 9. Hoffmann, R. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1988, 27, 1593. 10. Locke, D. Science As Writing; Yale University: New Haven and London, 1992. 11. Kovac, J. J. Chem. Educ. 1991, 68, 907. 12. Kovac, J. The Ethical Chemist; University of Tennessee: Knoxville, 1993; Revised edition, 1995. Copies are available from the author for the cost of duplication, postage, and handling. 13. Davis, M. Teaching Philosophy 1993, 16, 205.
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