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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Provides comprehensive, yet concise coverage of the broad field of bioethics, dealing with the scientific, medical, social, religious, political and international concerns
This book offers complete information about all aspects of bioethics and its role in our world. It tackles the concerns of bioethicists, dealing with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy. The book introduces the various modes of ethical thinking and then helps the reader to apply that thinking to issues relating to the environment, to plants and animals, and to humans.
Written in an accessible manner, Introduction to Bioethics, Second Edition focuses on key issues directly relevant to those studying courses ranging from medicine through to biology and agriculture. Ethical analysis is threaded throughout each chapter and supplementary examples are included to stimulate further thought. In addition there are numerous mini-case studies to aid understanding, together with key references and further reading. Topics covered include genetic modification; GM crops, human genetics and genomics; cloning and stem cells; assisted reproduction; end of life issues; human enhancement; transhumanism and more.
- A concise introduction covering the whole field of bioethics
- Ethical analysis included throughout
- Mini case-studies in each chapter place ethics into specific contexts
- Includes exercises and commentary to further clarify ethical discussions
- Now fully revised, updated and re-ordered, with new chapters on Biofuels and on Synthetic Biology
Introduction to Bioethics, Second Edition is primarily aimed at undergraduate students taking courses in biomedical sciences, biological sciences, and medicine. It will also be useful to anyone with an interested in the ethics of biological and biomedical science, including science journalists and reporters, who want to inform themselves about current developments.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Preface
About the Companion Website
Part I: Setting the Scene
1 Science and Society
1.1 What’s It All About?
1.2 What Is Science?
1.3 Modern Science
1.4 Science, Ethics and Values
1.5 Attitudes to Science
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
2 Ethics and Bioethics
2.1 Ethics and Morals
2.2 The Development of Ethics
2.3 Making Ethical Decisions
2.4 Medical Ethics
2.5 The Growth of Bioethics
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
Part II: Biomedical Science and Medical Technology
3 Life before Birth I: The New Reproductive Technologies
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Gametes Outside the Body
3.3 Techniques of Artificial Reproductive Medicine
3.4 Embryo Testing
3.5 Mitochondrial Donation
3.6 Embryo Research
3.7 Rights of the Unborn Child
3.8 Men and Women: Do We Need Both?
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
4 Life before Birth II: Embryos, Foetuses and Associated Issues
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Early Human Embryo
4.3 Embryo Research
4.4 Screening and Diagnosis
4.5 Reproductive Rights
4.6 Abortion: Maternal–Foetal Conflict
4.7 Surrogacy
4.8 Artificial Wombs
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
5 Cloning and Stem Cells
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Frogs and Sheep
5.3 Genes and Clones
5.4 It’s Not Natural: It Should Be Banned!
5.5 The Ethics of Human Cloning: An Overview
5.6 Reproductive Cloning of Non‐human Mammals
5.7 Unlocking the Genetic Potential of Stem Cells
5.8 Concluding Remarks
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
6 Human Genes and Genomes
6.1 Some History
6.2 Molecular Genetics and the Human Genome Project
6.3 Some Thoughts on Eugenics
6.4 Use of Human Genetic Information
6.5 Genetic Modification of Humans: Fact or Fiction?
6.6 A Gene for This and a Gene for That
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
7 Transhumanism
7.1 Introduction
7.2 From Wooden Legs to Would‐Be Cyborgs
7.3 Mind and Matter
7.4 Stronger, Fitter, Faster, Cleverer: Biological Aspects of Transhumanism
7.5 Military Applications
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
8 Decisions at the End of Life: When May I Die and When Am I Dead
1
?
8.1 Introduction: Four Important Examples to Inform Our Thinking
8.2 How Did We Get Here?
8.3 What Is Euthanasia?
8.4 Case for Assisted Dying
8.5 The Arguments against Assisted Dying
8.6 The Debate Continues: Will the Law Ever Be Changed?
8.7 When Should Medical Treatment Be Withheld or Withdrawn?
8.8 Concluding Remarks
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
Part III: Biotechnology
9 Genetic Modification and Synthetic Biology
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Ethical Aspects of Genetic Modification
9.3 Pharmaceuticals
9.4 Genetic Modification of Animals
9.5 Research Uses of Genetic Modification
9.6 Gene and Genome Editing
9.7 Synthetic Biology
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
10 Genetic Modification of Plants
10.1 Introduction and Definitions
10.2 Back to the Beginning
10.3 Basic Methodology
10.4 The Debate
10.5 GM Crops: Is a Different Approach Possible?
10.6 Closing Comments: Consumer Choice
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
11 Genes: Some Wider Issues
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Crop GM Technology, World Trade and Global Justice
11.3 Gene Patenting
11.4 Genetic Piracy
11.5 DNA Fingerprinting and DNA Databases
11.6 Concluding Remarks
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
12 Biofuels and Bioenergy: Environmental and Ethical Aspects
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Biofuels: A Brief Survey
12.3 Biofuels: Ethical Issues
12.4 Concluding Comment
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
Part IV: Humans and the Biosphere
13 Humans and Non‐human Animals
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Humankind’s Place in the Animal Kingdom
13.3 Human Use of Animals: An Overview
13.4 Vivisection and the Use of Animals in Research
13.5 The Ethics of Animal Research
13.6 Animals in Sport, Companionship, Leisure and Fashion
13.7 Working Animals
13.8 Animals for Food
13.9 Concluding Comments
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
14 The Environmental Crisis: Not Just about Climate
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Environmental Damage: It’s a Fivefold Problem
14.3 Climate Change
14.4 Valuing the Environment
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
15 Planet and Population
15.1 Introduction: The Anthropocene
15.2 How Many?
15.3 How Many Can We Feed?
15.4 How Many Is Too Many?
15.5 Water
15.6 Concluding Comments
Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 01
Table 1.1 Some of the more advanced science terms used in advertising. Many people will have no idea of the meaning of these terms.
Chapter 10
Table 10.1 The ‘top ten’ countries growing GM‐bred crops.
Chapter 13
Table 13.1 Main areas of research and testing that involve animals.
Table 13.2 The arguments for and against the use of animals in biomedical science.
List of Illustrations
Chapter 01
Figure 1.1 The Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism (150 BC), a simple analogue computer.
Chapter 03
Figure 3.1 Methods for mitochondrial donation. (a) Pronuclear transfer. (b) Transfer of maternal spindle.
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 (a) Photographs of the early developmental stages of the human embryo. The zygote is the one‐cell embryo formed by fertilisation. The two pro‐nuclei, one from the egg and one from the sperm, are clearly visible. After merger of the pro‐nuclei (syngamy), cell divisions occur; the embryo then becomes compacted (morula stage); in the final stage before implantation, it has hollowed out to form the blastocyst. Key: D1, D2, etc. indicate days of development. (b) Diagram of human development from fertilisation to implantation.
Chapter 05
Figure 5.1 Micrograph of a human blastocyst. The embryo now consists of an inner mass of cells (ICM) that will, if the embryo implants, become the embryo proper and an outer layer of cells, the trophectoderm (TE), from which the placenta will be derived if a pregnancy is established (see Chapters 3 and 4). Stem cell cultures may be established from the inner cell mass.
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1 Changes in the cost of sequencing an individual human genome. The dramatic fall from 2007 onwards coincides with the increasing use of second‐generation sequencing methods and departs significantly from predictions made by application of Moore’s law.
Chapter 07
Figure 7.1 Neil Harbisson who classifies himself as a cyborg. Photograph reproduced by kind permission of Lars Norgaard. See also www.cyborgarts.com/neil‐harbisson
Chapter 09
Figure 9.1 Diagram of the basic mechanisms involved in gene editing by the Crispr‐CAS9 system. The diagram, which is reproduced by kind permission of Discovery Zone (www.discovery‐zone.com), emphasises its possible use in correcting genetic defects in humans. However, as mentioned in the text, the technique has a much wider range of possible applications.
Figure 9.2 Artemisinin.
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1
Diagram of the tumour‐inducing (Ti) plasmid of
Agrobacterium tumefaciens
. Note that for the sake of clarity, the various important sequences of the plasmid are not drawn to scale with each other. We thank Richard Tennant, University of Exeter, for drawing this diagram. The earliest successful plant GM experiments were carried out with this vector and many of the more modern vectors employ the key features of this gene transfer system. When
Agrobacterium tumefaciens
infects a plant host, a copy of the T‐region of the plasmid, the T‐DNA, is transferred to the host cells. Proteins encoded by the
Virulence
(
vir
) genes mediate this process. Inside the host cell’s nucleus, the T‐DNA is integrated into the host’s DNA by plant enzymes. The 24‐base‐pair left and right border sequences are essential for the process. In a natural infection, the host cells are transformed to a tumorous phenotype under the action of enzymes encoded by the
auxin
and
cytokinin
genes, causing formation of a ‘crown gall’. The cells of the gall synthesise amino acid derivatives called opines using enzymes encoded in the
opine
region of the T‐DNA. Enzymes that mediate opine catabolism are encoded by genes on the Ti plasmid, thus enabling the bacterium to use these compounds as sources of carbon and nitrogen. In forming a useful vector from the Ti plasmid, the first stage is to remove the genes that cause the tumorous phenotype and replace them with the genes that it is wished to transfer to the plant. In some early applications, the
opine
genes were left in as markers but other marker systems were quickly developed.
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1 Aerial photo of the lands taken by Addax Bioenergy for its sugar‐cane plantation in Sierra Leone.
Chapter 13
Figure 13.1 Experimental procedures on animals in the United Kingdom, 1960–2003.
Figure 13.2 English bulldog.
Chapter 14
Figure 14.1 The wrecked power station at Chernobyl.
Guide
Cover
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Introduction to Bioethics
Second Edition
John A. Bryant
University of ExeterExeter, UK
Linda la Velle
University of PlymouthPlymouth, UK
This edition first published 2019© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of John A. Bryant and Linda la Velle to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
Registered Office(s)John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USAJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Bryant, J. A., author. | Baggott la Velle, Linda, author.Title: Introduction to bioethics / by John A. Bryant and Linda la Velle.Description: Second edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley‐Blackwell, 2018. | “John Bryant, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK; Linda la Velle, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2017061639 (print) | LCCN 2018000727 (ebook) | ISBN 9781118719589 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119080152 (epub) | ISBN 9781118719619 (hardback) | ISBN 9781118719596 (paper)Subjects: LCSH: Bioethics. | BISAC: SCIENCE / Life Sciences / General.Classification: LCC QH332 (ebook) | LCC QH332 .B79 2018 (print) | DDC 174.2–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017061639
Cover Design: WileyCover Images: (Corn) © Candus Camera/Shutterstock; (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) Phanie / Alamy Stock Photo; (Sheep) © Binnerstam/Gettyimages; (DNA sequence) © Gio_tto/Gettyimages; (Tobacco cells) Courtesy of Dr Dennis Francis; (Mouse) © Bliznetsov/Gettyimages; (Sky) © spooh/Gettyimages; (Forest) © AustralianCamera/Shutterstock
Preface
Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car.
These words, written in 1947 by the scholar of medieval English, CS Lewis, headed the Preface of the first edition of this book. The quotation, from the book The Abolition of Man, illustrates the ambiguity inherent in many scientific advances and technological inventions: they can be used for good or bad. It is probable that one of the issues that Lewis had in mind was nuclear fission but we can trace similar concerns down through the decades in other fields, including medicine, agriculture and biotechnology.
The idea is also expressed well by the historian Francis Fukuyama in his 2002 book, Our Posthuman Future:
Biotechnology presents us with a special moral dilemma, because any reservations we may have about progress need to be tempered with a recognition of its undisputed promise.
Thus, there has been a growing awareness of the need for informed discussion on the ethical issues arising in biological and biomedical sciences. This has led to bioethics courses being added to university degree programmes in life sciences, thus providing the impetus for our first edition, which was specifically written for students as well as for academics who were not yet engaged with bioethical issues. Feedback from members of our target audiences has been very positive and this has encouraged us to produce this second updated edition. Progress in many areas of biological and biomedical science has been spectacular in the 13 years since the first edition was published, providing huge opportunities for new developments in medicine, agriculture and biotechnology but also raising new ethical issues (or at the least, new ‘versions’ of old ethical issues). Further, this is set against a background of the expanding human population of our planet and of increasing concern about environmental issues, especially climate change.
All this has led us to an almost complete reworking of the book, although several useful case studies and examples from the first edition remain in this one. We have tried to be as up to date as is humanly possible but the speed of progress means that for some topics discussed here, further developments will have taken place in the few months between completion of the manuscript and publication. However, we will provide updates plus links to other relevant material on the book’s website www.wiley.com/go/Bryant/IntroductiontoBioethics2e, which will provide a very useful adjunct to the text.
It is a pleasure to express our thanks to the many people who have helped us in our thinking. First we must mention John Searle, our co‐author for the first edition but who, because of other commitments, has been unable to work with us on this edition. Nevertheless, he has always been willing to discuss bioethical issues, especially those arising at the end of life. We are very grateful for his support. We continue to be grateful to all those who helped us during our writing of the first edition. It has been a privilege for JB to work with Chris Willmott in our roles as bioethics advisors to the UK’s Higher Education Academy, during which we have enjoyed ongoing discussions of many bioethical issues. In relation to specific topics in this edition, we thank Alex Aylward and members of South West NHS Genomic Medicine Centre, Exeter (human genetics and genomics); Suzi Leather and Philippa Taylor (fertility issues and human embryology); Elaine Storkey (selective abortion); John Clifton‐Brown, John Love and David Stafford (biofuels); Margot Hodson, Martin Hodson, Rachel Oates and Chris Southgate (environmental issues); Steve Hughes (GM crops and biofuels); Hannah Farrimond (science/ethics); Tim Miller (for introducing us to ‘futurology’ literature); Mike Fowler (genetic piracy in relation to phytopharmacology).
We also thank our colleagues at Wiley‐Blackwell who have been very patient while waiting for us to finish this book. We thank them too for all the hard work that has gone into the production of the book.
Exeter and Plymouth, July 2017John A. BryantLinda la Velle
About the Companion Website
Don’t forget to visit the companion website for this book:
www.wiley.com/go/Bryant/IntroductiontoBioethics2e
There you will find valuable material designed to enhance your learning, including:
Audio
Case studies
Videos
Book reviews
PowerPoint files
Scan this QR code to visit the companion website
Part ISetting the Scene
1Science and Society
There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before.
From Adding a Dimension: Seventeen Essays on the History of Science, Isaac Asimov (1964)
I feel the story should be told, partly because many of my scientific friends have expressed curiosity about how the double helix was found, and for them an incomplete version is better than none. But even more important, I believe, there remains a general ignorance about how science is ‘done’. That is not to say that all science is done in the manner described here. This is far from the case, for styles of scientific research vary almost as much as human personalities. On the other hand, I do not believe that the way DNA came out constitutes an odd exception to a scientific world complicated by the contradictory pulls of ambition and a sense of fair play.
From The Double Helix, James D Watson (1968)
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
From Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations, Isaac Asimov and Jason A. Shulman (1988)
1.1 What’s It All About?
This is a book about bioethics but we are starting with a consideration of the practice of science and its relationship with wider society. Why? Consider the four following case studies:
Case Study 1
Donated gametes – sperm and ova – are used in fertility treatments for patients who are unable to produce their own.
It is much easier, for obvious reasons, to donate sperm than ova.
Donated ova are very scarce.
During foetal development, females lay down more than a lifetime’s supply of oocytes (egg cells).
It has therefore been suggested that aborted female foetuses may be used to supply oocytes/ova for fertility treatments.
Note: Of the approximately 200,000 abortions that occur in the United Kingdom each year, up to 10,000 of those that involve a female foetus are late enough for egg cells to be present.
Do you approve or disapprove of this idea? What are your reasons?
Case Study 21
A small less‐developed country in South America is deep in debt.
Its main resource is its rainforest.
In order to raise revenue, the government has granted a licence to a Japanese logging company to clear 25% of the forest.
The land that has so far been cleared is used for cattle ranching, mainly to raise beef for the US market.
The government has also granted a licence to a transnational biotechnology company to exploit the forest’s gene pool.
In addition to the income from the licence, the company has agreed to pay royalties on income generated from discoveries based on the rainforest gene pool.
What are the issues involved in dealing with this situation?
Case Study 3
On several occasions over the past 15 years, normally fertile couples have sought permission to undergo
in vitro
fertilisation in order to produce a baby that can be a stem cell donor for an older sibling.
In most of the cases, the older sibling suffers from a genetic disorder, and the embryos created
in vitro
would be tested for the absence of the mutation and for a positive tissue match to the older sibling.
In another case, the condition suffered by the older sibling is not ‘genetic’ but the child still needs donated stem cells. In this case the
in vitro
embryo would be selected solely as a tissue match.
In which of these cases, if any, would you grant permission? Give your reasons.
Case Study 4
A small biotechnology company in Mexico has discovered a gene that encodes a protein in the network of resistance to oxidative stress in plants.
Laboratory experiments have shown that when the gene is transferred by genetic modification techniques to crop species, the crop plants show an enhanced capacity to grow and produce yield under conditions where water supply is limiting.
The company has not published its data because it is filing a patent on the gene.
If the patent is granted, the company plans to licence it out to a major transnational agrichemical company.
Should the patent be granted? Give your reasons.
These case studies are on the surface very different from each other. However, they all describe situations in which ethical dilemmas have been raised by advances in science and by the way that the science, through its application, may have impacts on the lives of individuals and/or on wider society. The issues presented in these case studies are discussed in detail in later chapters. In the mean time it is important to consider briefly the factors that influence our decision‐making in these and similar situations:
Firstly, there may be an immediate personal reaction – a ‘gut response’ – along the lines of ‘Yuk, that’s awful’ or ‘Wow, that’s brilliant’ or along more sociopolitical lines: ‘That’s just not fair/not right’.
Secondly, there will (it is hoped) be a more thought‐out ethical analysis that may complement the gut reaction but which may also cause the gut reaction to be questioned.
Thirdly, it is important to realise that both gut response and the more thought‐out ethical analysis are very likely to be affected by one’s world view or personal philosophy (which for some will include religious commitment).
Fourthly, because advances in science are embedded in all these studies, one’s view of the science itself is important. Do we know all that we need to know in order to go ahead or is more work needed? Are the conclusions presented in support of a particular proposal soundly drawn? Do these scientists know what they are doing? Should the basic research that led to the current situation have been permitted in the first place?
Thus, science is one of the factors that informs bioethical decision‐making; we cannot avoid thinking about science, why and how it is done and how it relates to wider society. And that is what we explore in the rest of this chapter.
1.2 What Is Science?
1.2.1 Introduction: Some History (But Not Very Much)
We get the word science from a Latin word, scio, which means ‘I know’ and in the original usage science simply meant knowledge. The application of the word specifically to knowledge about the material nature of the universe, gained by a particular set of methods, dates back less than 200 years (see a more detailed discussion towards the end of this section). Some of those whom we regard as the great scientists of the past, such as Isaac Newton or Robert Boyle, would not have called themselves scientists. Indeed, Newton’s position at Cambridge was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics and his major work was called (translating from the Latin original) The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. The latter term natural philosophy was what we now call ‘science’ but because of the emphasis in the science of the time, in practice it came to mean physics. Indeed, it was used in this way in the older Scottish universities well into the second half of the 20th century. However, we now have a very clear idea of what we mean by the more general term science: the word implies a whole approach to the material world, to methods of acquiring knowledge about that world and to the body of knowledge thus acquired. So, how did we arrive at this situation?
To an early human being, the world around must have seemed a strange and often hostile place. It was certainly a place of contrasts, embodying both provision and threat. So while plants could be harvested, some were poisonous; while animals could be hunted, some animals, including some quarry animals, were very dangerous. Further, there were (and indeed still are) unpredictable and often devastating events such as storms, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Nature was not to be taken lightly and it was important that knowledge of the positive and negative aspects of the natural world was passed on verbally from generation to generation. Doubtless humankind’s investigation and knowledge of nature remained at this level for tens of thousands of years. However, dating from over 75,000 years ago, there is evidence of art; as that art, over successive millennia, became more sophisticated, it relied on quite detailed observations of nature. One just has to look at rock art and cave paintings in places as diverse as Australia, France, Siberia, South Africa2 and Spain dating from between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago to become aware of this. Furthermore, as cultures evolved, so did descriptive knowledge of the times and seasons, so that there was confidence that the sun would rise daily and that the seasonal rains would fall, that certain animals migrated and that plants grew at particular times. Some of that knowledge may have been very sophisticated; in Britain, for example, the alignment of particular stones in the stone circle at Stonehenge with the sunrise on the summer solstice and the sunset on the winter solstice indicates quite a detailed knowledge of astronomical events through the year. Stonehenge dates at about 2800 BC, around the same time as the period of building pyramids in Giza, Egypt, was under way. The alignment of the pyramids shows that the Egyptians could ascertain the direction of true north, another indication of growing knowledge of the natural world.
The Egyptians also put knowledge about the natural world into good use in their daily lives. The river Nile provides water in a land that would otherwise be very arid. The ancient Egyptians observed that the river flooded every spring and that the silt spread by the floods provided a fertile substrate for growth of crops. Indeed, by measuring the volume of the flood water at different places, estimates were made of the likely crop yield that year (and therefore what the tax ‘take’ was likely to be!). But, despite this sophistication, apparently there was no knowledge of the spring run‐off from the mountains of the upper Nile basin that causes the annual flooding. The Egyptians were thus observers of nature as it affected their lives but was this science? They also applied their observations and had significant engineering expertise, expertise good enough for the building of the pyramids, but again we may ask, was it science?
To the extent that science simply equals knowledge, the ancient Egyptians (and the ancient Britons who built Stonehenge) were scientists. But as far as we can tell, there was no theorising about the reasons for the phenomena they observed, beyond ascribing them to the work of myriad gods. It was in the Greek culture, with its emphasis on mind, that theorising about the reason for and the nature of the universe began to flourish and this theorising was tied in with other areas of thought, including especially mathematics, philosophy and ethics (see Chapter 2). The Greeks, like the Egyptians, were accomplished builders and technicians, putting their knowledge to practical use. But they were not great experimenters, despite Archimedes’s fortuitous bath‐time discovery about volume and water displacement from which he cleverly deduced information on the density of metals. So, although the flowering of Greek culture saw the development of theories about many natural phenomena, even a great physician such as Hippocrates carried out very little actual experimental testing of the theories. Nevertheless, the Greeks added significantly to our knowledge of the universe and thus they practised science. Indeed, their knowledge of planets and stars, albeit at a time when most believed that the Earth was the centre of the solar system, enabled the construction in about 150 BC, of a simple analogue ‘computer’, the Antikythera mechanism, by which to calculate positions of planets and stars (Figure 1.1).
Figure 1.1 The Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism (150 BC), a simple analogue computer.
Source: Picture from Wikipedia Commons, reproduced under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence. Reproduced with permission of Wikipedia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by‐sa/3.0/deed.pt.
Thus it is legitimate to ask whether lack of an experimental approach precludes an activity from being called science. As the Egyptians, Greeks and possibly the builders of Stonehenge show that information about how the universe works can come from careful and repeated observations and measurements; otherwise, how would knowledge of planetary movements, for example, have been obtained? Further, Aristotle’s vision of what we now call science was a vision of a dual path involving generalising from specific observations into a universal law, and then back again from universal laws to predictions about what might be observed. The ability to make predictions, which may themselves be tested, is today regarded as a criterion for the validity of scientific hypotheses.
Continuing with this theme, there has recently been an increased interest in the science carried out in mediaeval times, showing clearly that in western Europe, investigation of the natural world did not go through a ‘dark age’ in which investigation was suppressed by the Church. The scholar, philosopher and theologian Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253), who became Bishop of Lincoln, provides a clear example of the scientific activities of those times. He clearly understood the importance of Aristotle’s dual path vision (above) and has been described by the science historian Alastair Crombie as ‘the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in medieval Oxford and in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition’. He introduced to western Europe the concept of controlled experiments and related that approach to observational science, as one among several ways of arriving at knowledge of the natural world. Grosseteste’s books on light (De luce) and on rainbows (De iride) show a great understanding of the nature of light, of optics and of colour. He conjectured that the universe was born in an explosion3 followed by the crystallisation of matter to form stars and planets; in De luce he presented the first attempt to describe the Earth and the heavens using a single set of physical laws. Indeed, the ‘Ordered Universe’ research group4 are very much in agreement with Crombie (see above) and regard Grosseteste’s work as a clear demonstration that pre‐Renaissance science was far more advanced than we previously thought.5
However, as we hinted above, much of the scientific and scholarly activity of medieval times has been overlooked or forgotten, so much so that Robert Grosseteste has been described as ‘the greatest mind you’ve never heard of’. And so we jump forward four centuries to Francis Bacon (1561–1626) who played a key role in the formalisation of science. He was very impressed by the discoveries made by Copernicus and insisted that understanding nature required evidence that could only be gathered by experiment, by careful measurement and by rigorous observation. This has become known as the Baconian revolution and Bacon is often referred to as the Father of Science and the Secretary of Nature which, with our new understanding of mediaeval scholarship, now seems a little ‘unfair’ on Grosseteste and other scholars. Bacon and his contemporary, Galileo, are credited with abolishing forever the Aristotelian view of nature (notwithstanding the importance of Aristotle’s ‘dual path’ approach; see above). The adoption of Bacon’s concepts led to a rapid expansion of scientific knowledge in the 17th and 18th centuries, typified by, for example, the work of Newton, leading thence to modern science.
We need to make one last point. As we mentioned briefly above, at the time of Bacon and indeed of Newton, the term science was not used to describe systematic investigation of the natural world nor would its practitioners have called themselves scientists. They were ‘natural philosophers’. The term natural philosophy may be taken as meaning love of wisdom about the natural world (Greek philo, loving; sophia, wisdom). The use of the word ‘science’ dates back to 24 June 1833. At a public meeting, the poet Samuel Coleridge Taylor told the natural philosophers, ‘You must stop calling yourselves “natural philosophers”’. What we now call the ‘scientific method’ did not resonate with the poet’s view of what philosophy was. The geologist, mathematician and philosopher William Whewell was quick to respond with the word ‘science’ and ascribed to it the meaning of gathering knowledge about the universe by using a particular set of methods. That sense of the word is still embodied in the way we use it today but for some, its meaning has grown not only to include the scientific method and the knowledge obtained by that method (Latin scire, to know; scio, I know) but also to carry the implication that it is the only source of knowledge about the universe. The latter view is known as scientism.6
1.3 Modern Science
Science as practised in the 21st century continues to embody the principles set out by Bacon and thus we can say that science is an investigation of the material nature of the universe by a set of methods that include observation, experiment, the formulation of hypotheses and the testing of those hypotheses. But within that overall definition, there is room for much variety. Different sciences place different emphases on observation and experiment. Hypotheses come in different forms as do methods of testing them. Science as practised is not a single type of activity although it all takes place within a single overarching framework. This was clearly understood by Nobel laureate James Watson whose words head this chapter.
Let us then open this up a little more and explore briefly some ideas in the philosophy of science and the nature of scientific knowledge. This is important because misunderstandings of what science is and how it works can lead to negative attitudes to science, to scientists and to the applications of science. A most important basic principle is that, at any one moment, scientific knowledge is incomplete (we do not and cannot know everything) and provisional (it is possible that our current understanding may be modified by subsequent findings). For this reason many aspects of scientific ‘knowledge’ are actually the hypotheses that are open to further testing. Nevertheless, scientists assume that there is an objective reality to which this partial and provisional knowledge relates. This is what the science philosopher Polyani calls verisimilitude – approach to the truth. Progress in scientific knowledge and understanding is generally said to be made by the ‘scientific method’ that was outlined above and in particular in the testing of hypotheses. Further, the science philosopher Karl Popper maintained that ‘real’ hypotheses are those for which there is the possibility of being proved wrong (i.e. falsifiable). So, according to this view, science can only progress by the formation of falsifiable hypotheses that are then tested by further work. It seems a very sterile description of an activity that many find very exciting.
Indeed, amongst many practising scientists and growing numbers of science philosophers, there is a view that the ‘Popperian’ approach to science is too sterile and stereotyped. Science is actually more flexible. It embodies serendipity (making significant discoveries by accident, as has happened for one of us), intuition (in which an interpretative leap is made that goes beyond the strict limits of what the data tell us) and even guesswork. When Watson and Crick turned one strand of the double helix upside down (and in doing so achieved a workable and essentially correct model for the structure of DNA), they were acting on either a ‘lucky’ guess or a piece of brilliant intuition, depending on who one reads. So science can make progress by methods other than the direct testing of specific hypotheses, although, of course, these ‘non‐conventional’ findings can themselves be verified or falsified by subsequent work, as in the double helix where the opposite orientation of the two strands was confirmed by experiment.
The strictly conventional view of science also fails on two other grounds. Firstly, it is clear that scientific hypotheses come in a variety of forms; some are very well established and are so widely and generally applicable that they should be regarded as paradigms. In scientific language they are usually called theories. Evolution comes into this category. Indeed, the use of the term ‘theory of evolution’ has led to a good deal of misunderstanding amongst those who seek to promote other views. In scientific usage the word theory indicates something that is very well established. On the other hand, some hypotheses are very local in application and may also be very tentative because of the scarcity of relevant information, such as when we have data based on observations of just a tiny number of patients or from one small experiment. Secondly, Popper’s description of real hypotheses as those being those capable of being proved wrong cannot be universally applied. Experiments are often carried out in order to ascertain whether there is evidence to support rather than refute a hypothesis. Further, there are some facets of scientific knowledge that, as pointed out by John Polkinghorne,7 are here to stay; these include atoms and the helical structure of DNA. In our view then, Popper’s view of science does not accommodate gains in knowledge.
1.4 Science, Ethics and Values
1.4.1 Introduction
Science progresses in a stepwise manner; some of the steps are large (and then the public media often talk of a breakthrough) but mostly they are small. But whether the steps are large or small and whether the new data support or refute an earlier hypothesis, one thing is clear: science progress depends on what has gone before. If one of us sets up an experiment that is based on published data, it is expected that those data were not falsified or fudged and that the author in whose paper the data appear has given a correct version of what he or she has done. We can only see further than previous scientists because we are, metaphorically, standing on their shoulders (whether or not they are giants8). The reader will be quick to appreciate that this implies a trust in those who have gone before, a trust that they did not make up their data. Without this ability to trust what other scientists publish, the whole edifice of science would tumble. A parallel situation occurs in competitive sport where throwing a game for the sake of financial reward or cheating to achieve victory are both seen as going against the whole ethos of sporting competition. Thus, amongst other responsibilities, a scientist has ethical responsibilities to the whole science community, indeed to science itself. To suggest that a scientist has lied about his or her results (as has happened in some of the debates about genetic modification of crops; see Chapter 10) is a very serious accusation.
1.4.2 Scientific Fraud
Despite the seriousness of scientific fraud, it certainly takes place in various forms, including fabricating data, manipulating data in a way that is not justified and claiming other people’s data as one’s own (plagiarism). With scientists under increasing pressure to produce results, or to publish ‘significant’ results in high‐impact journals or to ‘win the race’ to make a particular discovery or to obtain the next large grant, scientific fraud appears to be increasing in frequency.9 There is no doubt that instances of fraud give science a bad name, albeit temporarily. When discovered, the perpetrators of fraud invariably lose their jobs, either because their employment is terminated or they resign. In very serious cases, the fraudsters may be stripped of previously earned awards and honours, even they were earned legitimately. The scientific community treats fraud as a very serious breach of scientific ethics, not least because, as we state in the previous paragraph, it is essential for the progress of science that we can trust those who have gone before. We will encounter a number of examples of scientific fraud in other chapters (see Chapter 5 for some especially notorious cases). In the meantime, readers who have an interest in this topic are referred to some helpful books.10
1.4.3 Science and Societal Values
In addition to the ethics specifically associated with the practice of science, we must also emphasise that the science is not value‐free. The impression of the scientist working in a social vacuum, driven just by curiosity, is no longer valid and perhaps never was. At the personal level, scientists may speak of competition, of the race to reach a particular research goal and of the desire for having one’s name associated with a major discovery. James Watson suggests that he and Francis Crick selected the structure of DNA because it was then the biggest prize in biological science. Personal ambition is often a major driver of the scientific enterprise but more altruistic motives may also lead to research on particular topics; for example, some are drawn to work on vaccines for malaria or on drought‐tolerant crops because they hope for applications that will aid less‐developed countries. The scientist does not leave behind his or her aspirations, world view or personality when entering the lab. Indeed, the latter may affect the choice of research area and the context in which the research is performed.
For scientific discovery there is an important parallel here with learning theory in general. The influential Russian psychologist Vygotsky wrote of the importance of the ‘zone of proximal development’, meaning that the social and physical environment is vital for learning to take place. He believed that a successful learner is in some manner ‘scaffolded’ – supported – by ‘able others’. Whilst scientists pushing forward the frontiers of our understanding can often make intuitive deductive leaps based on the interpretation of their observations, this individual effort is often, in terms of the overall investigation, a small part of the whole, and others will have significantly contributed to that breakthrough moment.
So, the context in which science is done is socially constructed. The gentleman or lady scientist doing original research paid for from their own financial means is today very rare indeed. Science has grown into a major world activity, embedded into national economies and employing across the world many tens of thousands of people. In the developed world, the applications of science are woven into our daily lives and are very much taken for granted. Science publishing is now a major business with thousands of journals, increasing numbers of which are published only in electronic form, competing with each other to attract the best research papers in their particular subject area. Modern science needs extensive funds and the allocation of funds for particular types of research is a societal decision, whether made as a result of government policy or of industrial priorities. Even in so‐called blue skies research, it is easier to obtain funds for some research topics than for others. Resource allocation reflects what society at the time deems to be valuable.
Case Study
You are the head of a university biology department. The university promotions committee has asked you to nominate one and only one of your academic staff (faculty in US terminology) for promotion. There are two obvious possible candidates.
Candidate A is 37 and is very highly respected internationally for his work on the ecology of plant–insect relations. His research on the evolution of pollination mechanisms is widely respected as is his knowledge of plant and insect communities in the Peruvian Andes. The research has received a steady but not spectacular flow of grant funding from government and international funding agencies.
Candidate B is 34 and is building up a strong reputation for her research on the regulation of gene expression in programmed cell death, especially in relation to cancer. Her recent papers on the switch between cell ‘immortality’ genes and cell death genes in mice have caused great interest in the biomedical community and have been widely quoted. The work is supported by extensive grant funding from government agencies and from medical charities and this high level of funding has led to her having one of the larger research groups in the department.
Which candidate do you select and why?
Science, Ethics and Values: Some More Examples to Ponder
Some forms of human cancer may be studied by inducing their formation in genetically modified mice.
Francis Crick claims that he switched from physics to biology with the intention to abolish the last vestiges of vitalism from the latter science.
Radioactive isotopes are used in research, in diagnosis and in some medical treatments. A knock‐on effect of these activities is the discharge into the environment, under strictly regulated conditions, of radioactive material.
Francis Collins, US director of the Human Genome Project, agrees with Copernicus that investigating and understanding nature is one of the highest forms of worship of God.
Richard Dawkins, formerly Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, believes that science will eradicate what he calls the superstition and fantasy of religion.
Genetic testing of an individual may reveal information that could, if divulged to an employer, be disadvantageous to that individual.
So then it is clear that there are ethical issues arising from some types of scientific research.
These include the use of animals, possible environmental damage, participation of human subjects, concerns about possible applications of results and allocation of scarce (financial) resources, to mention a few. There are also issues relating to individual and to societal values. We cannot say that science is value‐free, albeit that some scientists still try to do so. All these have a bearing on the way that science is regarded and in the way that its findings are applied. We therefore continue by examining the changing attitudes to science.
1.5 Attitudes to Science
1.5.1 Science and the Enlightenment
Societal attitudes to science in the early years of the 21st century are somewhat different from those of 50 years or so ago. A closer look at changes in prevailing world views shows why this may have occurred, especially in northern Europe. The Baconian revolution in science occurred very early in a period characterised by an intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment that, from roots in the 16th and 17th centuries, flourished especially in the 18th century on both sides of the Atlantic.11 The Enlightenment placed great value on the abilities of humankind; the Church was no longer seen as the source of all knowledge. The use of human reason was regarded as the major way to combat ignorance and superstition and to build a better world. Many of the adherents of the Enlightenment movement rejected religion and thus were humanists. On the other hand, there were also Enlightenment thinkers who did not reject religion and they regarded the human mind as the pinnacle of God’s creation. Thus, whether religious or not, members of the Enlightenment movement placed great stress on the human intellect. Combining this with the Baconian approach to investigating nature thus placed science in very high esteem.
1.5.2 Science, Modernism, Modernity and Postmodernism
Although the Enlightenment as a movement died out towards the end of the 18th century, many of its attitudes continued into the 19th century,12 including for the most part, a positive attitude to science and its applications. There were however, some voices of dissent, early signs of an arts–science divide. Goethe suggested that the view of the world espoused by Newton and his successors was cold, hard and materialistic, turning nature into a machine. The romantic poet Keats, referring to Newton’s work, wrote
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine –
Unweave a rainbow…
However, in general, the 19th century witnessed widespread applications, especially of the physical sciences, in technology and engineering. There was continued confidence that science could reveal objective truth about the world and that human ingenuity could put that knowledge to good use. Thus emerged a philosophy known as modernism that, although we can trace its beginnings back through the Enlightenment to the Baconian revolution, flourished in the later years of the 19th century right through into the middle years of the 20th century. There was a confidence that a better world could be built through science and technology. In the arts, according to JG Ballard,13 modernists wanted to strip the world of mystery and emotion. Thus, according to modernists, previous and traditional forms of art, architecture and literature were now outdated in an increasingly industrialised world. The poet Ezra Pound typified this approach with his clarion call to ‘Make It New’ in 1934.
However, for many, the occurrence of two world wars dented idealistic views of humans as moral agents. Despite this, there remained an immense confidence in humankind’s creative and technological abilities. Indeed, there was a widening acceptance in Western cultures of modernity. This is subtly different from modernism14 in that it embodies a strong reliance on evidence, an increasing level of secularisation in a world dominated by capitalism and a very high regard for progress. Thus, in 1964, Harold Wilson, then the prime minister of the United Kingdom, spoke of the country benefiting from the ‘white heat of technology’. Science and technology shaped many aspects of culture in the 1960s on both sides of the Atlantic. The contraceptive pill opened the way for a widespread change in sexual behaviour at a time when traditional values were being widely questioned; there was great public interest in the conquest of space; telecommunications and information technology were on the verge of huge expansion. The press (but not the science community) spoke of nuclear energy as likely to provide ‘electricity too cheap to meter, thus providing an ‘atoms for peace’ counter to background angst about nuclear warfare. Such confidence in science in all its aspects continued in general right through the 1970s.
However, the arts–science divide that surfaced early in the 19th century was becoming more marked. The scientist, public administrator and novelist C.P. Snow wrote extensively in his novels about the work of scientists in public life and about the relationship between science and other aspects of society and culture. In 1959, he coined the term ‘the two cultures’ to describe, in the educated classes in the United Kingdom, a great divide between science and the arts. His claim was that, despite the central position of science and technology in modern life, a high proportion of well‐educated people understood very little about science, a cultural divide that continues today. Further, we also need to note that in the 1970s a philosophical shift had already started, a shift towards postmodernism.
In order to understand this philosophical shift, we need to look back to the 19th‐century philosopher Nietzsche. Based on his view that ‘God is dead’, he suggested that there are no external reference points; each individual defines for themselves their own moral and cultural values and indeed are free to ‘reinvent’ themselves. This leads to a fragmentation in ideas about truth and culture. If individuals can define their own moral values, then there is nothing to stop a person deciding on courses of action that work out best for themselves rather than having wider terms of reference. This approach to moral decision‐making is known as rational egoism and is the most extreme of the consequentialist ethical systems (as discussed in the next chapter), in that it considers only the consequences for the individual making the decision. It is thus in the philosophy of Nietzsche that we see the origins of postmodernism, a belief that anyone’s world view, concept or version of the truth or ethical value system is a valid as anyone else’s. If this leads an individual to adopt rational egoism as an ethical system, so be it.
Although the roots of postmodernism were planted in the 19th century, its growth and flowering have been very much a feature of the 20th and early 21st centuries. It is not our intention here to discuss this philosophy in detail but we do need to mention some of the main strands within it. In the United Kingdom, the Cambridge philosopher Wittgenstein insisted that words, including scientific terms, must be interpreted in their social context. This, taken to its ultimate conclusion, leads to the view that no word can have a universally accepted meaning15 and that there can be no underlying universal truth, a conclusion that is certainly reached by writers such as Derrida and Foucault and the ‘deconstructionist’ school of literary criticism, all of whom emphasised the absence of universal truths, of overriding themes or ‘metanarratives’. In some academic circles, it is now acceptable to state that ‘all things are relative’, despite the inherently self‐defeating nature of this statement; relativism has thus become a distinct philosophy under the postmodern umbrella.
Although the average person in the street probably has not heard of postmodernism, this mode of thinking has certainly seeped into popular culture, especially in northern Europe (rather less so in the United States). Although in the second decade of the 21st century, there is evidence that the influence of postmodernism is beginning to decline, it is nevertheless probable that most people in the United Kingdom, especially in the under‐55 age group, think in a postmodernist way, very much influenced by the media that have been pervaded by postmodernism. An overarching postmodernism will clearly affect general ethical thinking, as mentioned above and as discussed in the next chapter. But what about science?
If all ‘truth’ is culturally constructed, then that will include scientific truth.16 So postmodernism will argue that published scientific data have little or no relation to objective reality, even if it is accepted that the scientists themselves have published those data in good faith. In the most extreme versions of this view, it is suggested that the actual results obtained by the scientists are socially constructed. Obviously if this were so, the whole edifice of science would collapse, as we mentioned earlier in the context of falsification of data. Experiments done in one continent within one culture would yield different results from the same experiments done in another continent within another culture. That is not the experience of the scientific community and scientists in general have not espoused postmodernism, at least in respect of science. Postmodernism is thus seen as a threat to science. However, scientists do acknowledge that because science is an activity of people, its practice is not free from personal values, including reasons for choosing particular lines of research, personal ambition, altruism, desire for recognition and so on (as mentioned earlier). Science is not done by robots. Further, in the practice of modern science, some types of research are regarded as more deserving (or demanding) of financial support than others; there is thus, as we noted earlier, a strong societal element in the support of science. However, scientists argue strongly that the actual results obtained in scientific experiments are not socially constructed. The source of the money does not determine the outcome of the research. Nevertheless, it is acknowledged that there are cases in which results may have been suppressed because of commercial interests (as happened, e.g. in the tobacco industry with data indicating the adverse effects on health of smoking) or more generally because the results do not support the policies/activities of the funders.
1.5.3 Postmodernism and ‘Pseudo‐modernism’
Although the influence of postmodernism is still pervasive (despite the signs of a decline, mentioned above), many social commentators believe that it is currently giving way to another mode of thinking, named by some as pseudo‐modernism. It is not that there are no overarching truths or metanarratives. Rather, anyone can claim expertise as what those truths or metanarratives are. As discussed in the next section, real expertise is now often regarded as much with suspicion as with respect. Although we are not
