Martin Daniel C.

Qui

2011-02846

ETHICS! ! When it comes to partaking in the scientic community, we need to be able to know how to work, act and think like scientic journalists. By denition of what these individuals do, they are observers and interpreters of activities that surround our lives: for news journalists, they enter areas, interpret what they see through their lenses (their cameras, or their eyes) without adding their own personal opinions into the study. In reality, a lot of things these people do are questionable, and up until now, we have had so much difculty in dealing with these individuals, especially because no guidelines or at least a drafted ethical stand was made for this eld.! ! In terms of science, we are mere observers of what we see as the truth. We interpret data given our expertise and background having a monopoly and abundance of information that we have over the rest of the world. We are the only ones who are capable of fully understanding the context, the results, the outcomes of what we observe in scientic experiments. This is why even without a journalistic background, or a license or degree in journalism, scientists are still the main actors in these cases. It requires a certain amount of knowledge and exposure to the topic to be t to become a scientic journalist.! ! Thus, great power, as cliche as it might be, comes with great responsibility. We hold the necks of our world, establishing truth after truth, mainly because the greater majority cannot contest it, even if other experts are present to engage in the discussion. Scientists must not only be able to convey truths or observations, but in a manner that is ethical. This is why the principles and guidelines of ethics must rst be laid out in an ethics class so that we would have some sense of direction in what we publish or in what we do. These would guide us whenever we were to write a paper, or even during the conduction of a study because we do know that we are a part of the truth-building body of science that would either forward our research, or mainly cast doubt to the credibility of our works.! ! Ethics was made to be able to guide us when cases become controversial, or when the lines are blurred. This is because the nature of science often does venture in controversial waters, as well as that it deals with the unknown. Thus, in moving and studying in the unknown, we must be able to know the core principles of what we are about to enter.! ! Other things we must learn in ethics are the safe limits to when we can do some studies extents of what is ethical and unethical, especially because to most of us, our moral judgment often coincides with what is ethical. Some cases, though, such as when our moral judgment cannot encompass the complexity of the issue, or when there are too many sides of the issue to consider, ethics must be taught in a way to establish that our default course of action would be.! ! Another thing to be taught in an ethics class, I guess is to be able to analyze cases and study them. For example, we could handle controversial cases, that may bring forward the advancement of the human resource of knowledge, but may tramble upon current values and the moral fabric of our society. Questions of whether this is worth it or not, or whether or not the rest of society is still not ready to appreciate the breach of morality for the sake of science must be put to place. It might help to have debates, for example, of hypothetical situations (like underground science facilities that use human testing, but have obtained brilliant results are they still credible or not, or should governments or the scientic body hold them for their merits, or bury these immediately, or cases where, for example, whether some research can be considered bogus, or to what extent should we give credit to research, especially in a scenario when bogus research can actually lead to new studies, or when disproving something actually adds more truth to the current state of knowledge). With this, the assessment of truth, what constitutes and approximates the truth is also an important discussion. This is because the truth might be the most subjective thing ever, even if it has been studied through positivity and through the scientic method over and over again. Does it mean that just because we do the same thing, and obtain reproducible results, that we have now obtained the truth, or is the truth something still far off, one that we will never obtain, but one we can surely approximate? We must be able to discuss the extents on when we can qualify things as postulates or truths or laws, especially when these things recur over and over again in scientic discussion, and in dealing with a world that is often non-scientic.