opencopy.org

- Bridgstock, Ch. 1-3 -

A. Introduction

The main theme of this course is that science and technology are social activities. As social activities scientists and technologists have responsibility for what they do. In other words, they are accountable for the social effects of their discoveries and applications. But they are not the only ones with responsibility. We too have responsibility for learning enough about science to make sure that the scientists, engineers and technicians do what is socially useful. We have added responsibility as citizens because our governments are putting more and more money into scientific research and application.

The governments of Sweden and Switzerland annually devote between 2 and 3 % of their GNP to scientific and technological research. The United States puts 2.75 % of its GNP into this kind of research, but another 1.39% of GNP is contributed by business, brining the total to well over 4%. Canada is one of the lowest investors in science and technology among the advanced nations. We only put in 1.5%, which is still an enormous amount of money. Just consider that that amount of money could eradicate most of the homelessness and poverty in a nation like the United States and you’ll see that we are talking about a massive sum.

And the effects of all of this scientific and technological research and application are having an ever-increasing effect upon our lives. When Francis Bacon wrote The New Atlantis in 1527, there really was no such thing as a scientist and most technologies were primitive and devoted to war. Writers during the Enlightenment of the eighteenth-century promoted science and the scientific view of the world because they regarded Western society as still a very backward place. While they had some influence, nothing like modern science came into existence until the century that has just passed. The twentieth-century has rightly been called the age of science and technology because a number of cultural, social and economic factors came together to give science and technology the hegemonic position that they have maintained ever since.

The first of these factors was the growth of a materialist outlook on life. Materialism is often thought of as the desire to amass wealth and consumer goods. But in philosophical terms, materialism means the belief that the best way to understand life is to examine nature and the physical materials of life. It also suggests looking at the world and human beings more as machines than as aesthetic or spiritual entities. Once one begins looking at the world this way, once one privileges this materialistic way of knowing, once can begin to control or manipulate human nature in ways that are thought to be progressive.

Of course, capitalists tend to look at the world this way. They view the economic conditions of life and the marketplace as the most important realities and they seek to increase individual and national wealth by following the imperatives of self-interest in a competitive environment. But they are not the only materialists by any means. Communists are equally materialistic in this sense. They are just as interested as capitalists in the productive forces of the economy. If anything, Marxists place even more emphasis on science and technology than capitalists, because they are not distracted by such capitalist ideas as individual freedom.

Science and technology took a huge leap forward, therefore, in 1918 when the Bolsheviks took over a very backward and traditional Russian state. Immediately, the Russians began to use state power to invest heavily in scientific research and new and progressive technologies. As a result, in a series of Five Year Plans, Russia went from being a backward society to being a competitive world power. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1992, many other countries, especially the United States had begun to invest heavily in scientific and technological R & D (Research and Development). In fact, by the end of World War II, most governments understood that, if they were going to progress and be competitive in world, they needed to encourage science and technology.

The contribution of science and technology to twentieth-century life was indisputable. Not only was it needed to compete, but also it changed all our lives for the better. New medicines increased our lifespan. Industrial growth increased the per capita income of the average family enormously. Transportation improved exponentially; not only did the world become smaller, but most families in the West now had their own form of transportation in the automobile. Mass production put goods that were formerly prohibitively expensive and designed for the wealthy into the reach of the average citizen.

It was difficult to question the contributions of, or need for, science and technology even as scientific research became more esoteric and as technology moved to larger scales. Both of these developments pushed the average citizen out of scientific and technological decision-making. More and more, the decision-making was in the hands of governments. And even the governments had to rely on the experts who understood the science and the technology.

Thus, by the 1960s, when some people began to raise questions about the negative side of science and technology, we were already in a situation where these activities had achieved enormous power and a momentum that was very difficult to stop. Not surprisingly, the major criticism of science and technology came from an awareness of the negative impact that scientific and technological progress was having on the environment. By the fifties, it was becoming clear that the scientific and technological approach was potentially destructive to the natural environment. As people found their environmental quality of life threatened by unrestricted development, they began to question the assumption that progress was an unqualified good.

By the 1960s, people began to reaffirm the relationship between society, science and technology and to question the hegemony of the decision makers. For the first time in nearly a century, people began to question unrestricted spending on science and technology and to seek input into the decision-making that, more and more, seemed to be impacting their quality of life. While people did not want to turn back the clock to a time before science and technology were fundamental to our lives, they began to talk about things like sustainable development, human technologies, and the responsibilities of the scientist. And this was not only done by those outside the scientific and technological community. Within those communities many members themselves began to demonstrate concern about the lack of ethical training or sense of responsibility in the scientific community. Scientists and technologists, like the average citizen, began to have their own doubts about unfettered progress.

The classic case of scientific responsibility was the development of the atomic bomb that ended the War in the Pacific. Before the bomb was built, Albert Einstein and others expressed their dismay that it might be able to create such a weapon of destruction. As the bomb was being built in the U.S.A. - the Manhattan Project - many of those working on the problem hoped to prove that an atomic bomb could not be built. Others warned that, once the science behind the making of the bomb was developed, it would be possible for others to make it and an arms race would begin. It was difficult to see how any good could come out of developing an atomic bomb.

And yet, it seemed to many that an attempt had to be made. Not only would the creation of such a bomb shorten the war and save many allied lives, but also it was necessary to discover how to build such a bomb before the Fascists had such a tool. Many Jewish scientists faced an additional ethical dilemma. They knew that Fascist governments were bent on exterminating the Jews and wanted to help build a weapon that put a stop to the Holocaust. At the same time, it was scientists of Jewish background who were foremost in warning of the severe ethical consequences of building the bomb.

B. The Nature of the Scientific Community

In order to appreciate the dilemma of these scientists, we need to know a little bit more about what they do and the communities that they create. It is all very easy to say that science is a human activity and, as such, should be guided by human ethics. But that will not show us the particular pressures and attitudes that scientists have that isolate them from the culture of everyday life. These pressures and attitudes are not the same for all scientists at all times. So, if you are going to understand what a scientist does, you need to appreciate the variety.

In simple terms, science is a methodological approach to understanding physical nature (and human beings in so far as they are a part of physical nature). It is a highly systematic approach designed explicitly to eliminate the possibility of error. It is a highly restricted approach, in so far as it asks questions concerned with how things work rather than metaphysical questions about why the universe is designed the way it is. As such, science is characterized by hypotheses (or theories or axioms) that are measured against the empirical evidence. Where there is no empirical evidence to test theories against, there is no science only conjecture. Where there is no ability to measure (often using observation or quantitative techniques) there is not much possibility of real science.

The reason scientists developed the scientific method in the first place was to try to discover things that are true. Second, scientists wanted to be able to apply this information in ways that allow us humans to control nature in ways that are useful.

The systematic search for truth and the development of applications for this knowledge are two very different things. There is a great deal of confusion about this distinction because people used to think that technology was simply the practical application of scientific understanding. We know realize that technology had its original basis in the trial and error and experiential approach of the crafts. Technology existed prior to the development of science and has some very unique characteristics. Similarly, science and applied science, while related, are distinct.

Why emphasize the distinction? The reason is because pure scientists have a self-image as explorers seeking out truth wherever it exists and regardless of the consequences. These individuals oppose any interference with their search as an attack on truth and knowledge. They also believe that their search for truth is so intrinsically important that it deserves social and institutional support. They imply that the discovery of the secrets of nature and human nature is a defining characteristic of a modern civilization and that any attack upon their investigations is anti-knowledge and anti-civilization. Finally, they equate scientific research with free intellectual inquiry and any attempt to control science as intellectual tyranny.

There are truths and fallacies attached to this mental self-image. The primary problem, however, is that there is no such thing as pure science because science always takes place in a social context and has social consequences. To be sure, some forms of scientific researcher are purer

i. Academic Scientists

The purest form of scientific enquiry is that which takes place in universities (or occasionally in technological institutes). In these places, scientists combine research and teaching roles. They are encouraged to pursue the truth in a number of interesting ways. In the first place, they are chosen by colleagues in their university for their ability. Second, they have to publish their findings in refereed journals continuously to prove that they are making a significant contribution to knowledge. Third, they are not paid for any of these publications, no matter how important the results, because their search for truth is supposed to be impartial. The primary way a science professor gets promoted is by the number and importance of his/her publications, which is yet another way to ensure that their research is pure.

This system of hiring and promotion would seem to ensure that academic scientists are pure in their endeavours. The reality is more complex. First, the scientific journals are dominated by a hierarchy of professors who tend to publish themselves and their students, making it difficult for a real scientific democracy to emerge. Second, in order to conduct serious scientific investigations in the modern age, one needs to get grants from governments to maintain equipment, labs and hire students. It doesn’t matter how smart or pure one is, a key to success in modern science is grantsmanship. Third, the publishing practice in modern science is to accord primary status to the first in a list of publishers. Often senior science professors are listed first in the reports of findings made by a number of students in their labs. Those with the biggest labs and the most capable students often pad their list of publications.

Scientific research that is funded by government is not absolutely pure in the sense that grants are giving to projects that will give the government the most mileage. Funding research on Aids, for example, may or may not be as popular with voters as funding Cancer or Heart and Stroke Research. Unless the scientist is engaged in activities that relate to government concerns, it may be difficult to find funding. Consequently, scientists tend to shift their research into areas where funding is forthcoming. This is particularly problematic in countries like the United States of America, were a large portion of research funding comes from the Department of Defense and has military objectives. Is research pure, when one is chasing scarce research dollars by providing the military with knowledge designed to harm people?

Defense funding has long been a dilemma faced by so-called pure scientists. Recently, however, there is another. Cash starved governments are increasingly calling upon scientists to obtain 50% of their research funding from private sector partners. Before the government recently awarded a $24 million grant for Photonics Research to Laval and York Universities, the University needed to get many corporate partners onside. If corporations are supplying a major part of the funding, can we really call the research pure or impartial? The Photonics team at York University had to demonstrate: 1) the grant would result in increased employment for Canadian scientists in Canada; 2) that there were significant industrial applications that would be brought to market in a speedy fashion; 3) that corporate partnerships were maintained or replaced throughout the life of the project; 4) that this research would have a dramatic impact on Canada’s place in the global technological community. While all of these goals are understandable, it is difficult to see how they could ever be considered as pure investigations of knowledge.

ii. Scientific Laboratories

If it is still at least possible to talk about purity in the case of academic scientists, it clearly isn’t in the case of non-government laboratories. In Canada, over 40% of R & D is carried out by scientists who work for corporations. In America, that figure rises to almost 50%. Moreover, that percentage is constantly growing as governments are beginning to move out of areas that some politicians believe can be more efficiently managed by the private sector.

Publishing is not the key to success in Industrial R & D, which means that these scientists don’t have to be involved in a game of publish or perish. Instead, the goal is to develop processes, technologies or products that can be patented. It should be perfectly clear that the goal of Industrial R & D has little to do with the search for truth. Its only goal is to strengthen the company’s economic position, i.e. profitability.

Whereas academic knowledge is distributed as completely as possible, with the goal of increasing knowledge, the knowledge generated by industrial scientists is kept as secret as possible. The last thing that a company wants is for a competitor to find out what it is doing. The first thing that a company wants is to find out what its competitors are doing. Thus, there is an entire category of scientists in industry that would be inconceivable in academic institutions. These are scientists who perform a kind of research known as reverse engineering, or taking apart a competitor’s product in order to discover if there is anything that they can use or mimic that wont break patent law.

It would be difficult for scientists working for blue chip corporations to talk about scientific freedom or purity. They are primarily employees. They rarely set or determine the scientific agenda. Inevitably, management is in control of the process. Often researchers find themselves being moved from project to project, “never being allowed to settle and really follow research through.” For these individuals, science is not so much the search for truth, but simply a good job. The satisfaction comes from doing their job well and being paid well for what they do.

iii. Government Research

Government laboratories were created when governments recognized that scientific discoveries and applications were essential to competitive success and international prestige. Universities were too independent to provide the kind of focused research that governments needed. Businesses were too interested in profitability and short-term market gains to conduct expensive longer-term research. Since much necessary and strategic research was too expensive and inconclusive for free enterprise, governments decided to step in and subsidize focused research with tax dollars.

A key concept was that public funds should be used to generate public goods in key areas. These might include monitoring air and water quality; investigating food products such as meat for contamination; experimenting with new seed crops; developing experimental hatcheries to replenish declining fishery stocks; etc. Some of these public goods might also be issues of national prestige, such as the establishment of athletic laboratories run by kinesiologists who have expertise in body mechanics and elite performance. You should expect Canada, for example, to begin investing more heavily in this area after the disappointing performance of Canadian athletes at the 2000 Olympics.

One of the criticisms leveled against government-sponsored research is that too often it subsidizes work that the private sector should be doing. In other words, government research makes up for the inadequacies of the marketplace and the unwillingness of most companies to invest in anything other than short-term profitability. Another criticism is that a great deal of this kind of research is closely associated with warfare. Modern warfare is much more horrific than warfare in the past because its destructive capacity has been increased by scientific knowledge. Thus, the First Word War relied on poisoned gas and was known as the chemists’ war; the Second World War ended with a nuclear bang and was known as the physicists’ war. The involvement of scientists in the Second World War was so extensive as to make it impossible for nations to put a halt to the marriage of science and the military. Indeed, by 1970 at the height of the Cold War, roughly 50% of all the science being conducted in the world was directly or indirectly related to military purposes. Despite the end of the Cold War, in 1995 about 45% of scientific research in America and Canada remains military related.

It is a disturbing fact to think that nearly half of all the science conducted within the major powers is still related to military defense and warfare. This fact alone should make us, and the scientific community, question the purity of its search for truth. The legacy is that millions of weapons of destruction are stockpiled throughout the world, while we continue to fund research into developing more such weapons.

These developments, and others, should give us cause for concern. While there may have been a time and a place where scientific research implied a more impartial search for truth and was harnessed to the star of progress, we live in a world where the benefits of a massive investment into R & D are, at the very least, ambiguous. Unless we understand the nature of, and pressures on, the modern scientist, we will not be in a position to make informed decisions.

Science and technology have never been totally pure or neutral activities. They have evolved in, and reflect, their social context. In our modern age, this is much more true than it ever has been in the past. The power of modern science to do harm, as well as good, has been well documented. Even if, on balance we consider scientific research to be a net good, we need to consider the huge percentage of GNP that we are investing in this specialized activity, and we need to make sure that we are spending it right. Unfortunately, we cannot rely on the scientists to make the right decisions. Academic scientists are driven by the need to fund their research projects as well as the ethos of publish or perish. Industrial scientists are controlled by the managers of companies, the bottom line of which is profitability. Government scientists are pressured by the need to work more closely with the private sector and, in any case, often find their research tied to military needs. It is difficult to find a scientist who is pure, at least not all of the time.

C. The Ethical Responsibility of the Scientist

By examining the nature of the scientific community, we have begun to make a case for treating the scientist in his/her social context. We have suggested that the ideal type of the scientist as a neutral observer of nature is inconsistent with many of the features of scientific inquiry, whether it is in the university or a private laboratory. We have brought into question the idea that science is a neutral or value-free endeavour, although we know that individual scientists may try their darnedest to be objective. We have even hinted at the social responsibility of the scientist and of the responsibility we all have to pay attention to what is going on in science. What we haven’t done so far is to define this responsibility in ethical terms.

In this last section, I want to pin down the ethical responsibility of the scientist in a way that would make sense to scientists themselves. I will even allow that scientists have a right to pursue intellectual questions freely, just as long as the consequences of their research are unforeseen or unforeseeable. What I want to attack, however, is the common hypocritical practice of scientists to deny moral responsibility in those cases where there is a substantial degree of forseeability with respect to the consequences of their actions.

i. Proposition 1: Moral Responsibility Cuts Both Ways

Scientists routinely try to take credit for progressive and positive developments that come out of scientific research. If they do this, then they must also be prepared to take some degree of blame for the bad things that come out of their research. At any time we enter into the world of social blame or praise, we must be prepared to accept moral responsibility for our actions.

ii. Proposition 2: Moral Responsibility Only Exists in those Cases When It is Possible to Foresee Social Consequences

It makes no sense to blame a scientist for conducting research into nature where he/she has no idea of possible negative consequences. Thus, Einstein’s equation e=mc² was indispensable for the making of an atomic bomb. But Einstein has no responsibility for the development of that bomb because he couldn’t even envision a practical application of this theoretical piece of knowledge.

iii. Proposition 3: Moral Responsibility Clearly Exists in those Cases When it is Possible to Foresee Social Consequences

It makes good sense to hold a scientist responsible for conducting research where he/he can realize that there may be possible negative consequences to research. The research done on uranium-235 to spit a nucleus and release neutrons that will create a critical assembly and a highly destructive explosion is clearly a case where the consequences should be clear to the scientists. In such cases, they have to accept responsibility for their actions.

iv. Proposition 4: Scientific Inquiry in the Abstract may be Neutral; As a ‘Human’ Activity with Consequences it is Not.

It is o.k. for scientists to describe their methodology as value free. But the minute that human beings intend things, do things, or cause things to happen we are in the realm of moral responsibility. Moreover, the gap between neutral scientific inquiry and the moral responsibility of the individual scientist is not as large as it often seems.

v. Proposition 5: Moral Responsibility Implies Free Will, Intention and Absence of Coercion

We cannot attach moral responsibility where people are not able to chose rationally; where they clearly did not foresee or intend negative/positive consequences to happen; or where others forced them to do things against their will. In many cases of scientific research, however, individuals fully foresee and understand the negative consequences of their actions. The scientists involved in the Manhattan Project knew that they were building a bomb that could kill thousands of people. They were in the best place to appreciate the consequences of their actions. They, therefore, had considerable moral responsibility.

vi. Proposition 6: Moral Responsibility Implies Causality and Must Be Weighty

We don’t usually attribute moral responsibility unless a person is obviously the cause of a social effect. If someone accidentally hurts another person, unless it is a case of extreme and culpable carelessness, we don’t usually hold him or her responsible. Moreover, we don’t usually hold someone morally responsible unless the issue is significant. We don’t expect people to continually feel responsible for every little action that has trivial implications. However, we do hold people morally responsible for significant social consequences, even if their causality is spread among others - i.e. the large team involved in the Manhattan Project. Also, the weightier the consequences, as in dropping a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki or Hiroshima, the more serious the moral responsibility.

vii. Proposition 7: Scientists Have to Accept Moral Responsibility for their Actions; They Cannot Hide Behind an Arbitrary Distinction Between Research and its Effects

Scientists often suggest that their activities are neutral and disavow responsibility for the practical results of their investigations. Such an attitude is hypocritical because it amounts to a refusal to accept normal human responsibility for one’s actions. In real life, the distinction between pure and applied science is nowhere near as sharp as these pure scientists would want to make it. While it may make them feel better about themselves, in existential terms, this is an example of self-deceit.

viii. Proposition 8: Scientists Cannot Hide Behind the Distinction Between Knowledge and the Way that it is Used

Many scientists want to suggest that knowledge has good and bad uses. Those who use knowledge for evil ends, therefore, are morally responsible, while those who generate knowledge are neutral. This is also hypocritical and deceitful because it ignores the fact that a great deal of scientific and technological research is obviously intended to produce a product or a process. If that product or process has foreseeable harmful effects, then the scientist bears some moral responsibility for those effects. To say that science or technology are neutral, is to evade the real issue, which is the use to which these are put by human beings.

ix. Proposition 9: No Scientific Theory Can Be Totally Isolated from the Uses to Which it is Put

Scientists and technologists work in a social context, “with all the attendant effects, intentions and values” of society. The scientist who does not pay attention to the social consequences of his/her actions is already acting irresponsibly. Einstein exhibited this capacity for moral reflection. When Einstein developed his formula E = mc2 , he could not foresee practical consequences. However, as soon as he did see practical consequences, in the form of an atomic bomb, he felt it necessary to warn President Roosevelt about the social consequences of this weapon of mass destruction. Thus, he understood the need for scientists to accept moral responsibility for their actions.

x. Proposition 10: No Technology Can be Isolated from the Uses to Which it is Put

Scientists often mimic the sayings of the redneck - “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” This allows them to develop products or instruments that are socially destructive. The purpose of a handgun or a bomb is to kill people. Someone that works to create a better bomb or gun is engaged in a morally questionable activity. If this technology is used to defend against oppression or attack, we might be able to say that the technology did good. But we could never say that this technology is good or that building a better bomb is a morally neutral activity.

xi. Proposition 11: The Morally Responsible Scientist will Attempt to Foresee Consequences

Because scientific discoveries have such an impact for good or for ill, it is important that scientists be proactive in considering the consequences of their research. Ultimately, they are the only people in society who fully understand the implications of scientific discoveries. Unfortunately, they tend to look the other way or to hide behind the generals, corporate leaders or politicians, to whom they attach all blame for negative social consequences. To do this is to abrogate their moral responsibility. Those with superior knowledge have a greater, not lesser, responsibility.

xii. Proposition 12: Accepting Moral Responsibility Means Making Difficult Choices

For those Jewish scientists, whose relatives and friends had been killed by the Nazis, working on producing an atomic bomb may have been morally justifiable. Arriving at a moral position in the case of a weapon of mass destruction, however, is never something that one should do without serious concern for the consequences. When we say that we want scientists to take moral responsibility for their actions, we are not pre-judging the outcome, merely suggesting that they need to take into account all the social implications of these very serious activities.

xiii. Proposition 13: Moral Responsibility for Scientific Research Must be Shared

Obviously, if the scientist needs to take into account the social context and attendant consequences of his/her actions, society itself must be involved in the decision making process. To rely on the scientist alone to act with moral responsibility is to ignore the responsibility that each and every one of us has to monitor scientific developments and to bring moral considerations to bear in science and technology.

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The notes presented here are for the AK NATS 1760.06 “Science, Technology and Society” course offered in the Fall/Winter Semester of 2001/2002 by the Atkinson College of York University, Toronto, Canada and taught by John Dwyer. The lectures are based on the following texts:

1. Martin Bridgstock et al, Science, Technology and Society: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1998), ISBN 0-521-58735-2
2. Kevin Robbins and Frank Webster, Times of the Technoculture: From the Information Society to the Virtual Life (New York, Routledge, 1999), ISBN 0-415-16115-0
3. Albert H. Teich, Technology and the Future (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2000), ISBN 0-312-01885-1

For more about John Dwyer, visit: http://www.sayitagain.com/ivorytower/