This combined research and education project--supported by the Ethics Education in Science and Engineering program at NSF--develops a graduate course, for science, engineering and philosophy of science graduate students to engage in joint research and address ethical issues as they naturally arise in research. Through several repetitions followed by assessment and evaluation, the full credit, semester long course will be honed so that it can serve as a model adaptable in many settings and formats.
As complex, multi-disciplinary research projects proliferate, observers recognize that the failure of philosophers of science, scientists, and engineers to engage directly with the other two areas is a deficiency. Science is radically social, and experimentation, understanding, knowledge products, and process are enabled by meanings, rules and values that are established by specific communities to make cooperation among its members possible and successful. Many of these elements in the internal dynamics of a scientific community become problematic when placed in a situation of cooperation with members of other communities. Language differences alone -- setting aside other significant differences -- can bring about misunderstanding and too quick dismissal of work in another discipline that might be valuable for collaborative projects.
The detailed study of science has shown the value of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary cooperation. But the success stories are often accidental, against the grain of the enculturation of the members of each community and the community's own values. As emerging technologies create new opportunities and bring forth new hazards, many acknowledge that attention to ethics and social responsibility is essential in these new areas. To respond, the proposed course exposes graduate students to a view of science, engineering, and philosophy of science that makes the social and normative aspects of each an essential and valuable part of their understanding of their respective disciplines and research opportunities.
The project titled "Addressing Ethics in the Natural Course of Research: A Joint Research Course for Graduate Students in Science, Engineering, and Philosophy of Science" developed a new paradigm of graduate education in ethics, philosophy of science, and research practice. This was an innovative course designed for students from diverse backgrounds that helped them develop the skills and understanding needed for collaborating in multi-disciplinary research across a wide range of disciplines and for identifying and fruitfully addressing ethics issues that arise in the natural course of research. The preparation included the formation of research collaborations within the course, consisting of two or three students in each, and encompassing all the students registered. For students in each area --science, engineering, and science studies -- the course provided fresh perspectives from the other two areas and practice in addressing ethics issues that they identified in the course of their research. The goal for students was to acquire a view of science, engineering, and philosophy of science that makes the social and normative aspects of each essential and valuable as part of their understanding of their own respective disciplines and of research opportunities across disciplines. Currently, at the graduate level, science and engineering education generally do not include philosophical and ethical perspectives, and philosophy of science usually does not incorporate experience of science or engineering research at the bench level. Hence, science and engineering students do not wrestle with broad questions relevant to their research and the social context, and philosophy of science (and other science studies) students do not confront questions arising in the nitty-gritty of science and engineering research. Rarely are issues of ethics and social responsibility integrated into the actual course of research in any of these three fields. In this new paradigm, engineering and science students engaged with broader questions about scientific practice and its social context. Science studies students became actually involved with science at the bench level. For all the students, there were encounters with value issues internal to doing science, for example, the value of quantification. Values related to the radically social character of science include objectivity and standards of practice (research ethics)encompassing authorship, ownership and sharing of data, and management of research groups. The course was first offered in the autumn of 2010, then again in autumn 2011 and autumn 2012. After each of the first two, we sought to take advantage of what was learned in the previous course. After the 2012 course, we concentrated on articulating the knowledge we gained from all three offerings and on disseminating that knowledge for broad impact. We had learned about pedagogy and about framing the intellectual challenges as well. In addition, for each course offering, there were three independent, outside reviewers a scientist, an engineer, and a philosopher. Each course brought together students from a range of disciplines to read and discuss writings by philosophers, historians, science studies scholars, scientists, and engineers. The faculty consisted of an ethics specialist, two philosophers of science, an academic scientist, and an academic biomedical engineer. Pairs of students volunteered or were assigned to lead off discussion of the week’s readings through week 9 of a 14 week semester. Interspersed in the first nine weeks, students gave short presentations of their own work and answered questions from their fellow students. Later students presented the research of their partner to the class as a way to demonstrate their mastery of their partner’s research. By this point, the collaboration was in process. Students brainstormed their topic, did their research (including pertinent literature), presented and reviewed drafts in class, and completed the research project for presentation during the last class as if they were presenting their reports at a scholarly conference. Students came away with a deeper understanding of their own discipline and the process of collaboration.
