Science and Technology vs Professional Ethics

The path that scientists and doctors tread is not an easy one. They have to overcome difficulties and uncertainties in their careers. Firstly, a scientist has to follow the hint of natural phenomenon and discover a scientific theory from it while a doctor has to deal with bacteria, viruses and cells, killing them or manipulating them. Yet, apart from lack of capital and experimental materials, their voracious passion to discover and to explore is under the constraint of ethics.

What would you have done if you were in the shoes of a doctor who is asked to help a 65 year old woman or to help a comatose/severely deformed person die? This situation will undoubtedly place most people on the horns of dilemma. I probably will defy the decision for a simple reason: Let her or his life decided by fate. The approach is out of fatalism, rather than pragmatism. However, in the face of controversy of ethics, it seems more pragmatic to "give the patients' fate to the God".

Then what would you have done if you had worked with a scientist who breached professional ethics? As for this question, my response will depend on to what scale his action has broken professional ethics. Cloning has long deemed as an unethical activity by many ethical groups. But the argument succumbs to the prospect that human embryos are curative for terminal illness such as cancer.

In view of the repercussions of scientific research, scientists are expected to bear with some social responsibilities. For example, research done by a bio-chemical scientist should be transparent. Should an incident like leaking of poisonous chemical occurs, people are able to respond quickly.

New technology enables us to improve on nature. Scientists should be encouraged to go in pursuit of their goals while keeping to ethical and social responsibilities. This can be done with transparency in scientific research. As mentioned above, transparency allows public to monitor how far has the scientist gone in his field and give necessary curb before things get awry.