Based on some recent intense and precipitous conversations with various members of the department, I have decided to develop and teach a seminar in our department on bioethics. I wanted to share this for several reasons- 1) it is something I am suddenly thinking about a LOT, bigger 2) I chose to do this as a way of nucleating a new career path for myself. My teaching experience in the fall was very valuable, but got me thinking that I might not actually enjoy teaching in a classroom. But I enjoy being around people who learn things. The latest idea I have been toying with is to get involved in science policy making. Keep that in mind as I get back to point 1.
Last week, there was a seminar by an invited ethicist that I really enjoyed. She confirmed for me the idea that if scientists fail to engage the public in dialogue about the impacts of advances in technology, it will inevitably be mis-understood and legislation created to prevent/hinder it. Case in point- stem cells. I have long felt that there is a lot of mis-informed policy regarding science, and that this could largely be overcome if we had a more science literate public, which we can only get if scientists can be willing to talk about science at a level the public would enjoy. (How you get employed to make this happen is something I am still working on) The undergrads I work with felt very strongly after this seminar that the ethical ramifications and justifications of their research is something they should be talking about, and weren't. I figured, this is something I am interested in, would be good for me to get experience with and would be of value to a lot of people- I should lead this seminar.
So I sat down and wrote out a syllabus. This has been passed around to a few various faculty with lots of feedback and support... long story short, I am planning to get on the course schedule for Fall of 2010. In the meantime, I'll have time to gather materials and pilot units with a group of undergraduate fellows, so maybe by the time 2010 rolls around I'll be prepared to lead some contentious debate.
I am starting to get over giddy excitement and feel a bit of anxiety. I didn't really think I would make it this far without someone saying "that is ridiculous, no grad student in our department has ever proposed and taught their own class!" or "preposterous, you have almost no teaching experience!" or even "don't you have research you ought to get back to?" But no one has said that. Everyone has been universally supportive of this idea- faculty have proposed such a class be taught, but no one wanted to step up and do it. I have received lots of materials and ideas, and a lot of suggestions to make the course into something I am way less interested in teaching. In the meantime I am sifting through ideas of topics, formats and content that would be of interest to ~15 biology majors from a not exclusively medical standpoint, and of value to the community at large.
I need your help! If you happen to run across any good articles that you think might be of interest, I am on the look out for case studies to use in class. I am also really interested to know what kinds of things non-biologists would like biologists to start thinking about (personal genomics, a new food pyramid, defining Theory for the public?), since I am in a unique position to jump start the dialogue in the department. THANKS!
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4 comments:
I'm not sure if It's totally salient, but I'll say it anyway: I've always been a big fan of the "Smart Horse Problem".
It goes like this. A dumb horse and a smart horse are walking around in a field when the smart horse realizes that if they continue to graze too fast, they will wear out the field and starve in winter. He tries to explain this to the dumb horse, but the dumb horse doesn't get it and refuses to change. So the smart horse has the following choices:
1) Change nothing and they both die
2) Be self-sacrificial and leave the whole field to the dumb horse
3) FORCE the dumb horse to graze less and save both of them
This shows up a lot in environmental debates and, in the very extreme, environmental terrorism. If you really believe that climate change will *destroy the world*, what should you do about it? Will you try to educate the dumb horse? What do you do when the public doesn't listen? What are a few destroyed oil tankers in the face of the destruction of the world?
-N
Gee, I get to argue with the engineer about horses. My problem with your scenerio is that it poses a profound problem in the simplest of forms, especially presuming that there are just a few "logical" outcomes which create limited choices for discussion. It is patronizing in the extreme to assume that the dumb horse (the american consumer/chinese peasent/african tribal member..) is just too dumb to save himself from his own wanton consumption and the resource is clearly and absolutely limited. What is painful for me is seeing resources "rationed" by access to capital and all forms of "power" (financial/political/military) which means these decisions are made in a market in which not everyone has leverage. Sandlin is going to be looking at issues where pure intellectual pursuits which wander through unknown horizons of discovery will lead to demands and opportunities that simply are not understood beforehand. There will be costs, savings, winners and losers, strange trade-offs which will have proponents and doubters at many stages of development and no map, just a compass of ethical direction to guide our decisions as to which course to pursue. This will never be easy.
Yeah, I am with Dad there- the Smart Horse Problem is what gets scientists in trouble in the first place. Assuming the other horse (or American public) can't be brought to understand is pretty arrogant- especially since I don't really believe that anything we will discuss is to impossible to understand on at least a basic level. If the smart horse is so damn smart, he ought to spend the rest of the fall educating the 'dumb horse,' until they are ready to make the choice together. But I think this is a great example of the attitude that leaves scientists up a creek. If we treat everyone like the "Dumb Horse," we don't have the power for C, and get to waffle between A and B with a lot of moaning in between. There has got to be a better way.
Well if I must defend myself, and it seems I must, I view the applicability of the metaphor to be a less interesting question. Of course it's a better idea to educate, but that's not the tough part of the question. If you accept the restrictive tenants of the situation, you're left with a very concentrated moral problem. That's the interesting part.
-N
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