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Lieju — It's Science, Yay
Published: 2009-11-11 17:12:33 +0000 UTC; Views: 2341; Favourites: 19; Downloads: 37
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Science is about what things are and how they work. We can study what happens to a baby dropped from Big Ben, but the gravitational thery have nothing to say about how you should go and drop babies from bell-towers. Or that you should not do that.I think about these things a lot, and I'm somewhat bothered by the number of people who don't seem to think about moral issues or have proper reasons for their stances.
It's also why I like those crazy scientists in fiction who just focuse on science and ignore ethics. Sort of as an example of what I could end up if I didn't think about these things. I'm not talking about going completely nutty and running around killing people for science, usually moral issues are a lot more unclear, and for example I have to continuously rethink my position on animal-testing.
As far as ethics go, I'm a secular humanist, BTW.
Pickle.
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Comments: 29
Sherry: science isn't everything!
William: ... Wait ... (midlife crisis sets in)
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This type of subject pops up a lot in The Island Of Doctor Moreau and Doctor Franklin's Island. Both very good books for this sort of controversy.
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I've never read 'Doctor Franklin's Island'.
It's been a long time since I read Doctor Moreau, but I do recall it being like this.
And a good book.
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Doctor Franklin's Island is the same concept as The Island of Doctor Moreau, only that teens are being experimented on by a mad scientist and must escape the island.
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I think this issue come up alot for ideas such as human cloning and genetic engineering. Which are some of the most complex issues that science can bring to the ethics debate. We do have fields like sociology and psycology that help deal with this as well. But For cloning and human genetic engineering for example im not against either. Just what its used for. Cloning isn't bad unless you claim those people as property. Genetic engineering isn't bad unless its done with consent. And what will it be used for? These are my opinions, and I still believe there are no simple answers. But i believe it should be on a case by case basis. I think many scientists who are on the cutting edge of the moral boundry arn't imoral. What do you think?
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Neither of those things bring totally new issues, though.
Things like who is considered human and worthy of rights and consent are nothing new.
However, commercialization and how the information can be spread are also issues.
As for cloning, I think it's most useful applications are in growing organ transplants, and in cases where the original has died before even being born.
The issues I can think of in cloning humans lay in the expectations placed on the kids made that way. They aren't going to be the same person anyway, so they might suffer from always being compared to the 'original'. However, this is also an issue if you come from a talented family.
Also there are medical questions.
Can you be sure the child won't have health risks?
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waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Like the Dr. Josef Mengele! Crazy whistling doctor.... Ethics? Morals? He doesn't need them! Obviously Jews aren't human! [/joke]
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Ah, yes, Mengele's case is a very interesting one. Of course, ethical problems aren't usually that clear, but as far as mad scientists in real life go, he is a good example.
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Indeed, indeed.
Too bad we never quite caught him.
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I do love science, but there is some things I cant let get in the way of my morals
Wow, killing for science. It seems religion isnt the only slice of fudge with nutts
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My point was that science is a method for finding out stuff. It has nothing to say about morality, and values of things.
Of course humans don't practise science in a vacuum with out any, well, humans. We all have values influenced by our instincts and upbringing and knowledge.
The thing is, "nuttyness" (or immorality) might not as clear as "I will now go and kill that person over there because my holy book tells me to/I want to study her spleen" There are all kinds of shades of grey.
But yeah, there are some nutty people out there. I think over exaggerating things like that in fiction can be a good way to examine these issues.
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"My point was that science is a method for finding out stuff. It has nothing to say about morality, and values of things."
I'm afraid I must disagree. Science does have at least something to say about morality. For example, in biology, those creatures that live in social groups (dolphins, ants, humans, etc.) are the most successful. Therefore, any animal that demonstrates behaviors that put the group's cohesion at risk (murdering, stealing, physically harming others for no reason, etc.) would not survive as long. Therefore, social creatures with a system of morals would survive longer.
In the case of Josef Mengele, I would argue that his views on the Jews that he put to death were not caused by science or scientific reasoning, but by cultural mores that he grew up with. He may have tried to rationalize his grossly inaccurate conclusions about Jews scientifically (i.e. they're not human for this and this reason), but that is not science. One does not use science to support conclusions, one uses science to form them.
Besides all that, one can use the scientific method to figure out morality as well. The problem is, since our social world is so complex, the results are usually not conclusive. You example of animal testing is an excellent example of this.
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I disagree. You can't get from "this is how things are" to "this is how things should be" directly, without making a judgement of values.
Science can tell you what kind of stategies have proven successfull, but you are stating that this is good. You are saying that surviving longer would be good.
How do you measure success? I agree that creatures that work together can achieve things they wouldn't alone, but that is just a one strategy to survival. Non-social species, or species that tolerate each other but don't have morality in any clear sense manage to survive and thrive. Besides, I don't think you can directly compare ants with humans or dolphins. Ants don't have individuals in the same sense that those creatures do, and their social structures are different, with different types of specialised groups.
We can use science to get the information we need to judge what we should do to achieve the results we want, but science can't tell us what results we should try to get.
However, I agree that in Mengele's case it was not science that made him kill, rather he had some other reasons for it, and his experiments were rather a perversion of science and a tool for him to use his power and satisfy his sadism.
My English is bad today...
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"We can use science to get the information we need to judge what we should do to achieve the results we want, but science can't tell us what results we should try to get."
Now that I think about it, you do make an excellent point. Even if we use "behaviors that support the greatest group cohesion," or something like that, as a metric for an ideal moral system, we'd still have a great many to choose from. Within our own species, we have a massive array of moral systems, all successful to some degree, but with values at times diametrically opposed to others. Who is to say which is better? Would a moral system that supports monogamous relationships over polygamous ones be better? With science we can see which have succeeded in which situations, but would that make one better than the other? Maybe that moral choice would influence a different moral choice that we cannot foresee? Congratulations, Lieju, you have succeeded in persuading me...a little
And don't worry! You're English is excellent, as far as I'm concerned.
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You feel like stealing the books of others to read?
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well yeah sure I do...or even to write, sometimes... but that wasn't what I had in mind when I said that.
I had in mind the way my classmates and professors get so caught up in their research that they cannot see the real world beyond it, and do not care if it is pointless or good or evil, as long as it is fun and they are discovering new things.
and the reason it is so funny Is it is at the same time infinitely harmless, and potentially more dangerous than science, depending on how you look at it, but that was a very literature-student way to look at it; we layer up the meanings until they negate eachother.
I'm tired.
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It can be scary when people don't think enough of their stances in ethical questions or the effects of their actions.
But sometimes maybe you can think about things too much.
I'm tired too.
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I can almost always think about things too much.
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You lost me at "science isn't everything" Sherry's expression is totally priceless!!
And William's look in the third panel!
But you're right: science and ethics is a very complex matter.
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William strikes me a kind of person that doesn't set out to be evil, or even thinking that the end justifies the means. He just wants to know stuff, and doesn't care about those bothersome ethics.
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Yeah, he just wants to work on his G-Virus.
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Allthough I think he has some need to be recognized by others as their superior, as evidenced by that whole thing with Alexia, as well as his letter in Re2 where he is talking about getting to a better position in the company.
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