1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,840 In this unit we will talk about science, technology and ethics, and we will refer 2 00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:12,600 especially to medicine and the moral challenges that it implies. Science and 3 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:17,340 technology are two different areas. Science tries to understand how the 4 00:00:17,340 --> 00:00:23,040 world is. That's for example what physicists do when they try to explain 5 00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:28,600 why the Sun shines. Technology, on the other hand, tries to invent machines, 6 00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:34,680 objects that help us, for example when engineers invent a new car. Nowadays 7 00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:40,760 science and technology are together, so we talk about technoscience. For example 8 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:45,840 that's what happens in medicine. Medicine today has evolved so much that it has 9 00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:53,320 created a new area of research called biomedicine. That's the use of live cells 10 00:00:53,320 --> 00:01:00,280 for scientific and technological purposes. But not everything that we can 11 00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:05,920 do in science and technology is positive and good. That's why we must establish 12 00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:11,520 limits to what scientists and engineers can do. Let me give you an example. 13 00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:16,400 Imagine a doctor has invented a new medicine and wants to try it on his 14 00:01:16,400 --> 00:01:23,240 patients, so he uses it without informing them. Of course this is unethical, 15 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:29,520 immoral, this shouldn't be ever done, this should be forbidden. That's why we must 16 00:01:29,520 --> 00:01:35,480 establish limits. And when I talk about limits I refer to both legal limits and 17 00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:41,880 moral limits. Legal limits imply that we should pass a legislation that 18 00:01:41,920 --> 00:01:48,240 determines what is forbidden, what kind of actions must never be done in science 19 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:54,000 and technology, so that we can punish people who break this law. But there must 20 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:59,520 also be moral limits, meaning that every individual should be aware of what is 21 00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:08,600 correct and incorrect, and should stop doing what is morally incorrect. One very 22 00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:13,800 interesting case that shows us the connection between science, technology 23 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:21,160 and ethics is a moral dilemma. A moral dilemma is a difficult situation when we 24 00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:28,440 have to decide between two possible options. Both options are difficult, both 25 00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:33,920 options have disadvantages, so it's not easy to decide what is the best thing to 26 00:02:33,920 --> 00:02:39,120 do. Let me give you an example taken again from medicine. Imagine we have a 27 00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:44,600 patient that's very ill because he's suffering a strange disease. If we don't 28 00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:51,960 do anything he may die. So the doctors are trying a new surgery with him. They 29 00:02:51,960 --> 00:02:56,920 have invented a new procedure, they can try to operate this patient, but there is 30 00:02:56,920 --> 00:03:03,520 a high risk that the patient dies in the operation. Should the doctors operate him? 31 00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:09,680 Or not? If we don't operate the patient, he might die because of the disease. If 32 00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:14,840 we operate him, he might also die because of the operation. So it's tricky, it's not 33 00:03:14,840 --> 00:03:20,960 easy to decide what is the best option. What would you do? Here is where medical 34 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:29,600 ethics can help us. Medical ethics tries to give us some clues in order to decide 35 00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:35,960 what's the best thing to do in cases like this. Medical ethics is based on 36 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:42,720 four basic principles. The principle of autonomy, the principle of beneficence, the 37 00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:48,160 principle of non-maleficence, and the principle of justice. The principle of 38 00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:55,400 autonomy means that the patient has to approve, to accept, to give permission to 39 00:03:55,400 --> 00:04:01,040 all the things doctors are doing there. The principle of beneficence means that 40 00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:07,280 everything doctors do must be used to help the patient. The principle of 41 00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:12,720 non-maleficence means that doctors should never do anything that could harm 42 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:17,840 the patient. We must avoid harm. And the fourth principle, the principle of 43 00:04:17,840 --> 00:04:23,920 justice, means that we must treat all patients fairly and also treat each 44 00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:30,200 individual case separately, taking into account the peculiar circumstances of 45 00:04:30,200 --> 00:04:37,720 every individual. Biology and medicine are two fascinating areas of research, 46 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:44,520 but they also raise important ethical questions. Some of the most difficult and 47 00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:50,960 interesting ethical issues raised by biomedicine are those that are linked 48 00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:58,520 with assisted reproduction, stem cells, cloning, and eugenics. Assisted 49 00:04:58,520 --> 00:05:03,840 reproduction has helped many infertile couples to have children, but 50 00:05:03,840 --> 00:05:09,840 it has also produced a lot of spare fertilized eggs. In order to improve the 51 00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:15,000 chances of a pregnancy, a lot of eggs are fertilized in an assisted 52 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:22,080 reproduction process. Those which are not used are stored, frozen, and nobody 53 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:28,760 knows what to do with them. The problem is that these eggs can potentially 54 00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:34,760 develop and create a human being. So what should we do with them? Is it correct to 55 00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:41,280 destroy them? Is it correct to use them in order to do scientific research? Is it 56 00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:48,520 correct to keep them frozen, stored in a building, forever? So that's a difficult 57 00:05:48,520 --> 00:05:56,120 and tricky ethical debate. Stem cells are cells that are found in embryos and that 58 00:05:56,120 --> 00:06:02,760 can transform into different types of cells, for example muscle cells or nerve 59 00:06:02,760 --> 00:06:08,720 cells. So they are very useful and scientists are very interested in getting 60 00:06:08,840 --> 00:06:13,120 to know more about them because they could potentially be used to produce 61 00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:19,040 different tissues and eventually create organs that can be used to cure diseases. 62 00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:27,680 The problem is that these stem cells that come from embryos produce a debate, 63 00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:33,760 an ethical debate. Is it morally correct to use an embryo to take stem cells from 64 00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:40,320 them and later use these cells to cure another person? The problem comes because 65 00:06:40,320 --> 00:06:45,920 the embryo can potentially be transformed into a person. So if we 66 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:52,880 destroy the embryo to use the stem cells, we are stopping this natural development 67 00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:58,200 that makes the embryo into a person. Nevertheless, today scientists can also 68 00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:05,200 produce stem cells with different ways, not using embryos, so that can be somehow 69 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:17,640 solved. Cloning is a technique that is used to reproduce exact copies of an 70 00:07:17,640 --> 00:07:25,000 organism. Cloning has been used to produce identical copies of animals like 71 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:31,320 the famous dolly sheep and some people fear that if we continue our research 72 00:07:31,320 --> 00:07:38,960 with cloning, scientists might eventually produce human clones. Creating an 73 00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:46,400 identical copy of a human being raises tremendous ethical issues. It is a big 74 00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:52,720 big problem. So some people are very afraid of this and they think 75 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:59,600 that cloning, human cloning, should be totally forbidden. Nevertheless, some 76 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:05,760 scientists think that cloning can also be used to produce organs and tissues 77 00:08:05,760 --> 00:08:12,240 that could help us to cure diseases that today cannot be treated. So they talk 78 00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:17,680 about therapeutic cloning. Therapeutic cloning is different to human cloning 79 00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:22,960 because the idea in therapeutic cloning is to use cloning techniques to cure 80 00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:27,880 diseases, not to create copies of human beings, and it's important that you make 81 00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:31,080 this difference and you understand it properly. 82 00:08:31,080 --> 00:08:42,000 Finally, let's talk about eugenics. Eugenics is a technique used to select 83 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:51,520 organisms in order to improve the species. So the basic idea consists in 84 00:08:51,520 --> 00:08:57,040 encouraging the reproduction of some organisms that are considered superior 85 00:08:57,040 --> 00:09:04,920 and to make difficult or stop the reproduction of organisms that are 86 00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:11,760 called inferior in order to improve the race. This is exactly what the Nazis did. 87 00:09:11,840 --> 00:09:16,880 The Nazis used these two types of eugenics, what we call positive and 88 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:23,240 negative eugenics. Positive eugenics means encouraging people, in this case, 89 00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:29,680 that were considered genetically superior or racially superior to have a 90 00:09:29,680 --> 00:09:36,400 lot of children. And negative eugenics is about making as much as possible to stop 91 00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:41,520 people who were considered inferior from reproducing, as you know what the Nazis 92 00:09:41,520 --> 00:09:46,120 did was to kill a lot of people that were considered racially inferior and 93 00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:51,400 also to sterilize people they didn't want to reproduce, for example, people 94 00:09:51,400 --> 00:09:56,720 that were mentally ill. Of course, today we think about these practices as highly 95 00:09:56,720 --> 00:10:01,800 unethical, immoral and unacceptable because they violate human rights. 96 00:10:01,800 --> 00:10:07,920 Nevertheless, some people are afraid that a new type of eugenics might develop in 97 00:10:07,920 --> 00:10:15,560 the future. For example, if we develop genetic engineering and in the future is 98 00:10:15,560 --> 00:10:21,880 possible to decide the traits of your children. Imagine that in a few decades 99 00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:27,560 biomedicine has developed so much that we can offer our parents to create 100 00:10:27,560 --> 00:10:33,800 children with their traits, the characteristics that they prefer. 101 00:10:33,800 --> 00:10:39,920 This could be done selecting the embryos, selecting the engineering that 102 00:10:39,920 --> 00:10:47,200 can make them, for example, tall or blond or intelligent or with blue eyes. What 103 00:10:47,200 --> 00:10:52,800 kind of world would we live in if this was possible? There would be some 104 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:58,520 children that have been selected or designed by their parents, while there 105 00:10:58,520 --> 00:11:05,080 would be other children that were born like you and me. So wouldn't it be a 106 00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:11,440 world where naturally born children would be discriminated? It would probably 107 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:19,280 lead to a society that is hierarchically divided into superior people, so people 108 00:11:19,280 --> 00:11:25,640 that were engineered, and inferior people, people that were born naturally. So a lot 109 00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:29,400 of people are scared about that and they think cloning should be also 110 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:36,040 regulated and some practices forbidden in order to stop the darkest side of 111 00:11:36,040 --> 00:11:39,040 this kind of research.