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CEV 2ESO - 12 Challenges for science - Contenido educativo
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Challenges for science
In this unit we will talk about science, technology and ethics, and we will refer
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especially to medicine and the moral challenges that it implies. Science and
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technology are two different areas. Science tries to understand how the
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world is. That's for example what physicists do when they try to explain
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why the Sun shines. Technology, on the other hand, tries to invent machines,
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objects that help us, for example when engineers invent a new car. Nowadays
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science and technology are together, so we talk about technoscience. For example
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that's what happens in medicine. Medicine today has evolved so much that it has
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created a new area of research called biomedicine. That's the use of live cells
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for scientific and technological purposes. But not everything that we can
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do in science and technology is positive and good. That's why we must establish
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limits to what scientists and engineers can do. Let me give you an example.
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Imagine a doctor has invented a new medicine and wants to try it on his
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patients, so he uses it without informing them. Of course this is unethical,
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immoral, this shouldn't be ever done, this should be forbidden. That's why we must
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establish limits. And when I talk about limits I refer to both legal limits and
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moral limits. Legal limits imply that we should pass a legislation that
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determines what is forbidden, what kind of actions must never be done in science
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and technology, so that we can punish people who break this law. But there must
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also be moral limits, meaning that every individual should be aware of what is
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correct and incorrect, and should stop doing what is morally incorrect. One very
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interesting case that shows us the connection between science, technology
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and ethics is a moral dilemma. A moral dilemma is a difficult situation when we
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have to decide between two possible options. Both options are difficult, both
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options have disadvantages, so it's not easy to decide what is the best thing to
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do. Let me give you an example taken again from medicine. Imagine we have a
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patient that's very ill because he's suffering a strange disease. If we don't
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do anything he may die. So the doctors are trying a new surgery with him. They
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have invented a new procedure, they can try to operate this patient, but there is
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a high risk that the patient dies in the operation. Should the doctors operate him?
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Or not? If we don't operate the patient, he might die because of the disease. If
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we operate him, he might also die because of the operation. So it's tricky, it's not
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easy to decide what is the best option. What would you do? Here is where medical
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ethics can help us. Medical ethics tries to give us some clues in order to decide
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what's the best thing to do in cases like this. Medical ethics is based on
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four basic principles. The principle of autonomy, the principle of beneficence, the
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principle of non-maleficence, and the principle of justice. The principle of
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autonomy means that the patient has to approve, to accept, to give permission to
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all the things doctors are doing there. The principle of beneficence means that
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everything doctors do must be used to help the patient. The principle of
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non-maleficence means that doctors should never do anything that could harm
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the patient. We must avoid harm. And the fourth principle, the principle of
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justice, means that we must treat all patients fairly and also treat each
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individual case separately, taking into account the peculiar circumstances of
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every individual. Biology and medicine are two fascinating areas of research,
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but they also raise important ethical questions. Some of the most difficult and
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interesting ethical issues raised by biomedicine are those that are linked
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with assisted reproduction, stem cells, cloning, and eugenics. Assisted
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reproduction has helped many infertile couples to have children, but
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it has also produced a lot of spare fertilized eggs. In order to improve the
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chances of a pregnancy, a lot of eggs are fertilized in an assisted
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reproduction process. Those which are not used are stored, frozen, and nobody
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knows what to do with them. The problem is that these eggs can potentially
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develop and create a human being. So what should we do with them? Is it correct to
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destroy them? Is it correct to use them in order to do scientific research? Is it
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correct to keep them frozen, stored in a building, forever? So that's a difficult
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and tricky ethical debate. Stem cells are cells that are found in embryos and that
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can transform into different types of cells, for example muscle cells or nerve
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cells. So they are very useful and scientists are very interested in getting
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to know more about them because they could potentially be used to produce
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different tissues and eventually create organs that can be used to cure diseases.
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The problem is that these stem cells that come from embryos produce a debate,
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an ethical debate. Is it morally correct to use an embryo to take stem cells from
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them and later use these cells to cure another person? The problem comes because
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the embryo can potentially be transformed into a person. So if we
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destroy the embryo to use the stem cells, we are stopping this natural development
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that makes the embryo into a person. Nevertheless, today scientists can also
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produce stem cells with different ways, not using embryos, so that can be somehow
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solved. Cloning is a technique that is used to reproduce exact copies of an
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organism. Cloning has been used to produce identical copies of animals like
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the famous dolly sheep and some people fear that if we continue our research
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with cloning, scientists might eventually produce human clones. Creating an
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identical copy of a human being raises tremendous ethical issues. It is a big
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big problem. So some people are very afraid of this and they think
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that cloning, human cloning, should be totally forbidden. Nevertheless, some
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scientists think that cloning can also be used to produce organs and tissues
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that could help us to cure diseases that today cannot be treated. So they talk
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about therapeutic cloning. Therapeutic cloning is different to human cloning
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because the idea in therapeutic cloning is to use cloning techniques to cure
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diseases, not to create copies of human beings, and it's important that you make
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this difference and you understand it properly.
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Finally, let's talk about eugenics. Eugenics is a technique used to select
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organisms in order to improve the species. So the basic idea consists in
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encouraging the reproduction of some organisms that are considered superior
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and to make difficult or stop the reproduction of organisms that are
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called inferior in order to improve the race. This is exactly what the Nazis did.
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The Nazis used these two types of eugenics, what we call positive and
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negative eugenics. Positive eugenics means encouraging people, in this case,
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that were considered genetically superior or racially superior to have a
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lot of children. And negative eugenics is about making as much as possible to stop
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people who were considered inferior from reproducing, as you know what the Nazis
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did was to kill a lot of people that were considered racially inferior and
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also to sterilize people they didn't want to reproduce, for example, people
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that were mentally ill. Of course, today we think about these practices as highly
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unethical, immoral and unacceptable because they violate human rights.
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Nevertheless, some people are afraid that a new type of eugenics might develop in
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the future. For example, if we develop genetic engineering and in the future is
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possible to decide the traits of your children. Imagine that in a few decades
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biomedicine has developed so much that we can offer our parents to create
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children with their traits, the characteristics that they prefer.
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This could be done selecting the embryos, selecting the engineering that
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can make them, for example, tall or blond or intelligent or with blue eyes. What
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kind of world would we live in if this was possible? There would be some
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children that have been selected or designed by their parents, while there
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would be other children that were born like you and me. So wouldn't it be a
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world where naturally born children would be discriminated? It would probably
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lead to a society that is hierarchically divided into superior people, so people
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that were engineered, and inferior people, people that were born naturally. So a lot
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of people are scared about that and they think cloning should be also
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regulated and some practices forbidden in order to stop the darkest side of
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this kind of research.
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- Idioma/s:
- Autor/es:
- César Prestel
- Subido por:
- César Pedro P.
- Licencia:
- Reconocimiento - No comercial - Compartir igual
- Visualizaciones:
- 27
- Fecha:
- 21 de julio de 2023 - 12:16
- Visibilidad:
- Público
- Centro:
- IES CERVANTES
- Duración:
- 11′ 39″
- Relación de aspecto:
- 1.78:1
- Resolución:
- 1280x720 píxeles
- Tamaño:
- 597.78 MBytes
