title: Ethical relationships between science and society: Understanding the social responsibility of scientists

authors: Small, Bruce Harris

subjects: Ethics

abstract: The wider social responsibility of scientists has received theoretical discussion but little previous empirical research. To elucidate the construct, this thesis investigated scientists’ attitudes, values and beliefs about social responsibility, with a focus on Promethean gene technologies. The thesis articulates a framework for the construct domain and develops and validates a set of new measures related to scientific social responsibility. Five technology fuelled, social and ecological, existential threats to Earth are identified, establishing the need for an increased ethic of social responsibility for the scientific endeavour and scientists in an age of Promethean technologies. The power of developing gene technologies and their social and moral implications are examined, followed by a discussion of relevant normative, meta-ethical and applied ethics theories. Next, Kohlberg’s (1969) cognitive moral development theory, Rest’s (1979) theory of moral behaviour, and Schwartz’s (1992) theory of personal value orientation are discussed as a psychological context for scientific social responsibility. The few empirical studies addressing the issue are reviewed. Original empirical contributions are presented in two studies. Study 1 is an explorative, qualitative research project using face-to-face, in-depth, unstructured interviews to investigate a purposive sample of scientists’ (N = 22) beliefs about the social role of science, and scientists, in research and technology development. The participants all worked in the field of genetic engineering, or studied its social or ecological impacts. From a data-driven, manifest, thematic analysis, three themes emerged, each with several sub-themes: doing public good (sub-themes: benefit/harm, knowledge, technologies, and foresight); engagement (sub-themes: informing society, becoming informed, and integrity) and; compliance (sub-themes: scientific norms, business norms, laws and regulations, societal mores, and personal values). A theoretically-driven, latent, thematic analysis, examined the normative and meta-ethical reasoning underlying participants’ manifest positions. Evidence was found for normative ethical reasoning (i.e., deontological, teleological and virtue ethics) and a range of meta-ethical approaches (i.e., ethical relativism, conventionalism, objectivism, moral absolutism, subjectivism, emotivism, and cultural relativism). From Study 1 items were proposed for two measures of social responsibility based on the first two stages of Rest’s model of moral behaviour. Study 2, a quantitative survey of scientists from six New Zealand Crown Research Institutes (N = 733, 40.9% female), used a nomological network of 39 hypothesised directional relationships (correlations) to help infer construct validity to five new instruments related to social responsibility: moral awareness, moral judgement regarding personal behaviour, technological optimism, attitude to the commercialisation of science, and attitude to the democratisation of science. Five existing instruments also comprised the nomological network: the four Schwartz higher-order value dimensions and a concurrent criterion, general attitude to genetic engineering. Exploratory factor analysis was used to select items for single factor instruments and confirmatory factor analysis to purify the instruments’ dimensionality, followed by reliability analyses. Four new instruments demonstrated good psychometric properties. Twenty-seven of 39 hypothesised correlations were significant in the right direction (at the Bonferroni adjusted p < .001 level), providing initial support for the new instruments’ construct validities and study results regarding participants’ attitudes, beliefs and values towards conducting socially responsible Promethean science.

text: Ethical relationships between science and society: Understanding the social responsibility of scientists The wider social responsibility of scientists has received theoretical discussion but little previous empirical research. To elucidate the construct, this thesis investigated scientists’ attitudes, values and beliefs about social responsibility, with a focus on Promethean gene technologies. The thesis articulates a framework for the construct domain and develops and validates a set of new measures related to scientific social responsibility. Five technology fuelled, social and ecological, existential threats to Earth are identified, establishing the need for an increased ethic of social responsibility for the scientific endeavour and scientists in an age of Promethean technologies. The power of developing gene technologies and their social and moral implications are examined, followed by a discussion of relevant normative, meta-ethical and applied ethics theories. Next, Kohlberg’s (1969) cognitive moral development theory, Rest’s (1979) theory of moral behaviour, and Schwartz’s (1992) theory of personal value orientation are discussed as a psychological context for scientific social responsibility. The few empirical studies addressing the issue are reviewed. Original empirical contributions are presented in two studies. Study 1 is an explorative, qualitative research project using face-to-face, in-depth, unstructured interviews to investigate a purposive sample of scientists’ (N = 22) beliefs about the social role of science, and scientists, in research and technology development. The participants all worked in the field of genetic engineering, or studied its social or ecological impacts. From a data-driven, manifest, thematic analysis, three themes emerged, each with several sub-themes: doing public good (sub-themes: benefit/harm, knowledge, technologies, and foresight); engagement (sub-themes: informing society, becoming informed, and integrity) and; compliance (sub-themes: scientific norms, business norms, laws and regulations, societal mores, and personal values). A theoretically-driven, latent, thematic analysis, examined the normative and meta-ethical reasoning underlying participants’ manifest positions. Evidence was found for normative ethical reasoning (i.e., deontological, teleological and virtue ethics) and a range of meta-ethical approaches (i.e., ethical relativism, conventionalism, objectivism, moral absolutism, subjectivism, emotivism, and cultural relativism). From Study 1 items were proposed for two measures of social responsibility based on the first two stages of Rest’s model of moral behaviour. Study 2, a quantitative survey of scientists from six New Zealand Crown Research Institutes (N = 733, 40.9% female), used a nomological network of 39 hypothesised directional relationships (correlations) to help infer construct validity to five new instruments related to social responsibility: moral awareness, moral judgement regarding personal behaviour, technological optimism, attitude to the commercialisation of science, and attitude to the democratisation of science. Five existing instruments also comprised the nomological network: the four Schwartz higher-order value dimensions and a concurrent criterion, general attitude to genetic engineering. Exploratory factor analysis was used to select items for single factor instruments and confirmatory factor analysis to purify the instruments’ dimensionality, followed by reliability analyses. Four new instruments demonstrated good psychometric properties. Twenty-seven of 39 hypothesised correlations were significant in the right direction (at the Bonferroni adjusted p < .001 level), providing initial support for the new instruments’ construct validities and study results regarding participants’ attitudes, beliefs and values towards conducting socially responsible Promethean science.

year: 2011

title: Biomedicals from Bone

authors: Mucalo, Michael R.

subjects: chemistry

abstract: The realm of biomaterials, under which biomedical materials can be categorised, has a broad deﬁnition base and recognises materials that are synthesized or naturally sourced. Biomaterials are normally those that come into contact with live tissue and physiological ﬂuids. They have applications as prostheses to replace lost function of joints or to replace bone tissue, for diagnosing medical conditions, as a form of therapy, or as a storage unit. The diversity and scope of biomaterials science research, and especially its application to the improvement of trauma, disease, and congenital defects in the human condition, are making this branch of science increasingly dominant and topical in many countries. An exciting aspect is that such research is interdisciplinary. The varied problems of the human condition that biomaterials research addresses occupy the efforts not only of medical doctors who act as the end users of such technology, but also those of chemists, physicists, engineers, and biologists in creating the technological advances. Chemistry, in particular, plays a major role in such research, after all it is the foundation stone on which biomaterials polymer science and biomedical scaffold materials are built.

text: Biomedicals from Bone The realm of biomaterials, under which biomedical materials can be categorised, has a broad deﬁnition base and recognises materials that are synthesized or naturally sourced. Biomaterials are normally those that come into contact with live tissue and physiological ﬂuids. They have applications as prostheses to replace lost function of joints or to replace bone tissue, for diagnosing medical conditions, as a form of therapy, or as a storage unit. The diversity and scope of biomaterials science research, and especially its application to the improvement of trauma, disease, and congenital defects in the human condition, are making this branch of science increasingly dominant and topical in many countries. An exciting aspect is that such research is interdisciplinary. The varied problems of the human condition that biomaterials research addresses occupy the efforts not only of medical doctors who act as the end users of such technology, but also those of chemists, physicists, engineers, and biologists in creating the technological advances. Chemistry, in particular, plays a major role in such research, after all it is the foundation stone on which biomaterials polymer science and biomedical scaffold materials are built.

year: 2008

title: 'Kōrero Tuku Iho': Reconfiguring Oral History and Oral Tradition

authors: Mahuika, Nepia

subjects: History

abstract: The studies of oral history and oral tradition each have their own distinctive bodies of literature and preferred methodologies, yet share significant overlaps that make them difficult to differentiate. For many indigenous peoples, oral histories and traditions are key to their their past, present, and future lives, and are rarely considered separate. This thesis examines the differences and similarities between the studies of oral history and oral tradition. It explores how these areas of research converge and diverge in form, politics, practice, and theory, and the extent to which they resonate within a specific ‘indigenous’ context and community.
The thesis draws on the life narrative interviews of four generations of Ngāti Porou descendents, the second largest tribal group in New Zealand, whose home boundaries extend from Potikirua in the north to Te Toka-a-Taiau in the south on the East Coast of the North Island. Drawing on these voices, this study offers a commentary on the form and nature of oral traditions and histories from an indigenous perspective, and explores the ways they converge and depart from ‘international’ understandings. An exploration of these intersections offers insights to the ways oral history and oral traditions might be reconsidered as distinctive fields of study. Reconfigured through an indigenous frame of reference, this thesis challenges scholars of both oral history and oral tradition to expand their conceptions. Likewise, it urges indigenous scholars to consider more deeply the work of oral historians and oral traditionalists to further enhance their scholarship. Moreover, this thesis revisits the intellectual and conceptual territory that names and claims oral history and oral tradition, and invites all those who work in these areas to develop a more extensive comprehension of the interconnections that exist between each area of study.

text: 'Kōrero Tuku Iho': Reconfiguring Oral History and Oral Tradition The studies of oral history and oral tradition each have their own distinctive bodies of literature and preferred methodologies, yet share significant overlaps that make them difficult to differentiate. For many indigenous peoples, oral histories and traditions are key to their their past, present, and future lives, and are rarely considered separate. This thesis examines the differences and similarities between the studies of oral history and oral tradition. It explores how these areas of research converge and diverge in form, politics, practice, and theory, and the extent to which they resonate within a specific ‘indigenous’ context and community.
The thesis draws on the life narrative interviews of four generations of Ngāti Porou descendents, the second largest tribal group in New Zealand, whose home boundaries extend from Potikirua in the north to Te Toka-a-Taiau in the south on the East Coast of the North Island. Drawing on these voices, this study offers a commentary on the form and nature of oral traditions and histories from an indigenous perspective, and explores the ways they converge and depart from ‘international’ understandings. An exploration of these intersections offers insights to the ways oral history and oral traditions might be reconsidered as distinctive fields of study. Reconfigured through an indigenous frame of reference, this thesis challenges scholars of both oral history and oral tradition to expand their conceptions. Likewise, it urges indigenous scholars to consider more deeply the work of oral historians and oral traditionalists to further enhance their scholarship. Moreover, this thesis revisits the intellectual and conceptual territory that names and claims oral history and oral tradition, and invites all those who work in these areas to develop a more extensive comprehension of the interconnections that exist between each area of study.

year: 2012