#ethical science

[brisingr-sword]

used to be afraid to stand up for what i believe in bc i was like… what if people treat me weird, do not trust me, do not let me be involved in the intellectual pursuits i am interested in because of my politics,

but then i watched oppenheimer and learned how that man distanced himself from his politics for his career and so he could do something horrific and just… i don’t want to be that. i don’t want to let myself lose my conscience, my knowledge of what is right and wrong just because i really like physics and engineering.

it’s BAD to be a physicist, to be an engineer, to be whatever without being true to what you know is right and what is wrong, because that is exactly what leads to superweapons and cold wars and watching your creations be responsible for death. science and engineering is not meant to be used for death, it should be used to expand our knowledge of the world, to help people, to feed that natural curiosity of ours.

i never want to lose sight of that.

[justagirlnamedvic]

My Favourite Book

I need to talk about the book I fell in love with when I was fourteen. 

(I cannot take artsy book/bookshelf photos at all. Please forgive me) 

I found House of The Scorpion by Nancy Farmer in my class library when I was in the eighth grade. The copy I first read was a hardcover that was missing its jacket, so I couldn’t actually read the book’s synopsis, only the reviews of it, which sounded positive. I took a chance and gave it a read. 

This book takes place about one hundred years in the future and follows the story of Matt, a young boy growing up in a strange country called Opium, which lies between the United States and Mexico. 

At a very young age, Matt learns that he is the clone of a wealthy drug lord named El Patron, who is well over a hundred years old. El Patron treats Matt like his own child, giving him expensive gifts and private education. Matt also has a nanny and a male bodyguard, the closest things he would ever have to real parents. In addition, the young daughter of a United States senator who frequently visits the mansion in Opium befriends Matt. 

Despite this, the other members of El Patron’s family despise Matt and treat him like a wild animal due to the fact that he is a clone, and thus not really human.

Matt begins to learn about the sinister things going on in secret around his idyllic home, such as the slaves who work in the opium fields. They are Mexican immigrants who tried to enter the US, but were stopped, had computer chips implanted in their brains, and turned into servants. 

Also, Matt learns about what happens to other clones like him, clones of other wealthy men. As he struggles to understand the nature of his own life, Matt runs away to Mexico to escape the horror of what his life has become. There, he makes new friends, and upon returning to Opium, learns that El Patron has died and Matt has inherited his entire fortune and estate. 

I loved this book because it discusses things like human rights and dignity, immigration, ethical science, politics, freedom, and economics, all from the perspective of a child growing up in this environment, struggling to understand these topics. Although Matt may be too young to comprehend these things, the reader is made aware of these issues. 

This book was interesting, well-written, funny, and heart-warming. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction and coming-of-age stories. 

[melyzard]

Danger, AI Scientist, Danger

While I finish up the weekly for tomorrow morning after my trip, here’s a section I expect to want to link back to every so often in the fut

[putyouinabook]

PUBLIC COMMENTS NEEDED

On August 4, 2016 the NIH announced that it plans to lift its moratorium on funding research that involves injecting human embryonic stem cells into animal embryos thus creating part-human and part-animal organisms known as chimeras. This means that, for the first time, the Federal government will begin spending taxpayer dollars on the creation and manipulation of new beings whose very existence blurs the line between humans and non-human animals.

Please be aware of this and make your voice heard on this issue. Comments from the public are being accepted until 11:59pm tonight (Sept. 6th). The Human Life Action page has a link you can follow to comment, and a small script if you’re like me and don’t know exactly what to say. 

[cerebellarium]

The author has an ethical responsibility to prevent unsubstantiated interpretations from appearing as truths.

Cronbach, L. J., & Meehl, P. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychological Bulletin, 52, 4, 281-302.

[silusime]

[incisiveredneck]

The answer to that ethical dilemma, as deemed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is a resounding yes. "The biggest concern was privacy," Jeri Lacks Whye, Henrietta Lacks' granddaughter, tells the NYT."What information was actually going to be out there about our grandmother, and what information they can obtain from her sequencing that will tell them about her children and grandchildren and going down the line." Under the landmark agreement, Lacks' descendants will be consulted when biomedical researchers request access to the HeLa genome, which will be stored in an NIH-controlled database. According to the New York Times, the Lacks' family won't benefit financially from the arrangement, and have already consented to at least one study.

I don't think it should come as a surprise to anyone to hear that Lacks was African-American, and that the sample was taken without her consent. We owe her an immense debt of gratitude for the numerous studies her cells have contributed to, but even in death the use of her tissue samples should have had the blessing of her estate.

[nathaliehaha]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ETHICAL SCIENCE IS A GO