Learning ethics in biology

Tree

Is ethics something that comes up much during undergraduate or postgraduate training?

I don't remember doing much as part of my undergrad, as part of my masters it was a single lecture in some immunology course, though as part of my PhD i had the option on taking two ethics modules (optional naturally, and one was hardcore phillosophy).

There seems to be a school of thought that says ethics is surely commonsense, but then why do so many unethical experiments exist, why would there be a need for an ethics review board or the many bioethicists there are in the world.

It's definitely something practising scientists seem to ignore until it's time for paperwork to be done. Is there something tha could be done to have it more to the fore of people's minds?

CramCycle

Its something that comes up quite a bit in my lab, and there is a concerted effort to reduce the use and need for animals.

I know the ethics module is now mandatory in several institutes or at least the introduction to research module contains an ethics section.

For animal work you generally have to get LAST or TEARAP, which again, I believe contains an ethics section. This is then reinforced by the ethics committee where you have to explain your reasonings and experimental designs.

I do know that some researchers do go to countries where the ethics are looser to get around things but that is very rare here AFAIK.

sillysmiles

I think it depends on your area of research. If you work with animals or patients then ethics is a huge section of your time. If you are more of a basic biologist looking at more fundamental questions then is there a need for that person to spend a huge amount of time dealing with ethics?

CramCycle

sillysmiles wrote: »

I think it depends on your area of research. If you work with animals or patients then ethics is a huge section of your time. If you are more of a basic biologist looking at more fundamental questions then is there a need for that person to spend a huge amount of time dealing with ethics?

The ethics are different in that the main concern is the validity of your work, deleting outliers, justifications for such behaviour, viability of raw data.

I have heard of it over the years with people faking data, making replicates out of one result, deleting outliers that might lower the R value of their data or lower the confidence in the result. I have heard of PhDs being withdrawn and funding being pulled.

I have seen papers from Nature protocols which are not reproducible, is it unethical or is it just poor writing (missing details etc.), I have seen PhDs treating one off results as undeniable fact.

Ethics is a huge field, I presume, like you, the OP is relating to human and animal trials but it is not limited to just that area.

sillysmiles

CramCycle wrote: »

The ethics are different in that the main concern is the validity of your work, deleting outliers, justifications for such behaviour, viability of raw data.

To me, that would be more to do with scientific intregrity. And yes, that is somethings that probably should be discussed but like personal intergrity, is probably not trainable to a greater extent. I think most people inheritently know what is wrong/right. Some people just don't care.

CramCycle

sillysmiles wrote: »

To me, that would be more to do with scientific intregrity. And yes, that is somethings that probably should be discussed but like personal intergrity, is probably not trainable to a greater extent. I think most people inheritently know what is wrong/right. Some people just don't care.

True, although I do think it is trainable/learnable. When I started off in science, I would have made errors without thinking, just explained it away and made no notes. Just deleted, end of. Experience and education alongside training have shown me the errors of my way.

I do think it needs to be drilled in earlier, we would certainly save alot more time on a typical PhD student or lab analyst training if it was drilled in better at undergraduate level.

sillysmiles

Having supervised some undergraduate students recently, I would be happy if basic maths and calculations was drilled into them.
But the shocking reality of the number of undergrads who don't take notes when being trained, and don't write down what they did is harder to take. When alot can't be trusted to use a pippette correctly, ethics and scientific intergrity is a way off.

I sound like I'm disagreeing with you, and in truth I'm not really. I do think these things are very important, but I think the basics aren't being covered for some at the moment, so hitter the higher notes, is a bit harder. I haven't encountered a student in the last number of years that I haven't had to stand over and comb through the raw data with them, so in my experience they learn the management of raw data and the rights and wrongs of that on a daily basis.

CramCycle

sillysmiles wrote: »

Having supervised some undergraduate students recently, I would be happy if basic maths and calculations was drilled into them.
But the shocking reality of the number of undergrads who don't take notes when being trained, and don't write down what they did is harder to take. When alot can't be trusted to use a pippette correctly, ethics and scientific intergrity is a way off.

I sound like I'm disagreeing with you, and in truth I'm not really. I do think these things are very important, but I think the basics aren't being covered for some at the moment, so hitter the higher notes, is a bit harder. I haven't encountered a student in the last number of years that I haven't had to stand over and comb through the raw data with them, so in my experience they learn the management of raw data and the rights and wrongs of that on a daily basis.

100% agree, met a 3rd year Chem PhD who couldn't do molarity calculations, 4th Year Biochems who could not use a pipette correctly and when I went to show them they disagreed. Several where basic math was beyond them.

I think it is as much to do with course layout as it is to do with the get everyone into college attitude.

The modular system being a horrendous failure to the sciences from what I can see.

I see courses in 4th year that should have been given in 2nd or 1st year, to get the basics in there. It is odd.

Ethics and scientific integrity are important but there needs to be some serious rejigging across the board first.

GLaDOS

I had an ethics module in 3rd year of my undergraduate.

Haven't done much on it in my PhD other than the usual don't falsify data etc.

Tree

I was referring to ethics more broadly than just "don't lock babies in a cage for doubleblind studies". The idea that science may be politically motivated, that being flippant about reproducibilty, misrepresenting research in order ot get grants. Much of the ethics you encounter are narrowly biomedical, rather than stepping back and looking at the whole of how science is carried out (damn, lads, that philosophy module was amazing)

CramCycle

I would imagine it exists, blatently obvious when you try and reproduce data, or the data from a cell line is not found to be the same across two different labs, you ask them for a sample and you get a mycoplasm infected mess. Then when you point it out, they refuse to engage and they get away with a paper that is not actually useful to the future of research.

Inventing results to get your data across the statistical threshold that you expected.

I have no doubt postdocs have misrepresented data to get grants