Biological Ethics
Table of contents
Chapter 12. Ethics in science communication
J. M. Desantes-Guanter
In any branch of knowledge, the researcher scientific finds the last - logically and chronologically - deontological rules at the moment of publication or communication of the results of its work. These rules can be divided into three layers, which are to be applied in a supplementary manner according to their increasing generality:
a) Rules affecting the Biological Science whose research is to be communicated which, without contradicting the following rules, specify or modulate them in some specific aspect.
b) Rules that refer, more generally, to scientific communication as the communication of epistemologically structured ideas.
c) Rules that relate to the communication of the various types of messages that are put in a form to be communicated.
The deontological treatment of scientific communication is based on the very nature of the Science being communicated, in our case Biology, and of the object of its study, which no one knows and has to apply as well as the biologist himself. In Pieper's fertile idea1 , Ethics - and Deontology is Ethics - is nothing other than reality made rule. There cannot be a moral rule that contradicts reality. But one of the main characteristics of rule is its generality. The complexity of biological reality will oblige the biologist to apply the general rules to the concrete problems that arise, or, what is equivalent, to make the general rule operative.
a) Right and duty to communicate science
The first evidence that emerges is that the communication of biological science is, first and foremost, scientific communication. It must therefore be:
a) Communication or sharing of messages between those who, by training, are able to understand what is being communicated. It is, therefore, a communication of horizontal sense, between people of the same level, who constitute a certain academic community or a social group , characterised by an equivalent comprehension capacity of what is emitted and what is received.
b) Scientific: of scientific messages. That is to say, of epistemological and causal content, elaborated in accordance with an intellectual process - albeit based on experimental realities, such as biological realities - which allows, by methods of induction, abstraction or generalisation, to obtain general principles which we call ideas, in a broad sense. Ideas which, although referring to external biological phenomena, form part of the inner world of the scientist who acts as an emitter in a specific communicative act, in which the aim is to transfer them to receivers capable of understanding them, as has been said, so that an "adæquatio mentis ad mentem" is established between emitter and receivers.
It should be noted that scientific communication is, like all ideological communication, the communication of a good2. Good which, in its most precise meaning, is defined as "veritatem agere" or operative truth, which, in some way, translates into action; not simply logical or speculative truth. If in all sciences the communication of the results of the research means the communication of a good, it means it specifically in Biology, not only because scientific ideas serve as support, precedent or scaffolding for new scientific discoveries, but also because of their epistemological use in the applied sciences or in the different technical applications3.
We start from the axiom that the scientist - the biologist in our case - has the right to obtain these ideas, the right to research or to scientific creation4. This right - like all those that refer to a professional activity - is none other than the legal - and therefore ethical - means of fulfilling his duty of research, ideation or scientific creation as a means of obtaining a good for himself5 and for humanity6.
In a parallel way, the biologist, perhaps more intensely than any other scientist, since he studies life itself - the first and most natural of rights -, its sources, characteristics, etc., has the right to communicate his scientific ideas as a way of fulfilling his duty to communicate biological science. This duty, like all others, responds to the right of one or more other persons who, as has already been said, constitute the academic community and which corresponds to each and every one of its members. This coupling between the right of another and the duty that satisfies it refers not only to the what, but also to the how of scientific communication; and this how encompasses not only the substance or substantivity of scientific messages, but also their form, which D'Ors has called acribia7.
Unscientific and para-scientific communications
The rigorous approach to scientific communication, in general and especially at area biology, forces us to exclude from its scope the knowledge dissemination of the scientific. The communicative result of the knowledge dissemination ceases to be scientific. Consequently, the informative process that leads to it ceases to be scientific communication from the moment that there is no community between the scientist and the public - more or less educated - non-expert in biology. The right of the non-specialist public to know about scientific advances moves in a broader orbit, different from the right to scientific communication. And, therefore, the duty to communicate is also in that line.
In this case, it is not a matter of disseminating, but of divulging, of making what happens in the field of biology comprehensible to all. And this broad extension of comprehensibility deprives the disseminated message of epistemological and technical precision and completeness. The public's right to know the progress of science is satisfied with the communication of scientific work, the motivations and purposes of researchers and the practical results of the research. But it does not - because it cannot - go further. There are, however, two forms of knowledge dissemination whose specific deontological rules are different, although they obey the same principles: knowledge dissemination through information professionals, and that which is directly disseminated by biologists.
The first is what has given rise to what has been improperly called "science journalism", which has had more brilliance in its programmatic intention8 than in its effective results9. In reality, this mode of knowledge dissemination of science is the work of what Brajnovic has called "partnership continua" or the connection between the biologist and the communicator, so that the latter can give an account of what is happening at the scientific level, and so that the "popularising expert" can interpret what he or she can understand10. The biologist's responsibility thus ends at achieving the possible understanding on the part of the communicator; it does not extend to what results from the actual communication to the public, nor to the ambiguities and inaccuracies in which the disseminating informant may incur.
The biologist who communicates directly through articles, interviews, etc., which are disseminated through social media or verbally and publicly, assumes the moral - and, where appropriate, legal - responsibility for the vulgarised scientific message. It is not a case of scientific communication, but of knowledge dissemination by a man of science, without professional information mediators. The difficulty of translating scientific ideas and terms into terms intelligible to the public can lead either to distorting or misunderstanding what is being said, or to making it incomprehensible to the public or to the less cultured part of it. In either case, effective communication is frustrated. On the assumption that communication is achieved11 , other real and therefore moral dangers lurk at knowledge dissemination. One of them is the sensationalism with which, more or less intentionally or negligently, the vulgarised message can be highlighted in order to arouse the interest and admiration of the public, in the face of a research or a finding that does not deserve such a prominent consideration. Another is the anticipation with which a researcher gives news of immature, unconfirmed or invalid results. These deviations can be serious when they arouse expectations, for example, of a cure; when they produce fear in people; when they induce impressionable people to think that they have symptoms of an imaginary illness; when they lead them to use means or substances without optional control, etc.
The very concept of scientific communication marginalises all information that can be called, in general terms, referential. The overwhelming issue of scientific publications published in the world and the current possibility of being aware of all of them by electronic procedures12 requires the preparation of brief references of published works and the mastery of the systems of analysis, classification and evaluation to be applied to them. On a somewhat higher level, knowledge of the technique of preparing summaries or abstracts, which give a first approximate impression of the quality and interest of a scientific work .
This task imposes a methodological, rather than a substantive or content-related specialization task. In other words, it is the task of documentalists and not of biologists; in the end, of biologists who do not act as scientists of biology, but as technicians of documentation13. It is not the scientist who communicates, but the documentalist of biology who, through the different types of reference letter, including summary, carries out the information about scientific communications. The biologist's responsibility, in this case, concentrates on the phase prior to his own research: on knowing how to obtain and evaluate the referenced material. Not on its communication which, at most, will accompany, as an element of erudition, the scientific communication itself, in the form of notes or bibliographical relations.
Scientific communication must have sufficient qualities to enable the "rediscovery" or rediscovery of statement, which requires that the communication of scientific ideas or generalisations be accompanied by data, examples of reality, exhibition of processes followed in laboratory, etc. Factual input is important and necessary for fill in scientific communication. But, on the one hand, it is only a supplement to such communication. On the other hand, it is a subject factual message or communication from the outside world that is different from the ideological message. This factual message has its own rules, which are deduced from its very constituent, which is truth, understood as the adequacy of the statement with the communication. The data, facts, events, processes, etc., must be communicated as they are and insofar as they are necessary to explain the scientific idea. The same applies to iconic reproductions, whether they are a transcript of reality (e.g. photographs) or elaborate representations (drawings, graphs, etc.). With respect to all of them, the scientist must be goal in the sense of dispensing with any subjective ingredient in his exhibition or clear, concise, sufficient and true reproduction.
The application to these facts of scientific ideas, whether their own or those of others, antecedent or contemporaneous, may lead to the formulation of subjective judgements or opinions by researcher which, due to their immaturity, are not susceptible to generalisation or elevation to the category of scientific ideas. Their communication may be necessary, convenient or opportune; but - as in the case of facts - such communication plays an ancillary role and is also subject to its own communicative rules. Opinion occupies an intermediate state between doubt and certainty. As such, it has a great value in the advancement of science by allowing it to leave the sphere of doubt, even if it is still questionable whether it will lead to scientific truth. Scientific opinions can be considered as hypotheses to be proved, and the preludial and driving value of the hypothesis in science is indisputable. But opinion is not generalisable certainty; and hypothesis is not thesis proven. And as such they must be stated. And in order to be shared or discussed, they must be based on the facts to be judged and on the criteria with which the subsumption of these facts in the general principles or ideas has been verified, in order to formulate hypotheses or opinions which -without demonstrating them exhaustively- can only be disseminated as a pre-scientific communication, with all the attenuated, preambular and probable force they may have.
Communication of other people's scientific ideas
Apart from these modes of scientific or para-scientific communication, it is worth distinguishing two types of scientific communication, in the strict sense of ideological communication, which share something of the biologist's inner world: the communication of that which has been learned from another, whose authorship corresponds to him; and the communication of finding itself, of the fruit of the intellectual effort of the researcher issuing the scientific message. The former is not always exempt, however, from a certain originality in the arrangement of the ideas learned, in the way of exhibition, etc.14. But the core message of the communication is internal, insofar as it has been understood and assimilated by the sender. It is the usual form of communication with a pedagogical character; or the journey through the theoretical background; or the exhibition of the "status quæstionis" of a topic at a given historical moment, even at the present time.
The scientific communication of other people's ideas is subject to the same rules as the communication of ideas from one's own research, with three modulations. The first concerns the fidelity of the message statement to that expressed by the author in question. It is not permissible, for example, to modify it in order to be able to criticise it more easily, or to play down the importance of the scientific work of others. The second is the attribution to each author of the paternity of what has been the object of his authorship, without attributing to himself the scientific creation of others, which would constitute a form of plagiarism15. The third consists of precisely locating the place or places where the author has presented his original, which involves obeying the technical rules of exhibition, in common use, or imposed by the medium or by the publisher of the scientific work ; but which, in any case, must be sufficient for locating the original work 16.
The communication of the scientific finding
Scientific communication, in its strictest sense, is thus the ideological communication of what the researcher has discovered for itself, of the results of its scientific research . This places the researcher in an attitude of modesty or intellectual and moral humility in the face of the disproportion between finding itself and the extent of the "res civilis"17 in the discipline in question, in our case Biology. Humility is nothing other than truth. Therefore, the scientific communicator must recognise the limits of his finding in order not to exceed them. Silence is imposed on what has not yet been discovered and which remains open to new research, either one's own or someone else's; or on what is only a hope, that is to say, what can happen, because it has not yet occurred; or on the communication before the hour of an incomplete, unfinished research ; or still in an unconfirmed hypothesis, nor interesting in its state of simple probability; or, going beyond the boundaries of the field of study or method, affirming, denying or giving explanations in matters that transcend biological science, protected by the prestige of the profession of biologist. Modesty or humility does not exclude, on the contrary, the satisfaction of having slightly expanded the knowledge of nature, of contributing to the well-being of mankind and of fulfilling one's duty.
The intellectual nature of ideological communication reaches its maximum intensity Degree in scientific messages. Analytically disregarding the data or factual ingredients and the hypotheses, opinions, criticisms or judgements, the core message of greatest epistemological value will be the one that reflects the ideas obtained through the accredited methods of research which, in each case, will be conditioned by the specific object of the study. It has been said that, at the crest of the wave of scientific communication, there is always the delicate foam of ideas18.
Like all ideological communication, scientific communication obeys certain principles, emanating from its own nature, which require certain adaptations to the reality, elevated to an idea, that is to be communicated. Bearing in mind that the scientific idea, once decanted and refined in the mind of researcher, will be - by right and duty - made available to the minds of other scientists capable of understanding it.
b) Ethical characteristics of communication
Objectivity of the data
In the communication of the external world, as has been said, the sender must have objectivity, that is to say, dispense with any subjective ingredient in order to show reality as it is. External reality is the measure of the sender's knowledge and that of the factual message statement. The fact that objectivity is practically impossible to achieve does not relieve the communicator from striving for it in an asymptotic way19 . In any case, the accuracy or truth of the communication of the external world can be checked by the adequacy to it of the factual message statement.
In the communication of the inner world this adequacy is impossible to measure. It depends exclusively on the conscience and sense of responsibility of the sender. In other words, it only admits an ethical or - in the case of the scientific researcher - deontological evaluation . But it does not lose its meaning and its force of duty, more rigorous for the researcher, since only on him depends its fulfilment, which is incomprovable by another.
Sincerity in ideas
The duty to make one's own scientific idea transparent is a duty of subjectivity, parallel to that which, in the communication of the external world, we have called the duty of objectivity. The scientist must dispense with all external ingredients in order to communicate what he has actually devised. This fidelity to one's own idea is called sincerity.
Scientific communication must be sincere. The biologist must inform - put in form - his ideological message in such a way as to offer his colleagues the possibility of sharing20 with him their own ideas, either to admit them or to reject them. The scientist's sincerity must lead him to say what he thinks, everything he thinks and nothing but what he thinks.
The communication of an idea which it does not have, or which it distorts in one way or another, constitutes a deception or mismatch between the mind and the message statement for other minds to receive.
The sincerity of the scientist demands the completeness of the message statement. The biologist cannot be a miser who reservation ideas that are part of the research, communicating them in a fragmentary or incomplete way. In this way, his deontological duty is not fulfilled, the right to receive from the members of academic community is not satisfied, and the existence of this community, or at least the integration into it of the scientist who reservation the ideas, is threatened. This is true even when the idea constitutes a perspective on reality. "A perspective is not a fragment, but the whole thing placed in a given bias"21.
Sincerity also prevents fabulation: the imaginative amplification of scientifically elaborated ideas; the offering as substantive ideas those that have only a marginal or adjective value; the excessive positive weighting of the effort it has cost or the importance of an idea; the dismissal of ideas with a more or less cryptic sensationalism; the simulation of ideas not obtained by the effort of abstraction of the communicating scientist, in general.
Scientific communication must have the same Degree of intellectual catharsis as the scientific idea of the transmitting biologist.
Freedom
The intellectual purity of the scientific researcher requires ideological freedom. And if scientific communication is to be sincere, it must also be governed by the principle of freedom. Freedom which, in order to be such, does not admit any internal or external conditioning or limitation. The absence of the latter constitutes the independence of the scientific communicator22.
Unconditional and unlimited freedom does not, however, mean the deontological possibility of communicating anything under the scientific grade . Freedom is the free way of exercising a right or fulfilling a duty. It must, therefore, not by limitation, but by its very nature, follow the fate of the right and duty of which it is an adjective and be congruent with the object on which the right and duty fall. Thus understood, the freedom of scientific-biological communication refers exclusively to:
a) Scientific communication and no other subject, such as essayistic communication; or the communication of non-scientifically elaborated ideas by an amateur, or even by the biologist, without submission to a scientific methodology.
b) The communication of scientific ideas in the strict field of biology and not in other sciences that are foreign to the biologist. Another thing is that he uses for his research -and that he thinks it is convenient to communicate them- ideas elaborated by scientists in fields of knowledge more or less related to Biology, in accordance with the rules that have already been sketched out about learned or non-original scientific ideas.
c) The communication of scientific ideas of biological knowledge cannot be used as an occasion or excuse to carry out any kind of propaganda or persuasive communication aimed at promoting an ideology or ideological system which, axiomatically, does not belong to the scientific field, but to the religious, political, etc. fields, which have their own rules of communication.
Ideological communication has a good as its constituent. Scientific communication disseminates a scientific good. The dissemination of an evil would not constitute communication, but would be a form of non-communication, since it would have dysfunctional effects on Science and Society. No one has the right to spread evil; on the contrary, there is a duty not to spread it. Spreading any message that goes against natural or fundamental rights constitutes spreading evil. In the scientific field of Biology, the most primary and fundamental right of all, which is the right to life, and two other rights inherent to the nucleus of human personality: the right to human dignity and the right to privacy23 .
Awareness of the limits of scientific knowledge
The message of ideological communication has as its constituent the good or operational truth, equivalent to scientific truth, the meaning of which is very different from that of truth as the adaptation of reality to knowledge. It is not a question here of the knowledge of facts, but of the criteriological elaboration of abstractions or ideas from that knowledge. The scientist is not required to communicate the truth of some facts, but the ideas that he considers valid to causally explain the phenomena and considers, at the moment of communicating them, as his truth. Truth that cannot be absolute and final, since it only explains a part of the whole object of his Science and of the concrete object under investigation24; and because his finding is susceptible to successive deepening and generalisation. The fact that sincerity is required of it does not mean that it is required to communicate a truth as a total adequacy with being, in the manner of the communication of external reality.
This does not mean scepticism, nor relativism, from the point of view of ideological communication, because what is relative is the so-called "scientific truth". What seems so to researcher at the moment of communication may not be so at the next moment, when a new idea has been obtained. Each successive generalisation places the researcher in front of new horizons to be found which, when discovered, distort the previous scientific truth, which, in spite of its imperfection or incompleteness, has served as a starting point for the new advance. The man of science shares the Socratic idea that the more he learns, the more he has to learn, the more he is in a position to embark on new journeys25. It has been said, therefore, that scientific truth is as fragile as porcelain26. If instead of referring to a single researcher we refer to the succession of researchers who have worked along the same lines, the result of the provisional nature of scientific conclusions and their value as a footstool for new research is the same27.
On the other hand, neither is the "scientific truth" that researcher manager sincerely communicates true insofar as he has achieved it with honesty, effort and method. But for another scientist working on the same object it may be an error, subjectively or objectively speaking. The scientific error that researcher communicates in good faith as truth would not hinder the ethical mechanisms of scientific communication. And this is not only because of his right and duty to communicate that which, in good faith and using all epistemological means, he considers to be correct, but also because the error represents a positive value for science due to the effort that the same researcher that commits it, or another one, has to make to refute, cancel, overcome or rectify it. It has been said that the history of science is the history of scientific errors28. Whether such errors or incomplete successes, scientific progress is produced by the knowledge of one or the other on the academic community and by their appropriate use as support, by action or reaction, for each new scientific goal to be conquered. This does not prevent that, by successive criteriological decantations, conclusions are also reached that may be stable or hardly debatable.
In any case, scientific communication can never be a communication "ex cathedra", not because of the relativism of researcher or because its scientific skill is in doubt, but because of the natural relativity of the intellectual conclusions it is given to communicate.
Formal rules of scientific dissemination
The deontological rules of scientific communication also extend to the form. Communication requires form, which is what information is all about. The scientist who communicates the results of his research is thus an informer of specific ideological messages.
Scientific communication must be eloquent, in the precise sense of the concept and the term eloquence: to say something to someone. Scientific communication is not talking, but saying. Saying everything that needs to be communicated and nothing more. In a precise, synthetic and simple, but comprehensive way, of the whole message. Grandiloquence and embellishments in scientific language can be considered idle and therefore superfluous for the receiver29. In the case of oral communication, close preparation is necessary to take care of expressions and accuracy as much as possible. In the case of written communication, it is essential to correct terms, style, errors and misprints. It is therefore advisable to allow time between the first essay and the correction or successive corrections by the author, a third party or both30.
The communicable something has already been said repeatedly to be the result of the research. result to be said precisely and accurately. The research, insofar as it is original, may be communicable by means of a conceptualisation and terminology known and already customary in scientific language, or it may require the formulation of new concepts and the use of appropriate terms. Concepts are communicated by means of definitions that have to comply with the three criteriological rules of such a form of expression: to cover the whole object to be defined; to clearly mark the boundary with other objects; and to avoid that what is defined enters into the definition. The use of appropriate terms is a part of the scientific endeavour: to nominate is already to do science. Naming accurately requires an extensive and intensive knowledge of language to use existing words in their most refined sense. Only when there is no exact term in one's own language, precision will require the adoption of a foreign term - provided that the foreign word is also precise in the original language to name the same object - or the creation of a neologism, if a suitable term cannot be found in another language.
If a term has been used inappropriately in a previous scientific communication, either your own or someone else's, employee , the nomination should be corrected. If there is no inappropriateness, the same term should be used in order to homogenise and standardise the scientific terminology .
As far as possible, this homogenisation should be understood as concentric circles of the related sciences and the more distant ones until a common body of knowledge is formed with Humanities at the points of tangency between the experimental sciences or sciences of nature and the sciences of the spirit or of man as a spiritual being.
In this way, the communication subject or recipient subject can be expanded without dropping below the rigorously scientific level, but counterbalancing the disadvantages of the scientific specialization , without losing its advantages.
The recipient subject will expand quantitatively, without diminishing its quality, as the communicability of scientific results or the capacity of understanding of the people dedicated to scientific research in the various branches of knowledge increases. And it is the duty of researcher to contribute to this expansion.
The intellectual quality of scientific communication requires decorum in the medium in which it is disseminated or in the medium of the message statement. This decorum is as far from carelessness as it is from luxury. A scientific research disseminated in a tasteless, careless or ostentatious manner is devalued. This requirement depends, in some cases, on the medium in which the communication is disseminated, which makes it necessary for researcher to select this medium. The quality of the paper or medium in question, the subject font, the sobriety and elegance of covers and titles do not increase the cost of the publication and dignify the message they convey. When in doubt, the scientist should turn to experts in information techniques.
In any case, it is up to the author to demand what is his right: that the text corresponds to the one he has written; that errors and misprints are corrected by him or by others; and to give the definitive "tírese" to the text composed for printing.
The publication of collective research
In the case of a collective work , the ethical rules governing its communication are the same as those governing the publication of the individual work . There are, however, a few opportune clarifications.
Whether it is a work separable in its publication, or a joint work not individualisable in its results, none of the members of the team should advance the publication of a part without the authorisation of the others; or use the results of the team's work to base, reason or confirm their own individual work to be communicated. Much less reveal the secrets of an ongoing research , the ownership of which belongs to the team or to one of its members.
The publication of the work must be made under the name of the manager of each party, or under the name of all those who participated in the work, when the result is joint and several. It is, of course, permissible to highlight the name of the person who has acted as director of the team, and not only because of his category. However, we must avoid what, referring to a Gospel verse, has been called the "St. Matthew effect"31, which can take various forms: the omission of the name of some modest contributors, which implies an appropriation of intellectual ownership by the rest; the introduction of the name of someone who has not made any effort, which implies the appropriation by him of the effort of the others; and the inclusion of the names of the contributors, which leads to error or confusion about the relative importance of their participation in the work, as can happen with the order in which they appear, when it is not objective - for example, the alphabetical order - or when it is established according to the academic, scientific or social category of the contributors and not the actual effort made in the research whose results are disseminated.
Notes
(1) PIEPER, J. "El finding de la realidad". Rialp. Madrid, 1974, p. 15.
(2) DESANTES GUANTER, J.M. "Principios jurídicos de la comunicación ideológica". In "Communication & Society". Homage to Professor Juan Beneyto. Madrid, 1983, pp. 411-428.
(3) "The link between science, technology and production is objective because it depends on a freedom of communication of knowledge that can be temporarily restricted, but which, at final, cannot be stopped. In other words, this communication is linked to the expansive force of truth - however it is understood - which today is undoubtedly greatly enhanced by modern forms of communication". COTTA, S. "Ptolemaic Man". Rialp. Madrid, 1977, p. 64.
(4) The article 20,1,b) of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 "recognises and protects" the right to scientific creation. Article 44.2 states that 'the public authorities shall promote science and scientific and technical research for the benefit of the general interest'.
(5) As an intense study, research is always intensely formative for the researcher, who is fulfilled by it. Furthermore, the effort to express oneself in order to communicate research fulfils, with regard to thought, a function similar to that of Socratic maieutics: it tears it out of its inertia and develops its critical and creative potential.
(6) "The man who knows a lot, but does not increase the collective patrimony of knowledge, is a sterile, failed man". MALPIQUE, C. "Introduçao a vida intelectual". Coimbra, 1934, p.236.
(7) D'ORS, A. "specialization, universalidad y acribia en las ciencias históricas". In "Papeles del official document universitario". Madrid, 1961, pp. 124-138. He defines acribia as "a virtue of the scientific exhibition ", p. 131.
(8) See, for example, PRADAL, J. "La vulgarisation des sciences par l'écrit". committee de Europa, s.l. and s.d.; although for the data it offers, later than 1970; "report del 2º congress Iberoamericano de Periodismo científico". Madrid, 1979.
(9) PRADAL, J. "o.c.", according to data statisticians, pp. 98-99.
(10) BRAJNOVIC, L. "Deontología Periodística" (2nd ed.). EUNSA. Pamplona, 1978, pp. 276-277.
(11) Biological or medical programmes or sections of the general news media written or broadcast by biologists are either incomprehensible to the public or are on a level comparable to that of a doctor explaining his ailment to a sick person and recommending treatment.
(12) See topic discussed by DE SOLLA PRICE, D.J. "Science since Babylon", New Haven, 1961; and "Little Science, big Science". New York, 1971. At that date, the author estimated that a medical article appeared in the world, in a scientific journal, every 26 seconds.
(13) TOFFLER, A. "Previews and Premises". London, 1983, demands, with an abundance of data to back it up, a refined technology for referencing and analysing scientific documentary material.
(14) Without going to the extreme of Terence's words, "Nullum est jam dictum quod non dictum sit prius", the truth is that our ideation is largely a simple arrangement or generalisation of learned ideas and experiences.
(15) "Plagiarius" was the name given in Rome to anyone who stole slaves or kidnapped free men to sell them as slaves, and was punished with "plagis damnatio".
(16) In general, see Chapter IV, "presentation of the scientific work " in the book by ROGER, J. "Metodología de la documentación científica". Madrid, 1969, pp. 77-79.
(17) DROCHON, P. "Richeses spirituelles du chercheur". In Impacts: 4, 70, 1983. "In the classic book of NICOLAS CUSANO, "De docta ignorantia", whose degree scroll is considered to be the best definition of Science, we read in 1,1: "tanto quis doctior erit quanto se magis sciverit ignorantem".
(18) "In psychology there are no virgin facts, there are only fertilised facts. Hence the need to watch over the fertilising element, that is to say, over the spirit and freedom, at least as much as over the fertilised element. Initiation, for the ancients, consisted in a spiritual and doctrinal teaching rather than in the material experience of life. For there is something more important than knowing life, and that is knowing the meaning of life". THIBON, G. "Our blind gaze before the light". Rialp. Madrid, 1973, p. 72.
(19) Regarding informative objectivity, the bibliography is abundant and not always oriented; but there is also scientific objectivity: RODRIGUEZ QUIROGA, F. "La objetividad como goal educativa en Foerster". In "Revista de programs of study Políticos", 114, pp. 157-173, 1971.
(20) By exchanging ideas, the "I" and the "you" not only exchange what they already possess, but also create something new, which is proper to the "we"; CASSIRER, E. "Las ciencias de la cultura". Graf. Panamericana. Mexico, 1955, pp. 84-85.
(21) GARCIA MORENTE, M. "El topic de nuestro tiempo. Philosophy de la perspectiva". In "Ensayos". Madrid, 1944, p. 53.
(22) It does not constitute an amputation of freedom to submit voluntarily - in a radical and sustained exercise of freedom - to dogma, as a systematic and objectified set of ideas accepted globally by virtue of the authority of an Institution. Dogma is possible in Institutions or Communities to which one belongs voluntarily and freely; and one can voluntarily and freely cease to belong, such as the Churches; not in those to which integration is necessary, such as the international or State Community. DESANTES GUANTER, J.M. "La comunicación de ideas religiosas" in "Persona y Derecho", 11, pp. 247-248, 1984.
(23) SORIA, C. "Derecho a la información y derecho a la honra". Barcelona, 1981; and URABAYEN, M. "Vida privada e información". Pamplona, 1977.
(24) "Truth is the whole, and yet we do not see the whole of anything". PIEPER, J. "La fe ante el challenge de la cultura contemporánea". Madrid, 1980, p. 18.
(25) "Ce qui fait l'adorable et hautaine grandeur de la Science, c'est qu'elle est un perpétuel devenir". NORDMANN, Ch. "Einstein et l'Univers". Paris, 1932, p. 8.
(26) DROCHON, P., o.c., p. 71.
(27) "The series of men during the course of the centuries must be considered as a single man who has always existed and continually learnt". PASCAL's words, quoted by CHALLAYE, F. "Philosophie scientifique". Paris, 1929, p. 19.
(28) ORTEGA Y GASSET, J., "Prólogo a Historia de la Philosophy, de Emile Brehier". In: "Obras Completas", Vol. VI, Ed. Sudamericana, Buenos Aires. Madrid, 1961, p. 417.
(29) "Frills are an offence to thought", SERTILLANGES, A.D. quoted by MALPIQUE, C., "o.c.", p. 45. "The poetry of Science lies precisely in the logical rigour of its language", Ibid., p. 219.
(30) Without going to the extreme of HORACIUS who in the "Epistle to the Pisans" demands nine years of rest from the original being written until it is revised.
(31) Although he confesses that it is not original, the expression is used by RIOBE, O. "Equipe de recherche ou recherche en équipe". In "Impacts", 4,14, 1983. The text is found in Saint Matthew, 13,12: "For to him who has, more will be given and he will abound; and from him who has not, even that which he has will be taken away".