Biological Ethics

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Chapter 13. Ethics of the research scientific

N. López Moratalla

a) Obligation of truthfulness

The work of researcher, being an activity aimed at the search for a knowledge of physical reality, carries with it, as its own requirement, the obligation to maintain full veracity in each and every one of the phases that the research goes through, from the approach to the problem under study, to the performance of the experiments or the interpretation and communication of the results obtained. This ethical requirement is rooted in the very nature of scientific activity and requires that researcher be able to carry out this activity freely.

Freedom from truth is a necessary budget , without which research activity is not possible. Only truth determines science, which enjoys an autonomy based both on its methodological independence and on its neutrality in the approach to problems and the interpretation of results. Autonomy is also based on the demand for objectivity inherent in the scientific method itself, which requires a continuous critique of the knowledge acquired.

The researcher must manage to be free from any subject "prejudice" that binds him and hinders his task, because, if there were any, he would only be able to find partial interpretations. He must be free from "scientific dogmas", i.e. provisional truths that can sometimes be established in the scientific world as absolutely definitive; free from his own personal or ideological interests, or from the impositions of a possible technical functionalism that would consider as valid knowledge only that which can be immediately applicable.

Freedom is inseparably linked to responsibility. It is therefore logical that a sense of responsibility, both in the search for new knowledge and in the practical applications of the findings, should be considered as an essential primary ethical value of researcher. As Weinberg1 points out, "of all the traits that qualify a scientist, as a citizen of the republic of science, I would put his sense of responsibility as a scientist at cima. A scientist may be brilliant, imaginative, clever with his hands, profound, broad, limited, but he is not much of a scientist unless he is manager. The essence of scientific responsibility is the inner drive, the inner need to get to the bottom of things, the dissatisfaction until one has done so. To express one's reservations, fully and honestly, and to be prepared to admit error. Responsibility is not only necessary in difficult situations, where the decisions to be taken have clear social consequences, such as nuclear and arms control, the use of toxic materials, the choice of modes of energy production and conservation, etc., but also in many other aspects of the daily life of science.

Fraud in Science

The figure of the scientist, the "wise man" researcher, has always appeared as the image of rigour, of an honesty about which there could be no doubt, to the point that the opinions he might express on various issues have been arguments of authority. However, in recent years there have been several scandals, because some frauds committed by scientists who, for various reasons, had lost their freedom in the face of the truth, have come to light. Some of these more or less spectacular frauds have been widely reported in the scientific literature2 3. Let us briefly examine some of them.

Cyril Burt, an Englishman who died in 1971 at the age of 88, devoted his life to publishing statistics on the I.Q. of homozygous twins from all over the world who had been separated and raised by different families. These data, unreal and fabricated by him, since he never made such programs of study, affirmed categorically the inheritance of the intellectual capacities, without the Education or the development staff having any influence whatsoever, since the I.Q. of such twins were equal up to the third decimal figure. With the publication of this work, great debate and controversy ensued, as the importance of this topic is obvious. It was only after Burt's death that the fraud became known; possibly a conviction staff, not a scientific one, that it must be so, and perhaps not being able to see those who thought otherwise succeed, was what led him to invent the results, cite his work under other names, name two collaborators who did not exist, etc.

On other occasions, it has been scientific prejudice or ideological interests that have led to the truth being twisted. Krammever, a Viennese zoologist at the beginning of the century, claimed to have achieved in a toad of terrestrial life ("Alytes obstetricans") which, unlike aquatic amphibians, lacks horny spicules or roughness on the extremities, the development of roughness on the hand and forearm, which were transmitted to successive generations, if forced to perform copulation in water. In this way, he intended to demonstrate the theory of the inheritance of acquired characters, which was nothing more than injected Chinese ink. It has also been shown that Piltdown man, the missing link between man and ape, is nothing more than an aged skull of a recent man and an orang-utan jaw.

Other times it has been personal interests, as in the case of Franz Moewer, presented as a pioneer of Molecular Biology and proposed for the award Nobel Prize for having shown one by one the 70 genes of the unicellular alga "Chlamydomonas" and its physiology and Biochemistry , without having carried out experiments that led to this knowledge.

In recent decades, the scientific research has undergone a series of organisational changes, which to a certain extent have influenced or made it more difficult to maintain the freedom of the scientist in the face of truth, the scientist's primary ethical imperative. The research has gone from being an activity of individuals who are motivated exclusively by their desire to know, to being a public necessity, as it is an essential factor in the development of countries. Although this new attitude does not mean a substantial change in scientific activity, it has nevertheless led to a series of modifications in the structure of science. The fundamental factor is and will continue to be the individual, who feels the need to broaden his knowledge, to find answers to the questions posed. But the individual work has been succeeded by the team work ; the communication of findings in long papers or books, which collected the results of a lifetime of research, is followed by short, rapidly disseminated articles, and even preliminary notes and even press conferences or knowledge dissemination prior to the appearance of data in the scientific literature.

At the same time, the "massification" of scientists and technicians brings with it a strong competitiveness and a certain pressure to advance quickly, which can hinder the necessary serenity. "Publish or perish" is considered a motto in scientific circles. In some cases, this pressure has undermined the obligation of veracity of all researcher. The "made-up" mice of Summerlin, who was caught when he was about to paint their skin to show the loss of the foreign tissue characteristics acquired by the tissues in culture, became famous, when he was invited to repeat, before others, his experiment, already famous, but which he had not been able to reproduce.

The skill and rivalry, especially among young researchers starting their scientific degree program careers in large laboratories, has also led to conflictive situations that have resulted in complaints or protests. The retractions of award Nobel laureate Lipmann and Simpson for the work of a partner about the synthesis of cytochrome by cell-free cultures, which could not be repeated because it was not true, are well known; or the appropriation of work, as happened to Wheelock, who found published by a scholarship recipient of his laboratory a work about tumour reversal, which he had prepared as report to obtain a credit ; or the scandal in the field of the molecular mechanisms of malignant transformation of cells, given by Spector in the laboratory of Racker.

The repeated manifestations of such untruthfulness undoubtedly tarnish the image of science, and have led sociologists of science to begin to propose the need to establish systems of "control and correction" within science itself.

Other "small frauds", much less spectacular, can in fact occur in the normal life of the scientific research , due to a lack of rigour, which leads to hiding results that contradict the hypotheses, to recomposing data, to not citing sources correctly, etc. These are correctable defects that accompany, due to personal limitations and defects, all human activity; something, therefore, that the researcher can and must avoid and reject. But they do not constitute integral parts of the very structure of the scientific research and of the development of the sciences, as the supporters of the relativist currents of the Philosophy of Science claim.

b) rules and regulations of scientific activity

From agreement with the nature of scientific research , its primary orientation to knowledge of truth and its full autonomy, an attempt has been made to make explicit, in the form of rules to guide the conduct of researchers - a code of scientists - the ethical values that should be present in this activity.

In 1942, Merton4 formulated the following four principles as general rules of scientific activity:

Universalism: The quality of a scientific work should be judged exclusively on the basis of scientific merit and significance. Supposed truths, whatever their origin, must be subjected to an impersonal criterion, without the acceptance or rejection of an affirmation depending on the personal or social conditions of the proponent. In the words of Pasteur, "the wise man has a country, science has no country". Nationalists", Merton points out, "may erase the names of foreign scientists from historical books, but their formulations remain indispensable to Science and Technology".

partnershipIt is necessary for researchers to share the knowledge acquired with their own work with the academic community, which has the right to this knowledge. The discoveries of science constitute a common heritage and the discoverer has no special rights of use and disposal, although he does have the right to recognition and appreciation of originality, and to respect for intellectual property. In fact, scientific progress involves the partnership of past and present generations.

Selflessness or righteousness of intention: researcher has always been attributed with the qualities of passion for knowledge, curiosity and altruistic concern, and recognition of the work of others.

Organised scepticism: work should always be judged provisionally and accepted only after data has been verified. This acceptance refers exclusively to those questions that can be answered with the method of the sciences.

Years later, Cournard - at partnership with Zuckerman and Meyer5 6 - has reformulated the norms of Science, referring explicitly to the conduct of the individual scientist, as follows:

Intellectual integrity and objectivity: Intellectual integrity is the first obligation of scientists. They must avoid undisciplined introduction of subjective elements into their perceptions. They must prevent their observation of phenomena and the analysis of those observations from being permeated by their desires or dislikes.

Doubting certainty: It is necessary to question authoritative assurances; respect for the authorities in science is important, but a predispositional attitude to questions accepted by established authorities in science is one of the first steps in generating new knowledge.

Recognition of error: The cruder forms of error can be easily avoided. However, more subtle ones may be more difficult to perceive. Progress on knowledge is helped by the recognition and Admissions Office of errors.

Commitment to generosity - The scientist's goal is to extend knowledge and understanding of the universe, not to ensure profit staff or promote a particular ideology.

Sociability: He/she should respect and appreciate his/her dependence on academic community. It must recognise that work itself is a small part of the larger business of Science, and that it is linked to its colleagues in the common effort to promote and increase the body of knowledge.

Logically, the researcher must develop a series of human values in order to carry out its task. Among the necessary qualities are constancy, accuracy and thoroughness, being unapproachable by discouragement and a certain amount of imagination, together with a critical temperament. The professional integrity of researcher also requires the habit of making serious use of the means available and not falling into consumerism. In the search for financial means to meet the high, sometimes unnecessary, cost of some research, one can begin to mortgage one's freedom, sometimes simply for a commitment to publish on a fixed deadline .

c) Social responsibility

Basic science and applied science

As Cournard7 himself points out, one of the objections that have repeatedly been raised against the Code of Scientists is that it does not take into account the ever greater implications that science has on social life. In this sense, and so that it can serve, as intended, as guide for the conduct of researchers, it seems necessary to add to the ethical imperatives mentioned so far, and which make explicit the scientist's primary obligation to live truthfully, others that make reference letter to social responsibility.

Another important change in the organisational aspect of scientific activity is the existence of a much closer relationship between what has been called Basic Science and Applied Science, to the extent that in many cases they are no longer clearly distinguishable or separable. On the one hand, the time between an finding and its application and commercial exploitation is getting shorter and shorter; knowledge is transferred to the technological world at such a speed that there is not enough time to reflect on the responsibilities inherent in the task, in terms of guiding the applications of that knowledge. To a large extent, basic science is also caught up in this dynamic of consumption in which it is not the academic community that sets the guidelines to be followed, but which is imposed on it from outside by large companies or public authorities, and with its sights set, most of the time, on short-term profitability deadline. On the other hand, the means to be used and the technology required in basic science itself have grown considerably and obtaining the necessary resources for research -or simply useful for competing with the new teams working in the same areas- generates a dependence on the different powers, institutions, society, etc., which provide these means.

It is not uncommon nowadays," says Núñez de Castro8 , "to find among those we call men of science a deep unease when they realise that their daily work, that hard and disciplined work of the research, is moved by invisible strings, interests and springs that are alien to Science itself. Scientists find themselves in some way prisoners of powers that betray the very identity of Science".

This lack of freedom has even led some scientists to leave the world of research. Thus Leitenberg, an American biochemist who worked on issues related to armaments and disarmament at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), retired in 1970 because "Science," he said, "is used, and so is what we call pure... Science has ceased to exist. Science has ceased to exist, the technological application of scientific discoveries can be summed up in one: the armaments industry and the consequent destruction of mankind"9.

Werskey10 states that "wherever he works, the man of Science is a part of the machinery of the State, and there is no immunity of Science from its political environment".

To some extent, science-derived technology has turned science into a power source , and it is logical that doubts about autonomy, about who is really running research, assail the minds of many scientists around the world and that they "demand," says Gregory11 , "that they be given a reasonable share of responsibility and control over the forces of their own making".

It is precisely the ambivalent nature of technological progress, by offering the alternative of use or abuse of scientific knowledge, that raises serious doubts about the oft-repeatedly defended ethical neutrality of scientific research. It is not true that the scientist lacks responsibility, to which Rogger Guillemin made reference letter , in the speech he pronounced on receiving the award Nobel Prize in 1977: ... "Science is about the acquisition of new knowledge. The use, abuse or misuse of such knowledge is the domain of politicians, engineers and technicians". Just as Science has its ethical imperatives derived from its nature, so too must they serve a Science oriented in a technical and functional direction, as John Paul II pointed out: "We cannot see the technical world as a domain totally removed from truth. Nor is it a world completely devoid of meaning..... It cannot be denied that the conditions of human life have improved decisively. The difficulties caused by the harmful consequences of the progress of technical civilisation cannot make us forget the benefits brought by this same progress....

Technical science, oriented towards the transformation of the world, is justified by its service to man and humanity. But this is not always the case; there are spontaneous and unforeseeable consequences which can be pernicious and dangerous. Serious doubts arise as to whether progress serves mankind, and these doubts detract from the value of technical science...

These deviations from their proper sense can be foreseen and avoided; the scientist will have to ask himself about the spirit and the orientation in which he himself develops his Science; he will have to set himself, immediately or in the medium term, the task of continually revising the method and the purpose of Science, under the aspect of the problem of the meaning of things"12.

These possible deviations can and must be foreseen, not only at the moment of application internship, but also, to a large extent, from the very beginning of the basic research approach. It is the responsibility of the scientist to reflect on the purpose of his work in relation to man. The meaning of culture, also of technical culture, cannot be other than to facilitate the exercise of human freedom.

In this way, Ethics enables applied Science to find the primary orientation from which it derives its meaning and value: service to man and the improvement of nature; without a clear point of reference letter and goal to discern what is good or bad for man, it is not possible to speak of service to humanity. It is in this way that Science, allied to conscience, achieves its maximum value by contributing to making man's life more human. In this sense, as G. Herranz points out, "there is to a certain extent a general obligation for the scientist to carry out a work of research and, within his capacities and means, to direct it towards those areas in which there is a greater need for information, a greater urgency of service, a greater urge to dispel ignorance. This obligation extends to those in society who plan research and direct science policy. This general obligation to investigate also affects, in a way, the common man as a potential passive subject of the research. Assuming the circumstances of scientific soundness, proportionate risk and free informed consent, which all research on human beings must meet to be morally licit, volunteering to participate in the essay of a new experimental procedure can be a good and virtuous act: it is an act of human solidarity that manifests a desire for the greater good of fellow human beings, and to widen the scope of knowledge"13.

A sense of responsibility should often lead to the choice of topics for research aimed at getting to know the essential aspects of area - however arduous and unfashionable they may be - which, however, are the basis for solving humanity's priority needs at a later date.

The initiative, the difficulty involved in breaking new ground, is of enormous value, and yet the scientific literature is too full of articles that are almost exclusively the data result of boring repetition of a technique to hundreds of more or less identical examples. Although at the beginning of a dedication to research very rarely the specific problem to be studied is usually chosen personally, after this initial stage, the freedom to choose the direction of research in a certain direction is usually wide, even if you are part of a team research.

Technological functionalism

The power that the applications of knowledge bring with them can also lead to a lack of freedom from what can be called technological functionalism, i.e. forgetting that science must develop independently of the immediate use of the knowledge acquired. The fact that scientific knowledge has contributed to a profound reorganisation of human technology and, as a consequence, to improving the conditions of human life on earth, has led to the fact that for many, technology applied to the transformation of the world has become the ultimate meaning and the ultimate goal of science, so that what leads to technical success is primarily considered to be "knowledge". It should be noted, on the one hand, that it is not necessary to stop being researcher basic in order to be "useful". Not only because it is difficult, as is obvious, to apply what is not known, what is not discovered, but also because, in itself, the knowledge is a good. On the other hand, the researcher primarily concerned with knowing the truth is better able to detect deviations and abuses than those who are primarily concerned with goal economic performance. A simple example, among others, in this line, is the wake-up call that the scientist Alberto Sols, has made about therapeutic biochemical inconsistencies; what he has called "the myth of the loaded coenzymes". A long series of coenzymes are marketed, at high cost, in our country, such as ATP, UTP, GTP, UDP-Glucose, Acetyl CoA, thiamine pyrophosphate; and it is well known that, because they cannot penetrate cells and because they have a rapid turnover, they do not fulfil the usefulness intended by prescribing them, and simply "keep the heating boiler burning thousand peseta notes"14.

It is also often possible to avoid abuses of practical applications, even when working in fields far from topic. For example, Rachel Carsoin conducted a critical study and published her findings on the consequences of persistent use of toxic pesticides; although heavily criticised, the study at least led to the elimination of the carcinogen DDT.

This technological functionalism could make us forget that Science cannot be governed by "theories of minimums"; it is not a question of coordinating the efforts of academic community and society to obtain the minimum necessary and essential knowledge for technology to advance, but rather that the goal is to obtain the maximum possible amount of knowledge.

It might be thought that the responsibility staff of the scientist is irrelevant in the face of business to bring science back to its true meaning. However, the academic community, to whom this responsibility belongs, is the cooperative sum of these individual responses. And experience shows that agreement, or pacts, are possible between scientists, committing themselves to give a positive orientation to certain knowledge and to avoid its abusive use for the dignity of man, or destructive of nature, if each one is convinced that not everything that can be done should be done. To stop and reflect on this "should" requires a certain Degree of freedom from economic or political interests, being committed exclusively to the true interests of man. Just as stopping to reflect on the orientation of the application of knowledge and directing it towards those areas where there are more or less peremptory needs for humanity requires an attitude of service, in order to be able to responsibly warn others of the risks involved in the applications of certain discoveries, it is necessary to have previously accepted the commitment of the applications of one's own results obtained.

The social responsibility of research lies not in the area in which research is conducted, but in the service mentality of researcher.

Universal" liability

At present, in biology, and more specifically in the field of molecular biology, the concept and problem of human intervention in natural processes takes on a more precise significance. This way of treating and relating to nature - a consequence of scientism - as if it had to be the product of human activity brings with it, together with the dominating attitude that characterises this scientistic mentality, the assumption, as something that corresponds to it, of responsibility for the progress, future and progress of the universe, and of living species. An obligation to intervene in everything and at any cost. It is not surprising - for example - that from this perspective, after the emergence of archaeology Genetics , the "obligation" of refund to present-day life on our planet is proposed for extinct species, such as dinosaurs.

It is a widespread attitude that one does not know how to find the limits of one's responsibility as a scientist, as if one felt compelled to change the course of life on our planet as new discoveries were made. At the CIBA symposium, after the deciphering of the genetic code, when a group group of biologists wanted to take on the role of creating new species by manipulating the genetic message, J. Lederberg declared that "not to do so would amount to a sinful squandering of the treasure of our genetic knowledge"15.

George Unger, the neurochemist who discovered the brain substance that produces in mice the sensation of fear of the dark, responded to the question of applying the knowledge of his specialization program to the control of the human mind: "As a scientist I am convinced that, since there are undoubted advantages in everything we are doing, it is our duty to go ahead. I have said that the conquest of the mind inspires fear. This does not oblige me to change official document. It would be contrary to my nature, like wanting to force in reverse gear a mechanism that has been designed to go only forward. Therefore, we are already too far ahead in this game for us to stop.

A kind of "vertigo of possibility" has been gradually created: the obligation to change, to influence everything that makes the progress of the scientific knowledge possible. Spaemann16 points out that it is a specifically modern conception that does not distinguish the freedom to act in one way or another from the freedom to act or not to act, which "makes the idea of an inevitable responsibility universal"; there is no such responsibility, especially in omitting actions for which we can have no guarantee that their negative consequences can be compensated by new interventions. Given the technological development the possible consequences of possible actions at any given time are very complex and unpredictable, and to define an omission, as such, requires relating it to a delimited sphere of enforceable responsibilities. Establishing those spheres within which the agent is manager responsible for his actions or omissions is a function of institutions: laws and customs define the sphere. Thus, says Spaemann, "it is a matter for laws to determine the extent to which a factory is liable for the damage it causes to the environment. Without such laws it would be cynical to appeal to individual morality"17.

We find ourselves at status in which "on the one hand, it is impossible for us to take into account all side effects, but on the other hand, it would be irresponsible in the face of human threats to retreat only in the face of known and proven side effects. The modern probabilistic evidentialist rule "in dubio pro libertate" presupposes the existence of a cosmos that cannot be disturbed by human action. Reversing this rule would make a dignified life for man impossible. If we want to formulate a fundamental ethical rule against this status , it would have to be based on the rule that the optimum "is never a maximum of something". But then it could only be that old rule of Greek ethics: nothing in excess"18.

Notes

(1) WEINBERG, A. Minerva, 16, 1, 1978.

(2) BROAD, W.J. "Fraud and the Structure of Science". Science, 212, 137-141, 1981.

(3) BLANC, M., CHANPONTHIER, G. and DAUCHIM, A. "Les Fraudes Scientifiques". La Recherche, 113, 858-868, 1980.

(4) MERTON, R.K. "The normative structure of science". In The Sociology of Science. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1973, pp. 267-278.

(5) COURNARD, A.F. and ZUCKERMAN, H. "The code of Science: Analysis and some reflection on its future". Studium Generale, 23, 941, 1976.

(6) COURNARD, A.F. and MEYER, M. "The scientist's code". Minerva, 14, 79, 1976.

(7) COURNARD, A.F. "The code of scientist and its relationship to Ethics". Science, 198, 699-705, 1977.

(8) NUÑEZ DE CASTRO, I. "Hacia una nueva ética de la ciencia". Crítica, 668, 14-16, 1979.

(9) LEITENBERG, R. In "Hacia una nueva ética de la Ciencia". Critique, 668, 14-16, 1979.

(10) WERSKEY, P. "The perennial dilemma of Science policy". Nature, 233, 529-532, 1971.

(11) GREGORY, R.A. "The perennial dilemma of Science policy". Nature, 233, 529-532, 1971.

(12) JOHN PAUL II. To the Professors and University Students of Cologne. Observatore Romano, 23, XI, 1980.

(13) HERRANZ, G. Oral communication.

(14) SOLS, A. "Biochemical inconsistencies in therapeutics: the myth of charged coenzymes". Science and development (Mexico), 1, 37-41, 1975.

(15) LEDEBERG, M. In "Biogenetics and Responsibility". García de Prada. programs of study Fisiológicos, 98, 64-102, 1986.

(16) SPAEMANN, R. "Side effects as a moral problem". In "Crítica de las utopías políticas". EUNSA, Pamplona, 1978, p. 277.

(17) SPAEMANN, R. "Side effects as a moral problem". In "Crítica de las utopías políticas". EUNSA, Pamplona, 1978, p. 307.

(18) SPAEMANN, R. "Side effects as a moral problem". In "Crítica de las utopías políticas". EUNSA, Pamplona, 1978, p. 313.