Teaching Scientific Ethics Effectively at Any Level

247 Volume 15, Number 2 a central role in science but also that science influences ethics. The book can be used as a guide for scientists to make good judgments about what is acceptable and not acceptable in science. It can also help scientists determine how they want to see their discipline develop in the future in light of scientific discoveries and technological advancements in an increasingly global environment. The authors point out that ethics is more than theory and analysis. Ethics is about an engagement between science and society to co-construct ideas and practices as guiding ethical visions. Briggle and Mitcham developed 12 chapters that cover a broad range of topics related to ethics and science. The first chapter provides an introduction and overview. They point to the relations between ethics and science and describe seven trends which show that science is not as objective and value-neutral as one might think. These trends are: 1) the increasing power of science; 2) the threats and risks from science; 3) humans and animals as research subjects; 4) scientific misconduct; 5) commercializing science; 6) science in cultural and political controversies; and 7) science and technology. This is followed by the responses that have come from the professions, industry, and government. The authors state that " science is such an integral and important part of society that it can no longer be—if ever it were—a refuge from ethical issues, challenges, and ambiguities " (p. 10). Chapters 2 and 3 outline various ethical concepts and theories (e.g., virtue ethics, consequentialism, and deontol-ogy) and the norms of science in a more general sense (e.g., the social institutionalization of science), respectively. Briggle and Mitcham then turn their attention to the standards of science practice and discuss issues related to responsible conduct (Chapter 4), science involving humans (Chapter 5), and science involving animals (Chapter 6). In the seventh chapter, the authors ask what science can tell us about ethics. They discuss this question from the perspectives of evolutionary science, decision science, developmental psychology, and neuroscience. In Chapter 8, entitled " Transition: from ethics to politics and policy, " Briggle and Mitcham give advice to educators on how to develop and effectively teach an interdisciplin-ary course on ethics and science. The remaining chapters focus on " science in society. " While Chapters 9 and 10 deal with policymaking issues, Chapter 11 is about the modes of interaction between …