The second workshop to study
ethical issues in physics was held at Eastern Michigan University's Corporate
Education Center on July 19-20, 1996. The purpose of the second workshop
was to study issues time had not permitted the 1993 workshop to address.
The Proceedings from the first workshop have recently been published and
will soon be available on the World Wide Web.
Preparation for the 1996 workshop
began in 1995 with a survey of physicists to help identify ethical issues
of most importance to the physics community. Some results of that
survey are discussed in the first paper, by Bonnie
Wylo and Marshall Thomsen. The survey targeted primarily members
of the Forum on Physics and Society. All those surveyed were asked
to identify specific ethical issues of relevance to them in their job setting,
and those in academia were also questioned on the possibility of offering
formal training to students on ethical issues. While there did seem
to be a fair number of respondents in academia who thought offering a course
in ethics was a possibility, it was interesting to note that some of the
stronger sentiment for the need for such a course came from respondents
in industry. Given recent employment trends in physics, this is a
result worth noting.
Following the paper on the survey
results,
Caroline Herzenberg discusses organizational
pressures which may come to bear on a physicist trying to act in accordance
with ethical standards. Such pressure may become a form of harassment.
While discussions on ethics often revolve around the obligation to act
ethically, Herzenberg's paper focuses on the right to act ethically.
Her identification of different harassment mechanisms provides a useful
framework for studying harassment in the workplace. An appendix to
the paper provides numerous concrete descriptions of harassment and could
itself be a springboard for classroom discussion.
Alvin Saperstein
addresses several ethical issues faced by physicists who teach, looking
at both institutional pressures affecting the balance between teaching
and research as well as at the methods used by physicists as they teach.
He calls into question the apparently generally accepted model of a research
university in which the number one priority of faculty is research and
teaching is handled primarily by traditional methods. While doctors
are held accountable for keeping up with the latest medical techniques
which are of most benefit to their patients, the same is not in general
true for physicists keeping up with the latest research on teaching methods.
Although there have been significant discussions on the content of physics
courses and curricula, Saperstein's paper is a call for physicists to pay
more attention to the teaching process.
Tina Kaarsberg
discusses the obligation of the physics community as a whole to provide
input into important public policy decisions. She uses the broad
set of issues related to the sustainability of present natural resource
utilization trends to illustrate the ethical obligation of physicists to
become more active in public policy matters. She examines the present
status of public policy input and argues the need for more physicists specifically
trained in this area of public policy and for greater institutional support
for physicists who choose to get involved in public policy debate.
David Resnik
provides insight into the nature of interactions between scientists and
the media, in particular highlighting some of the problems associated with
differing priorities between these two groups. If the general public
is misled by the representation of science in the media, then they will
be unable to make informed decisions which have a technological component.
Thus scientists need to pay careful attention to how they relate to the
media. The paper describes in detail the most common forms of interaction
of scientists with the media and also provides a good overview of public
perceptions and misperceptions about science and how these relate to the
media portrayal of science.
Priscilla
Auchincloss introduces the question of gender and how this may affect
ethical issues in physics. Presumably the physics community does
not intend to exclude women, and many of the social barriers to women's
participation have been removed. Yet women continue to be more underrepresented
in the physics community than in most other sciences. It is therefore
reasonable to ask whether physicists have an ethical obligation to ensure
that their community encourages women (and minorities) to participate,
what the nature of this obligation might be, and how the community could
or should meet it. The under representation of women challenges the
notion that science is gender neutral and invites a re-examination of values
(like objectivity) linked to the making of knowledge.
Finally Marshall
Thomsen gives an overview of the numerous ethical issues associated
with the publication process in physics and how those issues will be affected
by likely changes associated with electronic forms of information storage
and communication. The paper is tutorial in nature, providing a brief
overview of the publication process so that it can be understood by students
without much experience in this area. Relevant ethical standards
as described by the American Physical Society guidelines for professional
conduct and the Physical Review Letters instructions to authors are discussed,
and unresolved problem areas are identified.
The editors are indebted to
numerous colleagues for advice and assistance in the planning and running
of the workshop as well as in the preparation of these proceedings.
In particular, we thank Rosemary Chalk, Art Hobson, David Resnik, and Francis
Slakey for their advice on identifying workshop participants. The
workshop mechanics were kept smoothly running through the assistance of
Mary Jane Callison, Diane Jacobs, and Cindy Marlatt as well as through
the efforts of the Corporate Education Center. We also wish to thank
the participants themselves, without whom there would have been no workshop
or Workshop Proceedings. We include in this latter group Francis
Slakey and Marcel LaFollette who were unable to attend but were with us
in spirit. Finally, we wish to thank Rachelle Hollander for her input
in the early stages of this project.
This material is based upon
work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. SBR-9511817.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in
this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the
views of the National Science Foundation. The text of the workshop
talks have been prepared by the speakers themselves. The other material
has been prepared by the editors based on discussions during the workshop
and feedback from those who have read earlier drafts. While every
effort has been made to accurately reflect the facts and opinions supplied
by these contributors, the editors take full responsibility for any inaccuracies.
WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS
Marshall Thomsen, co-organizer
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Eastern Michigan University
Bonnie Wylo, co-organizer
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Eastern Michigan University
Priscilla Auchincloss
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Rochester
Caroline Herzenberg
Argonne National Lab
Diane Jacobs
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Eastern Michigan University
Tina Kaarsberg
Vista Technologies
David Resnik
Philosophy Department
University of Wyoming
Alvin Saperstein
Department of Physics
Wayne State University
James Sheerin
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Eastern Michigan University