Ethical issues in physics have
been a formal part of the physics curriculum at Eastern Michigan University
since 1988. Students are given the opportunity to consider and discuss
ethical issues which they may encounter in their careers as physicists.
Coincidentally, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
(NCATE) has moved to require "study of science, technology and society
issues and ethics related to physics" (NCATE 1990). Furthermore,
there has been increased coverage in the popular press on issues relating
to scientific fraud which, by focusing on biological and medical sciences,
may create the erroneous impression that physicists are immune from these
issues. Finally, the technological consequences of physics research
this century have generated lively debates about the responsibility of
physicists for the negative impact of their research. These are some
of the factors the Physics and Astronomy Department considered in making
their decision to include ethical issues in the curriculum.
Ethical issues in physics span
a broad range. These issues can be conveniently divided into two
categories, those involving interactions within the scientific community
and those involving interactions between physicists and the rest of society.
The former category includes research fraud, carelessness, criteria for
judging scientific merit, etc. Issues in the latter category include
responsibility for the consequences of one's research, the distinction
between political and technical advice, and the effective use of society's
resources. There are several types of questions one can ask about
a particular issue. For instance, what ethical principles are involved?
Do these principles seem to be violated on a consistent basis in the physics
community? Is there something about the way the physics community
is structured which may tend to encourage violations?
As a specific example, several
class sessions have focused on the responsibilities of physicists who give
technical advice. One set of readings comes from the autobiographical
work of Richard Feynman, in which he discusses his well publicized role
on the Challenger accident investigation commission (Feynman 1988) and
his less well publicized role on the California textbook selection commission
(Feynman 1985). In both cases, it appears that he was selected for
his reputation as a scientist but without the expectation of his providing
genuine scientific input to the commissions. While scientific curiosity
rather than ethical considerations may have been his primary motivation,
in both cases he felt compelled to give scientific input. The net
effect was that he did not merely lend his name and reputation to a commission
in order to rubber stamp the work of someone else, but rather he worked
to ensure that the outcome of the commission's deliberations reflected,
to some extent, his own scientific perspective. This issue may be
characterized as one of truth in advertising to the extent that if a reputable
scientist's name appears on a report, one might rightfully expect the report
to reflect scientific deliberations on the part of that scientist.
A closely related issue of when scientific advice crosses the line to political
advice has also been the focus of classroom discussion. This issue
is explored in more detail by Howes in a subsequent article in these Proceedings.
The primary goals of introducing
ethical issues into the curriculum are preparing students for situations
they may face later in their careers and opening up the debate of these
issues in the physics community. Achieving these goals is facilitated
by three strategies. First, classes are discussion, not lecture,
oriented. Insisting that students do most of the talking forces them
to develop their own ability to analyze ethical issues. Second, discussion
focuses on real case studies where possible as opposed to hypothetical
situations. This focus can not only provide some of the most useful
preparation for situations students encounter later in their career, but
it also keeps the students' heart in the discussion by convincing them
that the questions raised during the course of the discussion are relevant.
Finally, the role of the instructor is to facilitate and guide the discussion,
ensuring diverse opinions are respected. The instructor's role in
maintaining the focus of the discussion is particularly important in making
efficient use of the limited class time. While respect for diverse
opinions is not only common courtesy, it is also important in keeping all
students involved in the discussion. Furthermore, with several students
providing their own perspective, it becomes more apparent to the rest of
the class that many situations involve conflicts between moral principles
and the best resolution of these conflicts is often not obvious.
Two mechanisms for introducing
ethical issues into the physics curriculum have been tried. The first
approach has been to add material to several existing courses. In
particular, a short unit on data analysis has been incorporated into an
introductory physics course on a trial basis. Among the advantages
to adding a little material to several courses are that it stresses the
relevancy of the issues by relating it to material discussed in class;
it can allow material to be introduced over the course of several years,
encouraging students to get into the habit of thinking about these issues;
and all of the students in a given class are likely to be at the same technical
level. The drawbacks to this approach are that it is often difficult
to find time in an existing course to add new material and piecemeal presentation
of the issues makes it more difficult to develop structure in analyzing
the issues.
An alternate approach is to
create a stand alone course. As structured at Eastern Michigan University,
this course meets one hour a week for one semester, targeting primarily
advanced undergraduates but open also to graduate students. Students
are given weekly reading assignments coming from a wide range of resources.
These include selections from autobiographical material of prominent physicists,
historical articles from Physics Today and the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, news articles from various scientific magazines
and newspapers, and opinion pieces appearing as letters to the editor or
as editorials. The course grade is based on classroom participation
and a term-long research project in which students examine an issue of
their choosing in more detail. Credit is also earned by identifying
relevant resource material that is not included on the course reading list.
This helps the instructor in producing a more comprehensive bibliography
for the course and it encourages students to actively explore a wide range
of resources for insight into ethical issues. Resources turned in
for credit have ranged from newspaper and magazine articles to videotapes
of television broadcasts.
A course dedicated to the field
allows the full scope of issues to be treated in a more organized fashion.
At the same time, the students are likely to focus more of their attention
on ethical issues in a stand alone course rather than looking upon it as
a distraction from traditional physics. A major drawback is that
some physics faculty may be reluctant to grant physics credit for what
is primarily (although not exclusively) a nontechnical course. By
making the course offered at Eastern Michigan University worth one credit
hour, the likelihood of another significant physics course being displaced
by this one is minimized. However, there is clearly enough material
to teach a two or three credit hour course. The alternative of offering
the course but not counting it for credit in a physics program would, in
all likelihood, substantially reduce the enrollment.
The presentation and discussion
of ethical issues in physics has been well received by those who choose
to participate. This group, however, is somewhat self-selective.
The stand alone course that has been taught (five times so far) is an elective
so that generally only those students who are interested take the course.
Enrollments are typically about five per year, compared to 10 - 15 for
other courses at the same level in this department. Perhaps a truer
test of student interest will come when the NCATE-generated requirement
of this course on the secondary education program takes effect at EMU.
Similarly, the group of participants in the discussion held in the introductory
class was somewhat self-selective in that the students knew ahead of time
which day the discussion was going to be and class attendance is not mandatory
for that course. Hence many of those not predisposed to interest
in this field skipped class that day.
The discussions in both situations
have been lively and almost without exception could have gone on longer
than the scheduled class hour. One of the biggest difficulties encountered
has been keeping the discussion from drifting too much into policy issues
as opposed to ethical issues. For instance, in a discussion of nuclear
weapons research, it is hard to resist the tendency to focus on United
States nuclear policy. While some such discussion is necessary, of
more relevance is the question of what the responsibilities of a physicist
are given a particular opinion he or she may have about U. S. nuclear policy.
Specifically, should someone who finds U.S. nuclear policy fundamentally
flawed still accept research money from the military? Does a physicist
who supports further nuclear weapons development have an obligation to
be actively involved in that work, since he or she is one of a select group
capable of performing such research?
Finally, in a number of areas
the students found the background discussion particularly illuminating.
Nowhere has this been more obvious than in the discussion of scientific
communication in general and publication issues in particular. It
is quite apparent that few undergraduate students have any real understanding
about this process and its significance. Providing them with this
background lends greater insight into how the academic scientific community
is structured and how research gets formally validated.
While much has been learned
in these first few years of introducing this material into the curriculum,
the course is built around a collection of articles and book chapters from
a wide range of sources, with the selection varying from year to year.
Thus it is not easily transferable to other departments. Ultimately,
to increase the likelihood that this material will be used in other departments,
and to avoid having other people redo some of the same background research,
the material needs to become better structured. One way of structuring
the material would be around course modules. The modules would be
self contained so that individual ones could be incorporated into an existing
course, or several could be put together for a stand alone course.
With a sufficient number of modules, the course could be tailored to the
interests of a particular class or instructor.
Modules could be built around
particular issues (e.g., ethical concerns in the publication process),
ethical ramifications of events (e.g., the Manhattan Project), or the perspective
of an influential physicist (e.g., Edward Teller). The module would
contain an introductory essay which would give students relevant background
information and identify key issues. An annotated bibliography would
assist both the student and the instructor in identifying appropriate reading
material to complement the essay. Finally, several mechanisms for
encouraging active student participation would be included, such as discussion
questions, exercises, and role playing scenarios.
A second tool useful in making
it easier for other physicists to launch a similar course is a well developed
bibliography. In conjunction with the course, such a bibliography
has been put on a computerized database, using the ProCite software.
All entries are keyword accessible and include a synopsis of the ethical
issues addressed by the source. For longer sources, such as books,
chapter or page references to the relevant material are given. There
is a wealth of information available detailing physicistsí perspectives
on ethical issues in their own field. Most of this is not readily
accessible by keyword searches on standard, broader based indexing services.
This specialized bibliography should fill in this information gap, making
it easier for others to develop their own courses.
In conclusion, it is clear that
ethical issues can be introduced in a physics curriculum in a way which
is of benefit to the students. There currently exists some strong
interest in these issues in a portion of the physics community, but it
is not clear if this interest is growing. NCATE standards will lead
to some growth of interest, but it will likely be up to those of us with
concerns in this area to generate interest in the rest of the academic
community.
REFERENCES
Feynman, Richard P. An Outsider's View of the Challenger Inquiry. Physics Today 41:2 p. 26 (1988).
NCATE. National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education Standards for Secondary Physics, 1990.
DISCUSSION
How many physics departments
are willing to accept the idea of giving physics credit to study ethical
issues? It is clear that there would be at least some resistance
to giving physics credit for a course of this nature. The approach
of limiting the course to one credit hour has the advantage of increasing
the likelihood of acceptance by physics faculty, but it may have the disadvantage
of sacrificing too much content. Clearly there is enough material
for a full three credit hour course. Attracting students to such
a course is sometimes problematic--especially for students working their
way through school, paying for each credit hour and having to stretch out
the undergraduate degree program over five to six years: each credit carries
with it a measurable cost. Unless a course such as this were required,
students may be more likely to opt for an additional more technical physics
course (such as optics or solid state physics) which may appear to have
more direct application to their chosen career. A one credit hour
course has the advantage of limiting the cost to the student yet still
introducing the topic. There does appear to be a sincere interest among
some students in these issues, as evidenced not only by the author's experience,
but also by those who incorporate ethics material into Research Experience
for Undergraduate (REU) programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
An alternative solution would
be the establishment of an interdisciplinary course with a philosophy department,
thus opening up the possibility of satisfying a general education requirement
as opposed to a requirement on the physics major. Such an offering
is harder to coordinate but does avoid the problem of displacing other
physics courses. Does the approach of inserting ethics material into
existing courses have promise, or would it not allow for treatment of issues
in sufficient depth? It may be that in some departments this is the
only feasible approach as it requires no significant curricular changes.
Is there likely to be much demand
for course modules? Certainly, this workshop has sparked interest
in teaching about ethical issues in physics, but realistically, there is
not presently a big demand for course materials. On the other hand,
physicists have in recent years been active in issues involving society
and emerging technologies, and this forms a component of the study of ethical
issues in physics. Organizations such as the Forum on Physics and
Society provide further evidence for interest in the issues within the
community of physicists. Furthermore, focused courses dealing directly
or indirectly with specific issues, such as the physics of nuclear weapons,
have been taught. Thus it can reasonably be expected that an interest
in the more general area of ethical issues in physics will develop as more
workshops such as this one press the issue.
Finally, more focused discussion
has arisen concerning the inclusion of "carelessness" as an ethical concern.
Some argue that carelessness is a factor to be considered only in judging
scientific competence. Others argue that errors in science have a
real cost to the scientific community and to society at large. To
the extent errors can be avoided by carefulness, the scientist is obligated
to exercise due care and avoid this cost.