Bioethics For Scientists

A dictionary definition of Bioethics is, 'the ethics, or moral principles and rules of conduct, of medical and biological research'. This book is an introductory text of just biological and not medical bioethics. It covers the ethics of experimentation, including genetic manipulation, in plants and animals; ethics and biodiversity, ethics and the environment. There is increasing interest in bioethics - both in academia and by the media and the general public. Awareness of bioethics is incorporated into Biological / Environmental Science courses, plus the first dedicated modular courses on bioethics are starting up. * Includes case studies * Has questions for students * Chapters include environmental, animal, agricultural and reproductive ethics as well as a wide range of issues regarding genetic manipulation.

Science based bioethics. The ethical side to medical and scientific de.cisions

Leading scholars debate politically progressive perspectives on bioethics and the implications for society, politics, and science in the twenty-first century.

Biology has been advancing with explosive pace over the last few years and in so doing has raised a host of ethical issues. This book, aimed at the general reader, reviews the major advances of recent years in biology and medicine and explores their ethical implications. From birth to death the reader is taken on a tour of human biology - covering genetics, reproduction, development, transplantation, aging, dying and also the use of animals in research and the impact of human populations on this planet. In each chapter there is a sketch of a field's most recent scientific advances, combined with discussions of the ethical and moral principles and implications for social frameworks and public policy raised by those advances. Anybody interested or concerned about the ethical dilemmas caused by advances in science and medicine should read this book.

This book is designed to be an easy-to-use guide to understanding the ethical and biosecurity implications of life science research. It provides a framework that will enable scientists, lab managers, researchers, students and teachers to anticipate how research may be used to cause harm, and to identify the steps that can be taken to minimise this risk. Life science research is covered by two international weapons treaties and the tools presented in this book will help scientists and researchers to meet their responsibilities under these conventions. This book will help you: Assess real and potential risks in relation to your workIdentify and implement a range of relevant ethical principles that need to be considered in your workUse an ethical framework to protect your work from misuse by others. If you've never been sure of how ethics relates to your work this toolkit will help you understand the challenges you do indeed face. Real-world case studies of biosecurity risks and failures will help scientists and all those who work to support science at all levels come to a new understanding of the widespread potential for misuse of research in the life sciences. By asking the questions set out in this book, scientists will be better able to recognise and reduce these risks. This framework is designed to be useful for senior scientists as well as students, and all researchers in between.

In this book, nine thought-leaders engage with some of the hottest moral issues in science and ethics. Based on talks originally given at the annual "Purdue Lectures in Ethics, Policy, and Science," the chapters explore interconnections between the three areas in an engaging and accessible way. Addressing a mixed public audience, the authors go beyond dry theory to explore some of the difficult moral questions that face scientists and policy-makers every day. The introduction presents a theoretical framework for the book, defining the term "bioethics" as extending well beyond human well-being to wider relations between humans, nonhuman animals, the environment, and biotechnologies. Three sections then explore the complex relationship between moral value, scientific knowledge, and policy making. The first section starts with thoughts on nonhuman animal pain and moves to a discussion of animal understanding. The second section explores climate change and the impact of "green" nanotechnology on environmental concerns. The final section begins with dialog about ethical issues in nanotechnology, moves to an exploration of bio-banks (a technology with broad potential medical and environmental impact), and ends with a survey of the impact of biotechnologies on (synthetic) life itself. Contents: Part 1: Animals: Moral agency, moral considerability, and consciousness (Daniel Kelly) and From minds to minding (Mark Bernstein); Animal Pain: What is it and why does it matter? (Bernard Rollin). Part 2: Environment: The future of environmental ethics (Holmes Rolston III); Climate change, human rights, and the trillionth ton of carbon (Henry Shue); Ethics, environment, and nanotechnology (Barbara Karn). Part 3: Biotechnologies: Nanotechnologies: Science and society (James Leary); Ethical issues in constructing and using bio-banks (Eric Meslin); Synthetic life: A new industrial revolution (Gregory Kaebnick).

This book has two primary aims: to analyze how advancing discoveries uncover or elicit bioethical concerns and challenges, and to provide the essential scientific background and bioethical information that allows basic scientists, healthcare professionals, and clinical researchers to better comprehend, appreciate, and address the complex bioethical dilemmas that our society confronts.

In the last three decades, bioethics has matured into a field of study with several areas of concentration, including medical ethics, environmental ethics and more recently, genetic ethics. For reasons related to both the developmental history of the subject and to the poignancy of the problems presented, most textbooks and collections of essays have dealt with only a single area, medical ethics. In fact, to many not in the field, the word bioethics has become synonymous with medical ethics. The aim of this collection of essays, entitled New Dimensions in Bioethics: Science, Ethics and the Formation of Public Policy, is to enlarge this restrictive vision of the field as it is usually studied at universities. By combining essays relevant to medical ethics with companion essays on environmental ethics and genetic ethics, the book emphasizes similarities in the methods of analysis used in diverse bioethical problems, whether dealing with genes, with people or the environment. In this way, New Dimensions in Bioethics: Science, Ethics and the Formation of Public Policy, hopes to contribute to the intellectual unity of the subject and to suggest changes in the way bioethics can be taught and studied at both the graduate and undergraduate level.