School Of The Arts

English Language and Critical Thinking

Question 2:
“Science cannot stop while ethics catches up.” (Plant biologist, Elvin
C. Stakman) To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Elliott Chan
B4
29th August 2023

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I declare that this research essay is my work and no plagiarism is involved. I declare
that I have neither enlisted another individual to perform the work for me nor allowed
another person to edit and significantly alter my work. All borrowed ideas and
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DATE: 29th August 2023
 The quote, “Science cannot stop while ethics catches up”, said by plant

biologist Elvin C. Stakman covers grounds of how although science and ethics are

usually unified at its core, ethics regarding things such as the testing of products on

live specimens or collection of widely sought after materials used for diseases such

as cancer all pose many ethical issues in the eyes of many people. Ethics in the field

of science and technology is important as it can be used to guide the practice of

science from the process of data collection and further beyond to the publication of

said data and research. I agree to a small extent that science cannot stop while

ethics catches up due to the harm the beneficiaries of said research may face if

heavily regulated and slowed down. However, I personally think that having ethics to

guide scientists and researchers when conducting research and collecting data holds

more weight in this ethical dilemma as it keeps the researchers accountable for the

work that they produce and the data they collect.

Firstly, by placing strong rules and regulations on what scientist and

researchers can and cannot do, especially in fields regarding human specimens,

helps to regulate the reliability of the data that they collect in no matter what field they

are in, moreover helps to ensure that research is conducted in a responsible and

respectful manner, and that the rights and well-being of participants are protected.

The Tuskegee Syphilis study is a good example of how without proper regulations

put into place, research participants can be exploited to a point where it may even

cos them their life. From 1932 to 1972, researchers studied the development of how

syphilis affected African American men, in hopes to find out whether syphilis deferred

significantly from black and white men and whether it caused more neurological or

cardiovascular damage. Although the idea behind conducting this experiment may be

innocent, the way that the researchers carried it out is ethically wrong. They had
hidden the truth about what disease they had or that it is mainly transmitted through

coition from the subjects, but instead lied and said that they had, “bad blood”, in order

to gain more subjects to join the study (Alsan and Wanamaker). Moreover, penicillin,

the drug to treat syphilis that came out during this experimental period was also

denied to the men for more than 25 years, as the researchers wanted to follow the

effects of it to the subject’s death. From this we can see that due to the lack of

policies and transparency between researcher and participant placed onto this

experiment, many unsuspecting lives were put in harm’s way, when it could have

been prevented daily easily.

Furthermore, these policies not only protect the reliability of the data collected,

but also help to protect the natural wildlife in many circumstances. For example, the

drug that is used to treat many forms of cancer is derived from the bark of pacific yew

trees, called taxol. When biomedical scientists found out about this anti-cancer drug

that could be extracted from these trees, many rushed to get their hands on it, so

much so that, “its conservation status has changed from vulnerable to endangered

because the estimated global population has declined by more than 50% in the past

30 years (Mayors)”. This sudden and very real effect on the species of tree sparked a

heavily debated discourse between needs of environmental protection and cancer

chemotherapy treatment. Environment activist, “argued that sustainable management

of the yew would not deny cancer patients taxol for treatment, but on the contrary

would increase its supply and make it secure (Walsh and Goodman)”, providing a

win-win condition for both sides of the argument. In this case of people harvesting the

anti-cancer drug from the pacific yew trees, we can see that without the help of

ethical policies protecting the whole species of trees that had to be put into place, the

scientist and researchers would not be able to conduct research on them as they
would have gone extinct, defeating the purpose of collecting them for research in the

first place.

However, pushing for the development of scientific research is incredibly

important as doing so can help humankind as a whole. Having more scientific

knowledge enables us to develop new technologies, address more real-world issues,

and make more informed decisions about many different fields of interest. An

example of this would be the research being done in the field of cancer-treating

medication. Data collected in Singapore from 2016 to 2020 shows that 1 in 4 people

may develop cancer, and that 16 people die from cancer a day (Singapore Cancer

Society). Furthermore, almost 10 million people die from cancer each year, making it

the second leading cause of death in the entire world. Finding a cure for such a

deadly disease as this would mean the saving of a significant number of people each

year, even if the treatment is not a 100 percent cure to the disease. By placing ethical

policies on certain areas of research into finding a cure for diseases, it can massively

slow down the rate at which we can get to saving the lives of the people afflicted with

such illnesses. In the case of cancer, the process of researching the cure involves

the creation of special stem cells called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs for

short, which are essentially, “enables the development of an unlimited source of any

type of human cell needed for therapeutic purposes (UCLA broad stem cell center)”.

The creation of iPSCs not only is used in regenerative medicine, but also allows for

scientists and researchers to test newer drugs on the iPSCs as it allows them to

record data of how the drug affects humans, which is a step up from testing the drugs

on animals. However, in order to create the iPSCs it would require the destruction of

a human embryonic stem cell, meaning that a human life will be lost if we want to

take steps towards finding a cure towards cancer. This trade off in terms of the
possibility to save millions of lives versus the certainty that in order to do that, one

must sacrifice the very real embryos. Hence by putting restrictions on certain areas

for individualistic purposes, it can really slow down the possible saving of millions of

peoples’ lives each year.

In conclusion, I think that despite not having scientific research be held back

by ethical concerns leading to us being able to address more futuristic problems,

having more regulations with ethics as the concern can not only help to regulate the

reliability of the data that scientist and researchers collect and help to guarantee that

research is performed in a responsible and courteous manner, it also allows for

wildlife to be protected too.

(1141 words)
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