Presentation on the topic of scientists' responsibility for the latter. Open Library - an open library of educational information. Modern science philosophy, its teachings and concepts

Science is inherently imbued with noble aspirations and humanistic ideals. The desire for truth, like the desire for beauty or the desire to do good, characterizes the best aspects of human nature. In its applied function, science uses the information obtained to improve people's lives. Knowledge becomes a force capable of transforming reality. But every force also contains destructive potential, so handling it requires a certain amount of caution. The extraordinary growth in the capabilities of science in our days has clearly outlined this side of scientific and technological progress, so today the question of the moral responsibility of scientists for the results of their activities has become more acute than ever. The activities of scientists must comply with such ethical standards˸

– the interests of science are placed above personal interests;

– the scientist must be objective and impartial, he is responsible for the information provided;

– a scientist is responsible to society for his inventions.

The specificity of research in the social sciences adds some moral and ethical problems that researchers in the exact sciences do not face. This is due to the fact that the subject of research here is a person, therefore almost any research situation turns into a special type of interpersonal communication and must obey certain norms.

Research conducted on animals already poses special problems not familiar to scientists dealing with inanimate nature. Among them the problem of vivisection, which attracted public attention and caused heated debate back in the 19th century.

Term vivisection(live cutting) is used to refer to experiments on animals during which they are harmed or suffer. This is a complex problem associated both with the need to clarify the content of the concepts of “harm” and “suffering”, and with drawing a demarcation line between living and inanimate nature, between lower and higher animals. We will not consider these aspects. Let us only note that science has developed fairly clear (as far as possible) principles of action in such situations. First of all, this kind of experiment is allowed only in cases where it is absolutely necessary for science. In particular, cruel experiments on animals can be justified by a reasoned argument that their results are very important for developing ways to help suffering people.

The problem of vivisection reflects the complexity of those ethical dilemmas that scientists sometimes have to deal with. Dilemma– this is a problem that does not have an optimal solution, a situation where you definitely have to sacrifice something.

Social workers, whose practice often encounters situations of this kind, should be very familiar with ethical difficulties of this type. In all cases, one should adhere to the Code of Social Workers, the motto of which is close to the medical commandment “Do no harm!”

The responsibility of a scientist to society and the scientific community - concept and types. Classification and features of the category “Responsibility of a scientist to society and the scientific community” 2015, 2017-2018.

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Presentation on the topic: Ethics of science - the fate of great discoveries

Slide no. 1 https://ppt4web.ru/images/1344/36032/310/img1.jpg" alt=" Abstract Topic: “The ethics of science is the fate of great discoveries.” Author: student 9 “B” grade" title="Abstract Topic: “The ethics of science is the fate of great discoveries.”

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Abstract Topic: “The ethics of science is the fate of great discoveries.” Author: student of 9 “B” class Alex Popov Supervisor: chemistry teacher Irina Nikolaevna Shelukhanova Purpose of the work: to study the problem of the relationship between moral choice and the social responsibility of a scientist. Tasks:1. Assess the scientific and social activities of Fritz Haber and Nikolai Dmitrievich Zelinsky.2. To become familiar with the moral position of scientists regarding discoveries that pose a threat to the survival of mankind.3. To draw attention to the problem of increasing social responsibility and moral choice of a scientist. Hypothesis: first of all, moral criteria should play a major role in the life of a scientist. If humanity does not make a choice in favor of moral principles, it will destroy itself. Methods: comparison analysis, induction, deduction, observation. The relevance of the work lies in the fact that the important issue of the scientist’s social responsibility for his inventions is being considered. Namely, the development of our technical civilization requires real professionals in their field. But, if you ignore their personal qualities and deny morality, then the self-destruction of not only the human person, but also the entire civilization is quite possible. Ignoring psychology and moral education in the training of specialists leads to a continuous increase in the number and scale of man-made disasters. Practical orientation: the work can be used in social studies, history, chemistry, biology lessons, as well as in extracurricular activities.

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Each of the historical eras - from distant ones to those closer to our time - gives birth to its own genius, whose invention in some way changes the course of history. But isn't the first most successful discovery the “beginning of the end” in a long series of events? Is it possible to prohibit a genius from inventing? XX–XXI centuries - the apotheosis of human military ingenuity. Will this end? Will reason prevail? “We have done the devil’s work.” Robert Oppenheimer

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Probably, at all times there was no person who was so directly (or indirectly) to blame for the death of millions of people as Fritz Haber. He was called the "father of German chemical weapons." “He strangled thousands and saved millions from starvation.” He's a genius, like you and me. But genius and villainy are two incompatible things. Is not it? “Mozart and Salieri” A.S. Pushkin

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On April 22, 1915, German troops released about 180 tons of chlorine from cylinders in 5 minutes. On a 6 km wide front in the Ypres River valley, about 15 thousand people were hit, of which 5 thousand were immediately killed. The Anglo-French front was destroyed in this sector. The German command did not expect such a terrible effect and did not take advantage of the real chance of victory in the battle.

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It was Fritz Haber who created the infamous gas, Zyklon B, originally developed as a pesticide but then used as a means for the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” At the trial against the manager of the Degesch company, which produced Zyklon B, it was calculated that 4 kilograms of Zyklon B was enough to kill 1000 people.

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For the first time, Zyklon B was used for mass extermination of people in September 1941 in the Auschwitz extermination camp on the initiative of the first deputy commandant of the camp, Karl Fritzsch, on 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 other prisoners. Camp commandant Rudolf Hoess approved Fritzsch's initiative, and subsequently it was in Auschwitz that this gas was used to kill people in gas chambers.

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However, at the same time, Fritz Haber saved humanity from nitrogen starvation. He came up with a way to synthesize ammonia from hydrogen and atmospheric air. Haber's invention dramatically increased agricultural production throughout the world. Thanks to this discovery, Germany was able to continue the war, since it began to produce saltpeter from ammonia, which it had previously imported from Chile.

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Anticipating the growing danger at the height of the First World War confronted N.D. Zelinsky, as a Russian patriot and outstanding natural scientist, with a fundamentally new task. But it had to be resolved very quickly. “Where to look for protection, an antidote?” - the scientist asked himself. And here Nikolai Dmitrievich came to a saving decision: to find protection in Nature itself. This method of converting ordinary charcoal into activated carbon was the essence of N.D. Zelinsky’s discovery, not to mention the very idea of using coal in the fight against poisonous gases.

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Academician P.L. Kapitsa refused to participate in the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb, for which in 1945 he was fired from his post as director of the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which he created, and was under house arrest for eight years. He was deprived of the opportunity to communicate with his colleagues from other research institutes. I studied physics at the dacha with my son S.P. Kapitsa.

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After the explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a horrified Einstein sent a telegram to major businessmen banning the use of nuclear weapons. But it was too late... “I don’t know with what weapons the Third World War will be fought, but it is quite obvious that the fourth will only be fought with sticks and stones.” Albert Einstein

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The Fukushima reactors were manufactured according to designs by General Electric. During their design in the 70s, a conflict arose among a group of American engineers: three engineers signed a memo stating that the reactor was designed incorrectly, technically illiterate and dangerous. General Electric ignored the dissenting opinion of the engineers, as a result of which the nuclear scientists resigned without signing the “Version 1c” drawing. And General Electric built a nuclear power plant in Japan based on a virtually emergency project.

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People have produced and created so much that they can no longer cope with this wealth. Currently, it is necessary to reduce the processes of creation and switch to the processes of saving planet Earth. And it becomes obvious that scientists are becoming more personally responsible for their actions and their immediate and possible future results. “Why should we hate each other? We are all at the same time, carried away by the same planet, we are the crew of one ship. It’s good when something new, more perfect, is born in a dispute between different civilizations, but it’s monstrous when they devour each other.” A. de Saint-Exupéry

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References1. “To educate a scientist” Zagorsky Vyacheslav Viktorovich - Education: researched in the world, 20032. Kulikov V.A. “The history of weapons and weapons of peoples and states from ancient times to the present day.” - Ufa: Eastern University, 2003. - 764 p.3. Novikov V.P. “Weapons of the Third World War” / Ed. V.P. Salnikova. – St. Petersburg: Lan, 2001. – 356 p.4. Rastorguev S. “Formula of information war.”: - M.: White Alva, 2005. – 96 p.5. Ablesimov N.E. “A 154 Concepts of modern natural science: Textbook. manual for conducting seminars” / N.E. Ablesimov. – Khabarovsk: Publishing house DVGUPS, 2005. – 89 p.6. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry “The Little Prince” - Moscow 1982 7. Wikipedia website

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Federal Agency for Education
Rostov State Economic University"RINH"
Finance Department

Essay
By discipline "Concepts of modern natural science"
On the topic of: “The problem of social responsibility of a scientist”

Performed:
2nd year student, group 526
Tchaikovskaya Daria Dmitrievna
Checked:
assistant professor
Kirsanova Olga Timofeevna

Rostov-on-Don, 2010
Content:

1)Introduction…………………………………………………………………….. 3
2)Responsibility of scientists……………………………………………………………... 3
3) Social responsibility of scientists……………………………………. 5
4) Conclusion…………………………………………… ………………….13
5) List of used literature……………………………………14

Introduction

The situation of emerging crises, typical of the modern era, the consequences of which affect the fate of large masses of the population and sometimes represent dangers of a truly global nature, impose a special responsibility on science as a force involved in the emergence of such situations, and on the creators of this science, i.e. on scientists.
We often hear accusations against science, and, consequently, scientists, and this is natural. After all, a significant part of crises arises as a consequence of the use of modern technology in the economy based on it.
The peculiarities of the scientific and technological revolution could not but influence the formulation of ethical problems of modern natural science, in particular the attitude of scientists to the problem of responsibility. Both the formulation and the solution to the problem of the responsibility of a natural scientist are directly dependent on the more general problem of the relationship between science, morality and ethics.
The problem of scientist's responsibility

The problem of a scientist's responsibility to society has long attracted much attention. It is complex and diverse, it consists of a considerable number of factors, and is closely intertwined with the broader problem of the ethical aspects of science, which we will not touch on here.
A scientist in his activities naturally bears responsibility, so to speak, of a universal human nature. He is responsible for the usefulness of the scientific “product” he produces: he is expected to have impeccable demands on the reliability of the material, correctness in using the work of his colleagues, rigor of analysis and solid validity of the conclusions drawn. These are elementary, self-evident aspects of a scientist’s responsibility, so to speak, his personal ethics.
The responsibility of a scientist becomes much broader when the question arises about the forms and results of using his works through technology and economics. It is naive to think that the actions and behavior of an individual scientist will affect the emergence or course of a particular crisis. We are talking here about something else - about the voice of the community of scientists, about their professional position.
Recent decades have been marked by the extraordinary development of neurobiology, within which new directions have emerged and are successfully developing, studying the structure and functions of the human central nervous system. The results of these studies, both of genuine scientific significance and those representing hasty, unfounded or clearly falsified “sensations,” conceal the danger of their inhumane use not for the purpose of curing mental disorders, but as a means of “behavior modification.” The rapid development of chemistry and pharmacology over the past decades has enriched medicine with a large number of new active drugs that affect the human psyche and behavior. Advances in neurosurgery have made it possible to perform delicate and complex operations on the brain. All these achievements of scientific and technological progress and the natural desire of scientists to penetrate the secrets of the human brain have raised a number of important moral, ethical and legal problems.
The problem of a scientist’s responsibility arises with great clarity and distinctness when he is faced with a dilemma “for” or “against,” as was the case, for example, in medicine at the beginning of the 20th century, with Ehrlich’s epoch-making discovery of his first radical remedy against syphilis, the drug “ 606".
Medical science and, along with it, practice in those days were governed by the principle “first of all, do no harm,” and even now it appears in the “Hippocratic Oath.” Ehrlich put forward and courageously defended another principle: “first of all, be useful.” These principles are directly addressed to the responsibility, to the conscience of the scientist. It is clear that they go far beyond the scope of medical science alone and have the broadest general significance. Such problems arise many times, and there is no absolute recipe. Each time, scientists must weigh the pros and cons and take responsibility for how to proceed.
In the case of Ehrlich, the responsibility of the scientist was unusually high, one might say gigantic. On one side of the scale was a terrible disease, which had a colossal spread everywhere. On the other side is a promising, but completely unknown therapeutic agent with the danger of secondary, perhaps severe, side effects. But confidence in one’s own rightness and in the reliability of checks contributed to the fact that the principle of “first of all, bring benefit” triumphed. Despite the risk of some supposedly possible harm, a serious, truly global disease was defeated.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF SCIENTISTS
What should be the social responsibility of scientists? Unlike professional, the social responsibility of scientists is realized in the relationship between science and society. Therefore, it can be characterized as an external (sometimes called social) ethics of science. It should be borne in mind that in the real life of scientists, the problems of internal and external ethics of science, professional and social responsibility of scientists are closely intertwined. Of course, interest in the problems of social responsibility of scientists did not arise today, but in the last 20-25 years this area of scientific study has appeared in a completely new light. And today, when the social functions of science are rapidly multiplying and diversifying, when the number of channels connecting science with the life of society is constantly increasing, discussion of the ethical problems of science remains one of the important ways to identify its changing social and value characteristics.
M. Born, speaking about this in his memoirs, noted that “changes have occurred in real science and its ethics that make it impossible to preserve the old ideal of serving knowledge for its own sake, the ideal in which my generation believed. We were convinced that this could never turn into evil, since the search for truth is good in itself. It was a beautiful dream from which world events awoke us.” This refers primarily to American nuclear explosions over Japanese cities. The environmental movement, which became acutely evident since the early 60s, played a major role in attracting public attention to the consequences of the use of scientific and technological achievements. At this time, concern is awakening in the public consciousness due to the growing pollution of the environment and the depletion of the planet’s natural resources, and the general aggravation of global problems. It was the social responsibility of scientists that was the initial impulse that made them, and then public opinion, realize the seriousness of the situation that threatens the future of humanity. Unlike the previous example, in this case the responsible attitude of scientists made itself known even before the state of affairs - taken as a whole - became irreparable. In addition, if in the first case representatives of only some areas of physics were directly involved in the tragic development of events, then the environmental movement turned out to be essentially a general scientific one, affecting representatives of various fields of knowledge. The social responsibility of scientists, as we see, turns out to be one of the factors determining the trends in the development of science, individual disciplines and research areas.
One more fact. In the 70s, the results and prospects of biomedical and genetic research caused a wide resonance. The culminating moment was the call of a group of molecular biologists and geneticists led by P. Berg (USA) to declare a voluntary moratorium (ban) on such experiments in the field of genetic engineering that could pose a potential danger to the genetic constitution of living organisms. The essence of the matter is that recombinant (hybrid) DNA molecules created in the laboratory, capable of being integrated into the genes of any organism and beginning to act, can give rise to completely unprecedented and, possibly, potentially dangerous forms of life for existing species. In the ensuing discussions, the subject of discussion was ethical standards and regulations that could influence both the general direction and the research process itself.
The announcement of the moratorium was an unprecedented event for science: for the first time, scientists, on their own initiative, decided to suspend research that promised them colossal successes. Since the announcement of the moratorium, leading scientists in the field have developed a system of precautions to ensure the safe conduct of research. This example is significant in the sense that scientists, appealing to colleagues and to public opinion, for the first time tried to attract attention not by promising the benefits that can be expected from this area of scientific research, but by warning about possible dangers. This means that the manifestation of a sense of social responsibility and concern acts as not only a socially acceptable, but also a socially recognized and, moreover, a socially stimulated form of behavior for scientists. It subsequently became clear that the potential dangers of the experiments in general had been exaggerated. However, this was not at all obvious when the moratorium proposal was put forward. And the knowledge that science now has about the safety of some experiments and the dangers of others was itself the result of scientific research carried out precisely as a result of the moratorium. Thanks to the moratorium, new scientific data, new knowledge, and new experimental methods were obtained, which made it possible to divide experiments into classes according to the degree of their potential danger, as well as to develop methods for obtaining weakened viruses that can only exist in an artificial laboratory environment. We thus see that the social responsibility of scientists is not something external, some kind of appendage unnaturally associated with scientific activity. On the contrary, it is an organic component of scientific activity, which quite significantly influences the problems and directions of research.
We can notice that the problems of social responsibility of scientists are not only specified, but also in a certain sense universalized - they arise in a variety of spheres of scientific knowledge. Thus, it can hardly be considered that any field of science is in principle and at all times guaranteed against encountering these far from simple problems. In one respect, a scientist cannot be held accountable for the consequences of his research, since in most cases he does not take the decisive action.
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The problem of a scientist's responsibility to society is complex and diverse, it consists of a considerable number of factors, and is closely intertwined with the broader problem of the ethical aspects of science.

In his activities, a scientist naturally bears responsibility of a universal human nature. He is responsible for the usefulness of the scientific “product” he produces: he is expected to have impeccable demands on the reliability of the material, correctness in using the work of his colleagues, rigor of analysis and solid validity of the conclusions drawn. These are elementary, self-evident aspects of a scientist’s responsibility, his personal ethics.

The responsibility of a scientist becomes much broader when the question arises about the forms and results of using his works through technology and economics. It is naive to think that the actions and behavior of an individual scientist will affect the emergence or course of a particular crisis. We are talking here about the voice of the community of scientists, about their professional position.

The responsibility of a scientist is the other side of the freedom of his scientific creativity. On the one hand, responsibility is unthinkable without freedom, on the other hand, freedom without responsibility becomes arbitrariness.

One of the necessary conditions and features of the development of science is freedom of scientific creativity. In all its aspects - psychological (free will), epistemological (freedom as a recognized necessity), socio-political (freedom of action), interconnected, freedom in the field of science manifests itself in special specific forms and acts as a necessary basis for responsibility not only scientist, but also humanity as a whole.

Freedom must manifest itself not only externally and with the help of science, but also within it itself in all forms of freedom of thought (posing scientific problems, scientific imagination, foresight, etc.), freedom of choice of research objects and methods of scientific work, freedom of action, social freedom of the scientist as an individual.

One of the manifestations of freedom of scientific creativity, and therefore responsibility, is the ability of a scientist to free himself from preconceived opinions, the ability to practically analyze his own work and treat the work of others favorably, to see the grains of truth in it. Constant doubt about the correctness and reliability of conclusions and discoveries is one of the foundations of scientific integrity, a scientist’s sense of responsibility for the truth of scientific views. The victory of doubt, which was preceded by intensive work of thought to verify conclusions, expresses true freedom of creativity.

It should be noted that scientific activity requires certain qualities from a person. This is not only boundless hard work, inquisitiveness and obsession, but also high civil courage. A true scientist wages an uncompromising fight against ignorance, defends the sprouts of the new, progressive against attempts to preserve outdated views and ideas. The history of science carefully preserves the names of scientists who, without sparing their lives, fought against the backward worldview that hampered the progress of civilization. Giordano Bruno, a great thinker and materialist who boldly declared the infinity of the Universe, was burned at the stake of the Inquisition.

In an exploitative society, science and scientists had and still have one more enemy - the desire of those in power to use the work of scientists for the purpose of their enrichment and for the purposes of war. When a modern scientist, armed with all the power of modern technology and supported by all the “assets” of modern states, loses clear moral criteria, when he is “in the interests of science” and not out of morality, and often out of a purely “aesthetic” interest in the “case”, in discovery and creativity, as such, invents sets of poisons, atomic, bacterial, psychopathogenic weapons, this is deadly for humanity, not to mention that it is also deadly for science. responsibility scientist scientific weapons

Among the areas of scientific knowledge in which the issues of social responsibility of a scientist and the moral and ethical assessment of his activities are especially acutely and intensely discussed, a special place is occupied by genetic engineering, biotechnology, biomedical and human genetic research, all of which are quite closely related to each other.

It was the development of genetic engineering that led to a unique event in the history of science, when in 1975 the world's leading scientists voluntarily entered into a moratorium, temporarily suspending a number of studies that were potentially dangerous not only to humans, but also to other forms of life on our planet. The moratorium was preceded by a sharp breakthrough in molecular genetics research. However, the other side of this breakthrough in the field of genetics was the potential threats hidden in it for humans and humanity. These kinds of fears forced scientists to take such an unprecedented step as establishing a voluntary moratorium. However, discussions around the ethical issues of genetic engineering have not subsided.

Responsibility of scientists to society for the development of weapons of mass destruction

Scientists have always spoken out for preventing wars and bloodshed, as well as for stopping the use of nuclear technology. Thus, in December 1930, Albert Einstein expressed the thought: “If it were possible to get only two percent of the world’s population to declare in peacetime that they would refuse to fight, the question of international conflicts would be resolved, for it would be impossible to imprison two percent of the world's population, there would not be enough room for them in the prisons of the entire earth." Nevertheless, Einstein's call left a noticeable mark: it was an inevitable and necessary stage in the difficult process of scientists realizing their civic duty to humanity.

A. Einstein and a number of other prominent scientists, including Paul Langevin, Bertrand Russell, were part of the initiative committee for the preparation of the World Anti-War Congress, held in Amsterdam in August 1932. A significant step towards uniting scientists against the war was made by the anti-war congress in Brussels in 1936. During this congress, representatives of the scientific community from thirteen countries discussed the issue of the responsibility of scientists in the face of military danger.

In a resolution adopted by the scientific committee of the congress, they condemned the war as undermining the international character of science and pledged to direct their efforts to prevent war. Congress participants called on scientists to explain the harmful consequences of using scientific achievements for war purposes, to conduct anti-war propaganda, and to expose pseudoscientific theories with the help of which certain forces are trying to justify war.

This decision, made on the eve of the Second World War, did not have any serious practical consequences, but it forced many Western scientists to think about the socio-economic causes of the war, about the role that scientists can play in educating the general public about the causes and consequences of war , in facilitating the organization of resistance to forces interested in starting a war.

These thoughts pushed anti-fascist scientists to action, which from today’s perspective can be assessed as a manifestation of the desire to prevent atomic weapons from falling into the hands of Hitler and his allies.

Hitler's Germany could create nuclear weapons and use them to enslave peoples - many scientists thought so, especially those who learned in practice what fascism was. They did everything to prevent Hitler from using this powerful force. The brave son of the French people, Frederic Joliot-Curie, whose research on the fission of the uranium nucleus into two fragments under the influence of a neutron revealed the last link in the chain reaction, took all measures to prevent the Nazis from seizing the uranium reserves and heavy water needed in France. creation of a nuclear reactor.

Concern for the fate of nations and the possibility of Germany acquiring nuclear weapons prompted progressive scientists in the United States, many of whom were refugees from Europe, to appeal to the American government with a proposal to immediately create an atomic bomb.

This decision was made, and a special organization called the Manhattan Project was created to develop and manufacture the atomic bomb. The leadership of this organization was entrusted to General L. Groves, a representative of the Pentagon.

On April 23, 1957, the famous scientist, Nobel Prize laureate, physician and philosopher A. Schweitzer drew public attention in an address broadcast by Norwegian Radio to the genetic and other consequences of ongoing nuclear weapons testing. Joliot-Curie supported this appeal, emphasizing the urgent need to stop test explosions of nuclear weapons. This appeal received a positive response from scientists in many countries. Soviet scientists also categorically stated that they supported the prohibition of nuclear weapons and demanded the conclusion of an agreement between countries on the immediate cessation of testing of atomic and hydrogen bombs, believing that any nuclear war, wherever it occurred, would necessarily turn into a general war with dire consequences for humanity.

A modern scientist cannot be imagined without a high sense of citizenship, without heightened responsibility for the results of his activities, without serious concern for the fate of the world and humanity. A scientist of any specialty, under any circumstances, must consider concern for the welfare of humanity as his highest moral duty.

Responsibility of scientists for developments in the field of genetic engineering and cloning.

Genetic engineering emerged in the 1970s. as a branch of molecular biology associated with the targeted creation of new combinations of genetic material capable of multiplying in a cell and synthesizing final products. A decisive role in the creation of new combinations of genetic material is played by special enzymes that make it possible to cut the DNA molecule into fragments in strictly defined places, and then “stitch” the DNA fragments into a single whole.

Genetic engineering has opened up prospects for the construction of new biological organisms - transgenic plants and animals with pre-planned properties. The study of the human genome is also of great importance.

The responsibility of scientists during the development of genetic engineering can be characterized by the fact that they must maintain the confidentiality of genetic information about specific people. For example, some countries have laws restricting the dissemination of such information.

Although significant work has been done in the laboratory to engineer transgenic microbes with a wide variety of properties, scientists have a public responsibility to ensure that transgenic microbes are not used in the open. This is due to the uncertainty of the consequences that such a fundamentally uncontrollable process can lead to. In addition, the world of microorganisms itself has been studied extremely poorly: science knows, at best, about 10% of microorganisms, and practically nothing is known about the rest; the patterns of interaction between microbes, as well as microbes and other biological organisms, have not been sufficiently studied. These and other circumstances determine the increased sense of responsibility of microbiologists, expressed not only towards transgenic microorganisms, but also towards transgenic biological organisms in general.

The importance of awareness of their responsibility by scientists involved in cloning cannot be underestimated either. Recently, many predictions, wishes, guesses and fantasies about the cloning of living organisms have been spreading in the media. The discussion of the possibility of human cloning gives particular urgency to these discussions. Of interest are the technological, ethical, philosophical, legal, religious, and psychological aspects of this problem, as well as the consequences that may arise when implementing this method of human reproduction.

Of course, scientists defend themselves by the fact that in the 20th century many successful experiments were carried out on cloning animals (amphibians, some species of mammals), but all of them were carried out using the transfer of nuclei of embryonic (undifferentiated or partially differentiated) cells. It was believed that it was impossible to obtain a clone using the nucleus of a somatic (fully differentiated) cell of an adult organism. However, in 1997, British scientists announced a successful, sensational experiment: the production of living offspring (Dolly the sheep) after the transfer of a nucleus taken from the somatic cell of an adult animal.

Particular attention should be paid to the responsibility for human cloning. Despite the fact that there are no technical capabilities to clone a person yet, in principle, human cloning looks like a completely feasible project. And here many not only scientific and technological problems arise, but also ethical, legal, philosophical, and religious ones.

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Presentation on the topic: Ethics of science - the fate of great discoveries

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