Science, Ethics, Policy, and Law

Catalog description

This course explores the ethical, policy, and legal implications of science, and the implications of science for ethics, policy, and law. The course provides an introduction to scientific norms and practice; an introduction to the theories and methods employed in ethical analysis; an overview of ethics for scientists (including, but not limited, to falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism, and the protection of human and non-human animal participants); and an introduction to law and policy. In addition, the course will explore the use of science in the courts; the role of scientists in policy debates (whether they should be advocates or "honest brokers"); science education policy; science communication and scientific hype; the roles and responsibilities of professional scientists and citizen scientists; science in regulatory and policy processes; the assessment and management of risk; policymaking in the face of scientific uncertainty; and what ethics, policy, and law might learn from recent developments in social and behavioral science. In its examination of law and policy, the course will explore international and comparative perspectives. The course will also explore a variety of special topics (that may vary according to the expertise of the instructor and the interests of the students). These topics may be drawn from a variety of spheres: medicine and public health, food and nutrition science, neuroscience, agricultural science, climate science, and the social sciences. Special topics may include the ethical and policy implications of "big data"; the ethics of science in war and as a instrument of harm; climate science, climate change denial, and ethical decision-making in the face of scientific uncertainty; the promises and perils of forensic science; the role of food science in nutrition policy; the regulation of environmental toxins; the use of behavioral science and "nudging" in public health policy; gun violence and gun control policy; contemporary challenges related to transparency, reproducibility and replication in science; the commercialization of science, and an ethical and policy assessment of the so-called "Triple Helix" of government-academy-industry relations; and the neuroscience of moral and criminal responsibility.