What's the role of virtues in the lab?

11 hours ago by Gregory Crawford, The Conversation Just because we can doesnt mean we should. There are values at play in the lab. Credit: O. Usher (UCL MAPS), CC BY

The evolution of science and engineering in the 21st century has transformed the role of these professions in profound ways that affect research, scholarship and the practice of teaching in the university setting.

The traditional division between the liberal arts and the STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics is, I believe, artificial and obsolete.

As a physicist, a former dean of engineering at Brown University, and dean of the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame, I have come to recognize and appreciate the vital role that the humanities, social sciences and arts play in the lives and careers of scientists and engineersperhaps more now than ever before.

The acceleration of discovery and invention in this century has reached a point where the question "Can we do this?" is almost always answered "yes."

Meanwhile, the question "Should we do this?" takes on new urgency. Society is looking for STEM graduates to address the global challenges that affect the medical, environmental and economic well-being of billions of people. To succeed with in these difficult tasks, graduates need to be schooled in the intellectual and moral virtues.

Research is not purely objective

Genomic mapping is routine, stem cell research holds promise for a wide range of cures, nanoscience and technology open near-limitless possibilities in some fields.

The complexity of increasingly sophisticated STEM research requires collaboration with people both within one's field and beyond. For example, hundreds of physicists work at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, to understand the most fundamental nature of the universe's building blocks: subatomic particles. The nature of their work and future discoveries will inspire new collaborations among experts from different disciplines, spin-off technologies applied in other fields, and even raise new and profound questions about nature and human beings.

STEM is a human enterprisean investigation of the physical world carried out by individuals and groups whose interests and backgrounds influence their choices and focus.

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What's the role of virtues in the lab?