A code of ethics for the life sciences

The activities of the life sciences are essential to provide solutions for the future, for both individuals and society. Society has demanded growing accountability from the scientific community as implications of life science research rise in influence and there are concerns about the credibility, integrity and motives of science. While the scientific community has responded to concerns about its integrity in part by initiating training in research integrity and the responsible conduct of research, this approach is minimal. The scientific community justifies itself by appealing to the ethos of science, claiming academic freedom, self-direction, and self-regulation, but no comprehensive codification of this foundational ethos has been forthcoming. A review of the professional norms of science and a prototype code of ethics for the life sciences provide a framework to spur discussions within the scientific community to define scientific professionalism. A formalization of implicit principles can provide guidance for recognizing divergence from the norms, place these norms within a context that would enhance education of trainees, and provide a framework for discussing externally and internally applied pressures that are influencing the practice of science. The prototype code articulates the goal for life sciences research and the responsibilities associated with the freedom of exploration, the principles for the practice of science, and the virtues of the scientists themselves. The time is ripe for scientific communities to reinvigorate professionalism and define the basis of their social contract. Codifying the basis of the social contract between science and society will sustain public trust in the scientific enterprise.     

An integrative conceptual framework of disability. New directions for research

Advances in research on disability and rehabilitation are essential to creating equal opportunity, economic self-sufficiency, and full participation for persons with disabilities. Historically, such initiatives have focused on separate and specific areas, including neuroscience, molecular biology and genetics, gerontology, engineering and physical sciences, and social and behavioral sciences. Research on persons with disabilities should examine the broader context and trends of society that affect the total environment of persons with disabilities. This article examines the various disability paradigms across time, assessing the relative contribution of the socioecological perspective in guiding research designed to improve the lives of persons with disabilities. The authors recommend new research directions that include a focus on life span issues, biomedicine, biotechnology, the efficacy and effectiveness of current interventions, an emphasis on consumer-driven investigations within a socioecological perspective of disability, and the implications for research and practice.     

A narratological methodology for identifying archetypal story patterns in autobiographical narratives

Based on Jung's definition of archetype the concept 'archetypal story pattern' is developed as well as a research method drawing on narrative analysis and biographical research to identify these archetypal story patterns in life stories. Jung pointed out that personal myths, archetypal patterns found, e.g., in mythology, can govern the life course of individuals unconsciously. In the Theory of Narrative Identity comparable concepts have been mentioned but were never fully developed. In my research I try to combine Jung's concept of the archetype with the elaborated methodology of narrative analysis. Archetypes can manifest as narratives and the identity construction of a person via narrating the life story can be influenced or even totally structured by archetypal stories which give a specific form as well as a specific meaning to the person's identity. The method of extracting an underlying archetypal pattern from an autobiographical narrative is demonstrated. The results of the research on 20 autobiographical interviews and the inherent archetypal patterns are summarized. The major aim of this paper is to describe in detail the application of a well established method of the social sciences on a key concept of Jungian psychology to show that these concepts can be integrated into recent research frameworks of academic sciences. On the other hand it shows that Jungian concepts can be investigated through established and well defined research methods in empirical research settings.     

生物芯片技术与缩微实验室

基于微加工技术发展起来的生物芯片,可以把成千上万乃至几十万个生命信息集成在一个很小的芯片上,对基因、抗原和活体细胞等进行分析和检测。用这些生物芯片制作的各种生化分析仪和传统仪器相比较具有体积小、重量轻、便于携带、无污染、分析过程自动化、分析速度快、所需样品和试剂少等诸多优点。这类仪器的出现将给生命科学研究、疾病诊断和治疗、新药开发、生物武器战争、司法鉴定、食品卫生监督、航空航天等领域带来一场革命。     

THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY IN UNCOVERING THE MATRIX OF HUMAN MORALITY

Abstract. Theology and the life sciences are mutually dependent on one another in the task of understanding the origin and function of moral behavior. The life sciences investigate morality from the perspective of the historical and communal dimension of humanity and point to survival as the primary function of human behavior. A Christian ethic of self-sacrifice advances the preservation of the entire human and nonhuman creation and should not, therefore, be objected to by the life sciences. Religion, however, is more than a survival mechanism. It points to a preserving agency beyond humanity and prevents the life sciences from reducing life to its strictly biological side.     

The altered rationale for the choice of a standard animal in experimental psychology: Henry H. Donaldson, Adolf Meyer, and "the" albino rat

The mid 20th-century dominance of albino rats in nonhuman experimental psychology research often presumed that the animal embodied fundamental psychological processes that could generalize to a wide range of vertebrates. The author describes the conceptual basis for the original choice of white rats by the 2 individuals most responsible for establishing rats as a prominent animal model in the life sciences at the turn of the century: Henry H. Donaldson and Adolf Meyer. The author stresses the comparative rationale that justified their choice and argues that they sought generality through attention to diversity and species differences. Their approach contrasts sharply with the later view of the rat as a generic animal model that could represent similarities shared by all vertebrates. It is suggested that the change resulted from an emphasis on standardization produced by the growing industrialization of the life sciences in America.     

A Plea for a Historical Epistemology of Research

The paper approaches the topic of what a general philosophy of science could mean today from the perspective of a historical epistemology. Consequently, in a first step, the paper looks at the notion of generality in the sciences, and how it evolved over time, on the example of the life sciences. In the second part of the paper, the urgency of a general philosophy of science is located in the history of philosophy of science. Two attempts at the beginning of the twentieth century are particularly highlighted: that of Karl Popper and that of Martin Heidegger. Both of them concentrate, albeit in widely different form, on the phenomenon of research as an open-ended process. This trend is even more pronounced in Gaston Bachelard??s version of a historical epistemology, whose work is taken as a point of reference for a general historical epistemology of research. The paper concludes with a plea to look, with Georges Canguilhem, at the history of the sciences as a laboratory for epistemology.     

Agential Conversations: Interviewing Postdoctoral Life Scientists and the Politics of Mundane Research Practices

Science and Technology Studies (STS) projects often aim at understanding social problems and epistemic challenges in science and, more generally, in the technoscientific worlds we inhabit. However, it is often unclear if and how these projects can help address the problems they identify. Scholars such as Donna Haraway, John Law, and Karen Barad have argued that STS methods always interfere with the contexts they study. Combining this insight with recent feminist scholarship on the politics of care in technoscience suggests that a better understanding of how our research practices already interfere can help us attune our methods in order to promote care as part our research practices. One avenue to investigate this hypothesis is to return to a completed study and reconstruct how its research methods have created interference effects that promoted or could promote care for the problems the study identified. In the case at hand, the methods investigated are interviews with life scientists in Austria and the USA. The problem they defined is that current career rationales in the life sciences, which foreground individualism, mobility, and competition hinder collaboration, teamwork, and mentoring, strain group cohesion, and tend to exclude certain groups. Reframing the research interviews as ‘agential conversations’ that interfered with the contexts they sought to understand shows how the interviews also created situated moments of reflection, connection, and disruption that could serve as a basis for responding to these problematic conditions affecting researchers in the life sciences and beyond.     

Melioration and self-experimentation

Operant researchers rarely use the arena of applied psychology to motivate or to judge their research. Absence of tests by application weakens the field of basic operant research. Early in their development, the physical and biological sciences emphasized meliorative aspects of research. Improvement of human life was a major goal of these young sciences. This paper argues that if basic operant researchers analogously invoked a melioration criterion, the operant field might avoid its tendency toward ingrowth and instead generate a broadly influential science. Operant researchers could incorporate melioration by (a) creating animal models to study applied problems; (b) confronting questions raised by applied analysts and testing hypotheses in applied settings; or (c) performing self-experiments—that is, using experimental methods and behavioral techniques to study and change the experimenter's behavior.     

Intelligence: genetics, genes, and genomics

More is known about the genetics of intelligence than about any other trait, behavioral or biological, which is selectively reviewed in this article. Two of the most interesting genetic findings are that heritability of intelligence increases throughout the life span and that the same genes affect diverse cognitive abilities. The most exciting direction for genetic research on intelligence is to harness the power of the Human Genome Project to identify some of the specific genes responsible for the heritability of intelligence. The next research direction will be functional genomics--for example, understanding the brain pathways between genes and intelligence. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) will integrate life sciences research on intelligence; bottom-up molecular biological research will meet top-down psychological research in the brain.     

Pluralität der Wissenschaften

In September 2002 the international conference on "Pluralism of sciences: the psychoanalytic method between clinical, empirical and conceptual research" took place in Frankfurt am Main. One of the purposes was to discuss a research methodology, which is adequate in psychoanalysis. The major points were clinical research as process-outcome research and experimental research on psychoanalytic paradigms with current methods of the so-called "life sciences". A critical discussion of these research strategies appeared difficult and did not reach a satisfying conclusion.     

Overview: Underserved Areas of Education in the Responsible Conduct of Research: Authorship

In February of 2007, the Responsible Conduct of Research Education Committee of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics convened a mini-conference at the Association’s annual meeting. The purpose of the mini-conference was to examine underserved areas of education in research ethics. The mini-conference consisted of panel discussions for two topics: authorship and social responsibility. Representatives from diverse academic disciplines were invited to participate in each of the two panels. This Special Section of Science and Engineering Ethics consists of the papers based on presentations in the authorship panel. The papers illustrate similarities and differences in authorship and publication practices in various disciplines including engineering, the life sciences, and the social sciences.     

DNA双螺旋结构模型与生物医学的发展

DNA双螺旋模型的建立大大推进了生物医学的研究,基因工程技术的诞生和临床医学的发展,已经成为生命科学发展史中的一个里程碑,     

Beyond Rational Order: Shifting the Meaning of Trust in Organizational Research

Trust is a key term in social sciences and organizational research. Trust as well is a term that originates from and speaks to our human relational experience. The first part of the paper explores trust as it is interpreted within contemporary sociology and organizational research, and systematically questions five basic assumptions underlying the interpretation of trust in organizational research. The last part of the paper reviews selected phenomenological methodological studies of trust in work life situations, in a quest for how experiential trust can emerge and be studied in professional organizations. We suggest looking for the “in-betweens” or spaces of possibilities within organizational structures, roles and tasks for emerging, experiential trust.     

Comparing qualitative research methodologies for systemic research: the use of grounded theory, discourse analysis and narrative analysis

Many of the qualitative research methods developed in the social sciences are well suited to explore research questions pertinent for the systemic field, and make a good fit with systemic thinking. In this paper I briefly outline the value of qualitative research for systemic psychotherapies. I explore some parallel developments in the field of qualitative research and systemic therapy which can inform each other. Three qualitative methodologies, a grounded theory approach, discourse analysis and narrative analysis, particularly useful for the research of subjective experience and meaning, are briefly outlined. To compare and contrast these methodologies, I discuss their application to a pilot study concerning the experiences of living life in more than one language. I demonstrate how each research methodology can highlight different aspects of qualitative research material and address different research questions. The challenge of how these methodologies may be further developed for systemic research is posed.     

A foundation beam for studying morality from a personological point of view: Are individual differences in moral behaviors and thoughts consistent?

Morality is a topic of burgeoning scientific interest, and the relevance of personological factors to moral behavior has interdisciplinary implications for the social sciences, public policy, and philosophy. However, relatively little research has investigated the role of personological factors in moral life, perhaps because of lingering skepticism about the robustness of moral traits. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether morality is consistent across many occasions of everyday life, implying that personological factors play an important role in moral behavior. A novel method of assessing moral behaviors was developed and employed in two experience sampling studies (4075 total observations). Results showed that moral behavior is consistent in many different ways, suggesting that personological factors substantially impact moral life.     

The foundation of research ethics in community law

The creation of the European Community by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 marked the beginning of the efforts to coordinate and harmonize national policies in many strategic sectors with high economic value, among them several aspects of scientific research. The European Union Law, formerly known as European Community law, now includes a range of ethical principles that apply to research projects developed with the financial support of the European Union. Which were the steps in the integration of the ethics of sciences in the context of the Union? This article aims to study first, what were, and what are the legal bases of the integration of the ethical dimension of researches in life sciences by the European Union and, secondly, the institutional organisation that has been set up in order to discuss the development of common ethical norms, especially bioethics one, and in order to apply these rules which respect national particularities. In this regard, we analyse the relevant legal texts providing a foundation for the creation of a European bio-law and we give an overview of the European institutions' activity in the field of bioethics by looking particularly the health research field.     

Education for Life Scientists on the Dual-Use Implications of Their Research

Advances in the life sciences are occurring with extreme rapidity and accumulating a great deal of knowledge about life’s vital processes. While this knowledge is essential for fighting disease in a more effective way, it can also be misused either intentionally or inadvertently to develop novel and more effective biological weapons. For nearly a decade civil-academic society as well as States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention have recognised the importance of dual-use biosecurity education for life scientists as a means to foster a culture of responsibility and prevent the potential misuse of advances in the life sciences for non-peaceful purposes. Nevertheless, the implementation of dual-use biosecurity education for life scientists has made little progress in institutions of higher learning. Professional societies and academic organizations have worked from the bottom-up in developing online dual-use biosecurity education modules that can be used for instruction. However, top-down help is needed from goverments if further progress is to be made in implementing biosecurity education for life scientists.     

Power,empowerment and surrender in the context of paediatric spiritual care

The dynamics of ‘surrender’ is here put in dialectic with the dynamics of ‘power’ observed in situation involving children and their caregivers in a paediatric hospital setting. Following a qualitative research method used in practical theology, three case studies are presented and then interpreted in the light of both social sciences and Christian theology/spirituality. In the power/surrender paradox, there will always be a need for discernment for each situation and each encounter if the caregiver wants to better care for the children and continue to acknowledge their contribution to the life experience and wisdom of adults. Power and surrender both need to be embraced in order to grow in a fruitful spiritual life.     

“From war to peace”: Military festival visitors’ quality-of-life

The Voortrekker Monument Military festival is one of several military festivals held in South Africa. This study sought to determine the travel motives and life domain effects on the quality-of-life of visitors. Data were gathered from 330 visitors on their travel motives, overall life domains, and quality-of-life. Structural Equation Modelling analysis indicated a positive linear relationship between the visitors’ travel motives, life domains (social-life, leisure-life, and self-life), life domains overall, and quality-of-life; all of which attained good reliabilities. The findings indicate that a visit to a military heritage festival has a positive effect on visitors’ quality-of-life. This research adds to literature in the social sciences, positive psychology, and quality-of-life.