Journal of Humanitarian Medicine - vol. VI - n. 2 - April/June 2006

THE ETHICS OF RESEARCH: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE RESEARCHER

Ivan Wilhelm, PhD

Rector, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic

The theme - the ethical aspect of the activity of the researcher - is one of the most fundamental issues in academic life and needs to be accorded due attention. Medicine is of course one of the scientific disciplines most closely connected with the human individual, affecting his or her life in the most fundamental ways, and especially at times when he or she faces health problems. The influence of medicine on the human population as a whole is also enormous, and I would like to come back to this aspect later on. All this means that medical ethics has been very much to the forefront practically throughout the entire history of medicine. Medical ethics are not only of great concern to practising doctors and ethical philosophers attached to medical departments, but occupy considerable space in initial medical education. As the rector of a university that has five medical faculties I have had a chance to get to know some of the issues involved quite closely. My own field of research as a physicist is quite different, however, and I can therefore report that relatively very little explicit attention is paid to ethical questions of research and scholarship in the academic community at large, and by extension in the preparation of young specialists during university studies. The reason for this is the surviving traditional concept of academic research as something pure, orientated above all to scholarship, and reserved for a tiny percentage of people, a select group wholly devoted to their discipline and loyal to their society. Right at the start, however, we need to stress that this concept is no longer applicable. More and more people are working in research and it can hardly be assumed that the motive behind the choice of each one of them is a pure desire for knowledge. Personal desire for success in a professional career, and above all the influence of those who commission or fund research and their pragmatic interests, are all factors that can encourage unethical behaviour. At the same time it is clear that the results of research are having an ever more obvious impact on practical life and are therefore affecting more and more of the population. Moreover the state apparatus, as the main “shareholder” in research, ever more obviously seeks to influence research programmes. Hence science plays an ever more important part in human life. The growing number of research workers and the ever faster translation of research into practical life - those are the two basic reasons why questions of the ethics of research work and the responsibility of the researcher are even more important today than they were until relatively recently.
The increasing influence of science on the development of society is obviously the main reason for putting forward the theme of the ethical behaviour of the research workers for broader public discussion. Let us remember that the scientist or scholar works on the border between the known and the hitherto unknown, and that his or her path leads into uncharted areas where it is often impossible to predict quite what the results will be even when they are more or less anticipated, let alone when they turn out to be unexpected. And the general public has no chance at all of keeping up with the research situation in detail, in a way that would allow it to understand these results just as they emerge. As far as research in public institutions is concerned, or in institutions that have public statutes or if otherwise established still have the same basic organization, such as universities, public and private, the democratic internal system of such institutions provides a certain level of guarantee that there will be relatively systematic control of research activity above all inside the academic community. The transparency of the structure of decision-making in these institutions, the way in which decisions are achieved through bodies involving a large number of members of the academic community, means that to keep the existence of a major research programme from the public would require a conspiracy of a kind that would hardly be practicable. In my view this is one of the main advantages of the cultivation of research in public rather than private institutions, where I am convinced it is relatively easy to conceal quite large parts of research programmes from the public at large. The public availability of detailed information on research activities on the one hand creates the conditions for ethical evaluation of research, including the possibility of public pressure to regulate the ambitions of researchers, and on the other allows research and its implications to be judged by specialists from other fields. Given the current trend to narrow specialization and minimum interdisciplinary interaction this last argument is particularly important.
The present conditions of research and academic activity have not, of course, arisen purely by chance or overnight. They are the result of historical development and our task is not just to accept them, but to try and influence their ongoing development. Here I should like to consider the development of scientific disciplines, using a pivotal example that also happens to be the example where I feel I am on home ground, i.e., physics.
The last decade of the 19th century was an important period for the progress of the natural sciences, and above all physics. The successes of earlier 19th-century physicists had meant an overall ordering of fundamental physical ideas and comparison of notions of physical processes including their mathematical description: what is known as “classical” physics had acquired a coherent, apparently comprehensive theoretical form. It was generally believed that all the basic questions in physics had been answered and that further research would concentrate on improving the precision of experimental results and achieving a complete fit between empirical finds and theoretical calculations. Essentially therefore, both theory and practice were directed simply to making minor corrections to existing models and descriptions.
But in the last decade of the 19th century physics started to undergo a major upheaval. Many physicists were obtaining experimental results that could not be explained by the existing theories, whether what was at issue was the description of photo-effect, the existence and behaviour of X-rays, or, above all, the discovery of radioactivity and new types of radiation. With the discovery of the electron, detailed study of the structure of matter began, a whole field of new, entirely unanticipated questions opened up, and the first efforts were made to formulate the principles of quantum theory. Ernest Rutherford’s experiments, published in 1911, led scientists to accept as unchallengeable the idea of the structure of the atom as a material force centre with orbiting electrons, but it was only later, with the results of quantum mechanics, that these atomic processes and phenomena could be explained and comprehended. While it arose from the practical needs of the physics of the microworld, quantum theory provided a new theoretical groundwork and system of mathematical abstraction comparable in its revolutionary effects to differential calculus and the Newtonian view of nature. The conclusions of what is known as the Copenhagen School, led by Niels Bohr, are today formulated in universal terms as classical quantum mechanics; they represent not just a remarkable description and explanation of a number of physical processes, but above all a new concept, a new paradigm with all the philosophical aspects that this implies, and so the beginning of a new era in physics.
The beginning of the last century also saw crucial work that brought a paradigm shift in views of the dynamics of material bodies. In this context the key figure was Albert Einstein, as the author of the complete formulation of the general theory of relativity, meaning the generalization of the Galilean-Euclidean description of space or space-time. It is worth noting that what motivated Einstein to this theoretical leap forward was not in fact the lack of fit between experimental results and theoretical description evident above all in astronomy. In his own words, the attempt to make theory and experiment agree by introducing more and more corrections was so aesthetically ugly that it simply could not represent the right approach to a solution. It should be added, of course, that the theory of relativity certainly meets aesthetic criteria, and not only in terms of its elegant mathematical formulation. Here we might note the importance of the work of Ernst Mach, Rector of Charles University in the academic year 1879-80 and then in 1883; his theories, which preceded the work of Albert Einstein, represented an important contribution to the problem of time and space and strongly influenced Einstein’s thinking.
Thus new horizons opened up for research in physics. New discoveries came thick and fast, and it is no exaggeration to say that the end of the 1920s was the start of the golden age of physics. Thomson, Dirac, Anderson, Nedermayer, von Laue, Mottelson, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Raabi, Segre and especially Fermi and Chadwick and many others made unique discoveries, pushed forward the frontiers of knowledge, and also won Nobel Prizes for physics. James Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron (1932) was the impetus for development of nuclear physics, a field that now looked so promising that it attracted more and more specialists.
I would now like to turn, however, from the actual intellectual content of physics to the very interesting social aspect of the question of the development of physics research. Until what we might call the take-off of nuclear physics, i.e., roughly in the first three decades of the 20th century, only a very small number of teams, each with only a very small number of members, had been engaged in physics research. This becomes very obvious if we look, for example, at the number of people attending the conferences on the most recent results in modem physics that were organized annually during this period in Copenhagen: not even once did more than sixty people attend, even though the conference programme was by no means restricted to one theme. This was also a time when research costs were relatively modest and were normally covered from the budgets of individual universities. The centre of gravity of these activities was Europe, with an emphasis on Germany, but European conditions in the later 1930s, and the rise of fascism in Italy and then in Germany, meant a major exodus of physicists. The centre of gravity of physics research went with them to the USA. The discovery of the process of nuclear fission came just before the outbreak of the Second World War (O. Halm, L. Meitner and F. Strassman, 1938), and experimental study of nuclear fission soon uncovered the possibility of creating a chain reaction and the prospect of a source of enormous energy. Unfortunately, of course, international politics was in the process of a chain reaction; the critical point was reached and Europe erupted into war. Communication between scientists was either suspended altogether or very much curtailed. The physicists who studied nuclear properties and processes at the time immediately realized that the chain fission reaction could be exploited to construct weapons of unprecedented destructive power. The road to such weapons, however, was long and first a large number of theoretical and technical problems needed to be solved. Here it is worth mentioning that the development of nuclear weapons might easily have come earlier. As early as 1934 the group led by E. Fermi in Rome had conducted experiments with neutrons and observed the process of nuclear fission. The situation was the same at the same time in the laboratory of Marie Curie-Sklodowska in Paris, where the Joliot-Curie team conducted similar experiments. But the explanation of the observed effects in both laboratories was mistaken and so the process of fission of the atomic nucleus remained, for the time being, hidden from humankind.
Many scientists were extremely worried about the rapid development of research on nuclear weapons in Hitler’s Germany and the prospect that the Wehrmacht might acquire these and so win the war. There was no doubt that physicists of the stature of W. Heisenberg or C. von Weizsäcker were capable of turning the nuclear weapons project in Germany into a reality. For this reason physicists, emigrants from Europe now living in the USA, turned to the government and President Roosevelt to warn them of the danger. The result was that intensive work on the development of nuclear weapons went ahead above all in the USA. The Soviet Union did not as yet have the resources for undertaking military nuclear research on the same scale as in Los Alamos, and the German physicists deliberately slowed down their work in an attempt to avoid responsibility for the results of the world war.
What we have here, of course, is a textbook example of scientists taking an ethical attitude to a state commission with a pragmatic purpose. The concrete form of the nuclear weapon and its destructive power were as yet matters of guesswork, but there was no doubt that it would be a weapon with unprecedented military potential. The effects of radiation on live organisms was a particularly uncharted and speculative area. Indeed, around 1939/40 there existed fewer than twenty physicists, anywhere in the world, with the knowledge and ability to conduct developmental projects of this type, and it is noteworthy that none of them were fanatical followers of the national-socialist ideas that were fuelling political conflicts in Europe, but also in Asia and Africa.
In 1942 the state of war and the absence of reliable intelligence led Roosevelt and ChurchilI to a formal agreement to combine English and American resources to develop nuclear weapons, and then the launch of the “Manhattan” project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. This was a project that at the height of its activities employed 150,000 people, more than a quarter of them scientific workers, and cost sums unprecedented for research before that time. It was also the state of war that motivated everyone to work on their tasks with great commitment, without moral and ethical doubts. Most of the physicists who had contributed in any significant way to the realization of the Manhattan Project personally attended the first nuclear test explosion in the Nevada Desert (Jordana de Muerto, not far from the village of Oscuro, by the township of Alamogordo, USA) in July 1945. It is well known that E. Fermi, overwhelmed by the experience of watching the explosion, reacted with the words “God, how beautiful physics is!” It is a sentiment that illustrates the general attitude of these international scientific authorities not just to the way the problem of nuclear arms was tackled scientifically, but to the actual results of their efforts. Many physicists immediately contacted US political and governmental leaders including the President himself to point out that no one else in the world yet had such a weapon and the mere fact of holding it and readiness to use it against the enemy meant a military advantage that would force the enemy into rapid capitulation. They appealed to the fact that the destructive power of this weapon, at a time when the result of the Second World War was essentially already decided, could be merely demonstrated to great psychological effect on the enemy without major loss of life. It became apparent at this point, however, that scientists’ ideas of political decisions are very naive, and if the results of research are handed over to politicians, their authors cease to have any influence on the way they are used. That is one of the lessons of the development of nuclear weapons, which could of course have been predicted, but could scarcely have been taken into account in the course of the developmental work itself.
The example of nuclear weapons is not just a typical example of the military exploitation of scientific research. Of course, science and military necessity have often gone hand in hand throughout human history, whether we are talking about the ingenuity of Archimedes in using his discoveries in the defence of Syracuse against the Roman ships, or the use of chemical weapons in the First World War. But the military importance of the nuclear arms project in the most destructive war in history, and the way the project was applied, brought about a qualitative shift in the meaning of scientific research and changed the social status of scientific researchers, not just for the period of the project but forever. It had been shown that incomparably larger teams than had ever been assembled before could successfully tackle complex scientific problems. Many important scientists had convinced themselves of their managerial and organizational capacities and gave scientific research an entirely new character. The state, above all through its pragmatic interest in the results of the research, but also by creating the material conditions for the research, had become deeply involved in the whole sector.
These were changes that could not be reversed. The academic community began to become accustomed to ever greater funding and ever greater needs for funding, to the ever more intensive influence of the state on scientific activity, and gradually to pragmatic links and bonds between academic and state structures. Of course, the great majority of research programmes are not focused on the development of destructive discoveries, but the reverse. Their constructive effect on the overall growth of the economy, production, services, and culture can be documented quite precisely. At this assembly it is unnecessary to draw attention to the efforts of medicine to free humanity from fear of whole constellations of diseases or to take examples from the unending list of successes in this respect. The character of development as I have described it cannot be changed in any essential way, nor would it be desirable to change it. It means not only that the importance of science for everyday life has been increasing, but also that some aspects of the model, procedures, and mission of the exact sciences have increasingly been taken over in the fields of the humanities and social sciences. The pattern is being followed by other academic disciplines such as biology chemistry and technical sciences, but also sociology, history, political studies, and of course economics. Research in the humanities is now being expected to contribute to the solution of the social problems of the modern world, such as co-existence between dìfferent communities, religious conflicts, the demographic boom in the developing countries, cultural aspects of the quality of life, and so forth. And in these circumstances more and more people are deciding on an academic career. The influence of academic research and the application of the conclusions of research are ever more evident in the practical decisions of the management teams of companies, and above all of politicians. The rule of competition in a market environment is simple - victory goes to the person or organization who comes first and reacts fastest. The customers for the results of research are therefore insisting on a speeding up of the research-application-production-sale cycle. In this context there is littIe time for consideration of risks associated with a piece of research or of the influence of new knowledge on other fields. The demand that research should have direct outputs and the linkage of financial sponsorship to such outputs (to put the “rules of the game” rather schematically) have led to generally accepted criteria that mean a certain trivialization of the relationship between the academic community and the state, and are of course still a subject of wide-ranging debate today. Furthermore, the ever growing competition and rivalry in the academic community and the personal ambitions of each individual member are tending to encourage a casual attitude to the ethical norms and moral barriers that ought always to take precedence over any kind of pragmatism.
This risk of moral deficit is certainly a major focus of interest in any research institution, but in university conditions it is a particularly urgent concern, because a university is not just a research but a teaching establishment. The task of the universities is not simply to train a qualified labour force for the needs of the job market. That is only one and, I would venture to say, the lesser part of educational activity. The mission of the university in the educational process is to equip students to live their own lives in the best way. In terms of their own expectations of themselves and in relation to the world around them. There is no doubt that, for every individual, education should have not just a price, but a value. Every university graduate ought to become a cultured, ethical, spirìtual, and professionally qualified person. It cannot be any other way, if universities are to continue to be regarded as the bearers of the cultural values of civilization. Ethical norms and moral barriers naturally depend on the overall cultural level of society, which in its turn depends on the level of knowledge and understanding. The level of knowledge and understanding ought therefore to inform the ethical behaviour of every individual. Just as universities contribute through their research to the enlargement of knowledge, so they must also take care to ensure that the ethical side of life develops in harmony with this knowledge and understanding. Because the academic community is part of society, this is a crucial and essential task, and means that every member of the academic community should be aware of his or her responsibility, because his or her research is also helping to form new ethical norrns of behaviour.
Allow me to conclude my address by quoting V. F. Weisskopf, one of the leading nuclear physicists of the 20th century (who also worked on the Manhattan Project), and wrote:
“All parts and all aspects of science depend on each other. Science cannot develop of itself, unless it is consciously cultivated for reasons of pure desire for knowledge and understanding. Yet science cannot survive unless it is passionately and wisely used to improve life and not as an instrument by which groups of people control another group. Human existence depends on two aspects – mutual compassion and knowledge. Knowledge without compassion is inhumane; compassion without knowledge is ineffective.”