January 2001
“Men are neither angels nor devils; that makes morality both necessary and possible.”7
Scientists from the human genome project predict that we will determine the genetic causes of human disease long before treatments are available. Access to genetic and sequence maps will alter the face of clinical medicine in the twenty-first century8. With the gap between our ability to diagnose and treat or cure genetic diseases ranging from five to twenty or more years9, coupled with the high economic and social costs of disease, there is increasing pressure to explore genetic manipulation of somatic cells. How do we decide among current scientifically available options? How do we make those difficult ethical choices?
Adolescents are passionately interested in ethical questions suggesting adolescence may be a critical period for including bioethics in science education6. Knowledge arises when the mind interacts with content; an understanding of ethical issues develops as an evolving process around real-life situations. The question is what role should teachers play in the acquisition of this knowledge?
How do we make ethical choices?
Plato asked a form of this question more than two thousand years ago: Is ethics taught, inherited or passed on by some other mechanism? Does ethics need to be taught? Experts have studied how we learn ethical concepts and behavior and what roles nature and nurture play in the process (figure 1). Their hypotheses don’t always agree.
Figure 1.
Knowledge Hypotheses
© 2001 ccsongradi
Hypothesis 1: Nature is more influential than nurture. Can the mind actually build knowledge from sensory information? We instinctively know some things, although group interactions and environmental factors may modify this knowledge. For example, as an extension of the mother-infant bond, we learn kinship preferences, recognition of specific individuals, social communication, and long term infant care.
Some scientific studies support this view. For example, neurologist Oliver Sacks13 befriended a young boy named Stephen, an autistic savant who was capable of memorizing complex scenery at a glance and retaining the information for long periods of time. From an early age he appeared to have little need for nurture - - human or otherwise.
Hypothesis 2: Nurture is more influential than nature. Leading a field of neurobiologists, who explore how the human brain learns about the world, Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman hypothesizes that with repeated experiences, we develop and reinforce anatomically based concept maps. These concept maps subsequently modify how sensory information is processed and organized.3
“Natural Law” ethics, which has been traced to the writings of Aristotle and Plato, states that decision-making principles can be discovered through careful reflection and by observing nature. The law of nature, rather than individual preferences, determines what actions are right. The human mind need only possess the capacity for reasoned thought and the ability to communicate.2
Hypothesis 3: Nature and nurture interact in sequential stages.
In a series of elegantly designed experiments, child psychologist Jean Piaget1 proposed that children pass through developmental stages where one stage builds on an earlier stage through assimilation and accommodation to the real world.
Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg strongly believed that moral development occurs in six stages.14 We grow from a point of self-interest to one of an increasingly larger circle of people. Our perspective changes with age and is comparable to growth in areas of psychological development. Educators should note that educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, Kolberg’s student, criticizes his theory because it is based on studies of males and, therefore, contains a significant gender bias.5 Others have also criticized Kohlberg for placing a higher value on one form of moral reasoning over another.
Hypothesis 4: Nurture interacts with nature at the critical window stage. We appear primed to receive specific environmental stimuli that are most easily incorporated during windows of opportunity (i.e., critical windows). For example:
A familiar example of a critical developmental window is the medical condition known as “lazy eye.” If the human brain fails to receive input from both eyes before about the age of five years, the information from the eye with very poor vision is permanently ignored even after corrective surgery or lenses.4
The acquisition of bird songs has also been extensively studied in the context of what is inherited and learned. For example doves, who have a species specific cooing rhythm, are unaffected by efforts to disrupt their learning. Their song likely has a genetic model that does not require a specific environmental stimulus .The sparrow, however, needs to acquire a template for its species-specific song sometime during its first four months of life. If no template is provided, the sparrow fails to produce a normal song even with subsequent adult song exposure.10
Evolutionist Ernst Mayr observes, “Man is distinguished from all other animals by the openness of its behavioral program… so in human beings ethical norms and definite values are laid down in the open behavior program of an infant.”12 He further states this is a very special type of learning akin to imprinting based on an innate capacity to acquire ethical beliefs.
What does this mean for science educators?
The acquisition of ethics and other forms of knowledge are dependent on exposure to content, properly timed experiences, and practice with reasoning skills. Since we acquire this knowledge from heritable and external sources, such as the classroom, students need an opportunity to:
- engage in discussions that allow them to examine their values
- practice resolving ethical conflicts in a real world context11
Science discoveries are occurring with unprecedented speed. Every day, we are faced with new ethical choices posed by these discoveries. The inclusion of bioethics in classroom curricula is more important than ever before. Bioethics is an excellent vehicle to generate interest and establish the relevancy of science content:
The ambiguities of ethical viewpoints challenge critical thinking abilities and promote the development of problem solving strategies.
After students become interested in an ethical problem at the emotional level, they are motivated to discover the facts, better understand the problem, and come up with a reasoned solution.
Science topics are not void of personal or societal values and are open to subjective interpretation.
- Bioethical decisions often come down to a question of values or determining priorities in competing values. Students need to understand the difference between fact, opinion, and values; and develop an ability to make rational decisions, while recognizing the role of subjective interpretation.
We can assist adolescents in creating their own concept maps for the classification of objects and also for ethical values. The process of concept map construction will not happen with an imposed prescription for ethical norms, but through facilitating the process of adolescent self-discovery as they tackle real world conflicts.
© 2001, American Institute of Biological Sciences. Educators have permission to reprint articles for classroom use; other users, please contact editor@actionbioscience.org for reprint permission. See reprint policy.
