Sow the seeds of goodness for the development of science and technology

Gene editing is unreliable, how artificial intelligence sets the rules... In recent years, major breakthroughs in disruptive technologies have been accompanied by issues of scientific and technological ethics. Science and technology ethics education is imminent——

Sow the seeds of goodness for the development of science and technology

"Is science and technology neutral?" After 5 years of teaching the "Science and Technology and Engineering Ethics" course, but every time the new semester begins, Yu Xue, associate professor of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Dalian University of Technology, will still throw this question.

Almost every time, more than 80% of students choose this way: science and technology itself is neutral, and the use of it depends only on the user.

"Science and technology ethics is a value code that must be observed in scientific and technological activities, but many students are ignorant of this." In this 32-hour, 2-credit course, Yu Xue used a variety of teaching methods such as case teaching, role play, and classroom debate to make students understand that scientific research must not only have the courage and spirit to explore and innovate, but also have the bottom line of morality, the red line of ethics, and the high-pressure line of rules.

Such voices will appear in more college classrooms.

Recently, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Governance of Science and Technology Ethics", which proposed: "Take science and technology ethics education as an important part of the education of undergraduate students and graduate students in related professional disciplines, encourage colleges and universities to open courses related to science and technology ethics education, and educate young students to establish a correct awareness of science and technology ethics and abide by the ethical requirements of science and technology." ”

Voice: Erect an ethical firewall for technology

At the end of a semester of courses, Yu Xue found that students who had only considered how to develop a technology better began to think about the value norms behind the technology. She often receives such a message: "It is necessary to uphold the requirements of 'respecting academic ethics and adhering to the ethical bottom line'" "Scientific and technological innovation should not only be upward, but also good"... The young teacher realized that in the process of the rapid development of science and technology, he had planted a seed of goodness.

Science and technology ethics education is not familiar to many people. But in the classroom, every teaching case, every value choice, is closely related to our lives – is it cheap but produces a lot of solid waste technology to treat industrial wastewater, or is it expensive to develop green technology? Can gene editing technology be applied? Is it unethical to use electric shocks to treat internet addiction?

"Science and technology ethics education is the transfer of knowledge and the improvement of related literacy around the ethics of science and technology." Li Zhengfeng, deputy director of the Research Center for Science and Technology Development and Governance of Tsinghua University and professor of the Department of Sociology, told reporters that science and technology ethics education shoulders a threefold mission: one is to enhance the awareness of scientific and technological ethics, enhance ethical sensitivity and sense of responsibility; second, understand what behavioral norms can be followed and keep the bottom line of scientific research; third, have the ability to deal with new scientific and technological ethics issues.

With the rapid development of science and technology, this course, which was once overlooked on the curriculum of many colleges and universities, is becoming increasingly important.

"It's imminent." Wu Zhaohui, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and president of Zhejiang University, used these four words to describe the importance of scientific and technological ethics education in colleges and universities, "Looking at the integration of science and technology and social development, science and technology for good has always been the eternal value pursuit of mankind." In particular, with the high integration and superposition of the fourth industrial revolution and the second machine revolution characterized by intelligence, the binary space between man and the physical world is transforming into a quadrangle of human, physical, intelligent machine, and digital information world, and major breakthroughs in subversive technology are accompanied by ethical issues of science and technology. ”

In the face of challenges, many experts said that the current theoretical research and rule-making of scientific and technological ethics in the mainland seriously lag behind the development speed of scientific and technological innovation, and some scientific and technological personnel have not yet formed a good sense of self-discipline in scientific and technological ethics and a correct concept of science and technology. Li Zhengfeng found that taking the total number of articles published by the National Library of Medical Library Journal Literature Retrieval System (PubMed) as a relative reference value, comparing the number of English papers per 10,000 Papers in China, the United States and Japan in the past four years, as of June 2021, the number of retractions per 10,000 papers in China was 4 times that of the United States and 10 times that of Japan.

"What is particularly dangerous is that some of the initiators of serious failures in the ethics of science and technology are considered to be leaders in innovation and have a large number of fans." Li Zhengfeng said that in this sense, education is one of the most basic tasks for setting up an ethical firewall.

Challenge: Lack of a sound education system for science and technology ethics

At present, what is the status of science and technology ethics education in mainland colleges and universities?

The reporter combed and found that with the frequent occurrence of scientific and technological ethics incidents, the policy documents guiding the integrity of scientific research and the construction of scientific and technological ethics in colleges and universities have been continuously improved, and many colleges and universities have also opened a certain number of scientific and technological ethics education courses. For example, since September 2014, Tsinghua University has required graduate students to take 16 hours of academic norms and professional ethics courses; since 2018, the "Engineering Ethics" course has become a compulsory course for master's degree students in engineering across the country.

However, even if there is some exploration and accumulation, the ethics education of science and technology in colleges and universities can only be said to have just started, and it is far from forming a science and technology ethics education system suitable for national conditions and development needs.

The reporter randomly interviewed students from more than a dozen colleges and universities, and found that there were unbalanced and irregular problems in the importance attached by different colleges and universities to scientific and technological ethics education, and the systematicness and richness of curriculum construction. Some high-level science and engineering universities have carried out well, but they are also subject to certain differences in cognition, teachers and other factors. Liberal arts colleges offer relatively few courses, and some local colleges and universities do not offer related courses.

Li Zhengfeng said that the current scientific and technological ethics education in colleges and universities is facing the challenge of "three deficiencies": the lack of systematic and in-depth research, systematic courses, and standardized teaching materials.

"At present, although colleges and universities have opened courses related to science and technology ethics, most of them are elective courses, and they are more arbitrary when they are opened, and they have not formed a relatively complete course system of science and technology ethics." For example, a teacher pays more attention to this class and opens it, and in a certain year, because he goes abroad or for other reasons, the class may be stopped. "Li Zhengfeng also found that in the relevant courses of many schools, the teaching content lacks a basic framework, some courses are mainly based on the introduction of relevant Western theories, and some are introducing more traditional scientific and technological ethics." In general, the ethical positions conveyed by the various teachers are more confusing. ”

This directly affects students' understanding of the ethical issues of science and technology.

In 2018, Wang Qian, a professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Dalian University of Technology, led a research group to investigate the ethical cognition of science and technology among students in dozens of science and engineering colleges across the country, and the results were not optimistic. "For example, when asked 'will there be a risk assessment before the start of a scientific research project', only 19.6% of people chose 'absolutely will'; in the attitude of 'scientific research without forbidden areas', only 6% said 'completely disagree', and more than 60% of people were inclined to agree." Wang Qian believes that the interviewed students have problems such as misconception, unbalanced understanding, and inconsistent knowledge and practice in terms of scientific and technological ethics awareness, and the main reason for these problems is that the education on scientific and technological ethics is not deep enough, the status of disciplines is not high, the platform is not perfect, and the teaching methods are insufficient.

Initiative: Equal emphasis is placed on the research and teaching of scientific and technological ethics

On the one hand, there are increasing ethical issues in science and technology, and on the other hand, the ethical literacy of science and technology that college students urgently need to improve. Jiang Xiaojuan, president of the Chinese Administrative Management Society and professor of the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, called for the construction of disciplines to do a good job in science and technology ethics education, "to strengthen discipline construction, we can have a team, a platform, a constantly updated knowledge system, a channel for senior government advice, and experts involved in the review of complex ethical issues, which will be more conducive to the development of the science and technology ethics education system itself and play a role in the national ethical governance system."

On the basis of strengthening the construction of disciplines, how can we make the science and technology ethics education class good and wonderful? Many experts offer advice.

Zhai Xiaomei, a member of the National Science and Technology Ethics Commission and a professor at the Bioethics Research Center of Peking Union Medical College, believes that to strengthen the education of science and technology ethics, a textbook that can reach consensus is the beginning. In her practical teaching, she found that even the arguments in some medical ethics textbooks are problematic, "The rapid development of science and technology, many of the problems we face have tension, how to make value judgments about this, how to solve it between the real and the supposed, need to be consistent judgment." If there is no context of common dialogue under the definitions they hold, there will be no point in educating the ethics of science and technology."

Setting the course of "Scientific Research Norms and Ethics of Science and Technology" as a public compulsory course in colleges and universities across the country, and carrying out education on "Scientific Research Norms and Ethics of Science and Technology" at different levels, this is Li Zhengfeng's thinking on curriculum construction.

"The content of the science and technology ethics course at the undergraduate level mainly focuses on the universal and basic ethical issues caused by science and technology. At the postgraduate level, ethics courses focusing on specialized fields are gradually established depending on the major. At the same time, Li Zhengfeng reminded that we must pay attention to the application attributes of the curriculum, increase the teaching of situations and cases, and do not talk about "science and technology ethics" as "science and technology ethics".

This tests the teaching wisdom and ability of the lecturer. In the interview, many experts believe that the current task of cultivating high-level talents in teaching and scientific research in the field of science and technology ethics education is very urgent.

"In the past, most of the science and technology ethics courses were undertaken by teachers of humanities, and some teachers of science and engineering majors participated, but there were more or less problems of 'two skins' and 'each speaking separately'. We must solve the problem of the deep integration of science and technology and ethics, and one of the most important points is how teachers with science and engineering backgrounds and teachers of science and technology ethics can communicate in depth. Wang Qian said.

In addition, some experts call for the study of frontier issues in scientific and technological ethics while attaching importance to teaching construction, and do a good job in the transformation between scientific research and teaching.

Wu Zhaohui suggested: "It is necessary to give full play to the advantages of universities in interdisciplinarity and talent-intensive to carry out forward-looking research, especially to strengthen ethical exploration in key areas such as life sciences, medicine, and artificial intelligence, and to avoid rule conflicts, social risks and ethical challenges that innovation may bring in a timely manner." At the same time, it is also necessary to promote the two-way linkage of scientific and technological ethics research and scientific and technological ethics education, discuss major issues of scientific and technological ethics, and strengthen the development and design of scientific and technological ethics teaching cases and practical courses. ”

According to Wu Yan, director of the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Education has launched a special work on science and technology ethics education in colleges and universities, and after finding out the "family background" of science and technology ethics education in colleges and universities, it will focus on three things - opening gold classes, promoting famous teachers, and compiling high-quality teaching materials. Wu Yan said: "We must form an efficient and pragmatic education on science and technology ethics as soon as possible, and cultivate more new people of the times who have the ability of scientific and technological innovation and the awareness of scientific and technological ethics, and can assume the responsibility of scientific and technological ethics." ”

(Reporter Deng Hui)

(Guangming Daily)