I’m going to try to articulate M3’s general argument, because I think that I get it, and can see where the holes are.
1. For many courses of action undertaken with a scientific justification, there are negative consequences. For example, DDT will kill pests, increasing farm yields and decreasing pest-bourne disease, but later it’s discovered that it is too persistent in the environment and poisons the food chain in certain ways. Or, antiobiotics can stop bacterial infections, saving lives and improving the health of the general population, but its heavy use has led to conditions under which antibiotic-resistent bacteria are becoming more prevalent.
Nitpicking aside, this doesn’t seem to be too challenging a premise.
2. Scientists are the ones who develop these ‘scientific’ solutions - they’re the ones who invented DDT, antibiotics, nuclear weapons, etc.
This is a bit more sweeping, since it blurs the line between research academics and company engineers, but generally it claims that the people coming up with these solutions are professionals or specialists who are developing them according to their own appreciation of what’s possible and what should be done - a chemist thinks of a molecular solution, a doctor of drugs or surgery, a physicist of something that explodes.
3. Those who develop ‘scientific’ solutions are responsible for ensuring their safety, or at least apprising those who use their solution of the risks involved (i.e., of the negative consequences).
Sticky moral question, this, as far as it obligates a scientist to know every possible outcome of every possible use. On the one hand, a doctor who withheld information of harmful side effects in a drug he was prescribing would be guilty of, at least, malpractice. On the other hand, when antibiotics were developed, was the possibility of antibiotic resistent germs reasonably foreseeable?
4. Scientists specialize.
Something we’ve all agreed on.
5. Specialization is responsible for the failure of scientists to fully appreciate the effects of their solutions because they are not knowledgable enough about areas of expertise outside their own. For example, how would the chemist who invented DDT know about the effects of DDT on the eggshells of migratory birds?
Very sweeping claim about the process of scientific research (remember, we’re including company engineers here).
The conclusion to all this, for M3, seems to be that some means of sharing information among scientists is necessary in order to ensure that specialization does not prevent negative consequences from coming to light. Perhaps a board of generalists that reviews discoveries and has the power to send them back for more study; perhaps some form of “liberal arts education” across different specialties for scientists be required; perhaps a scientific ethic of peer review across multiple specialties.
M3, please let me know if this is a fair approximation of your argument.
Assuming it is, there are a few problems with it:
People are mainly attacking you on no. 5, that specialization is the reason negative consequences are somehow “slipping through the process”. You’ve failed to demonstrate that scientists are myopic, or that they aren’t considering all the long-term effects.
In one sense, of course they aren’t considering all the effects - no scientist can possibly see all the ends to which her solution is put, or all possible effects of its intended use. Scientists are already bound, to some degree, to investigate the consequences - that’s why drug trials take so long. But it’s difficult to believe that any amount of testing will exhaustively determine every possible consequence.
There’s also the fact that outside pressures may cause a scientific solution to be implemented without sufficient study, or in spite of the results of study. I’m thinking specifically of torpedoes in American submarines that were rushed into service under pressure from the admiralty, despite the objections of the engineers who knew of a potential problem. Later, one of these torpedoes exploded in the tube of the U.S.S. Scorpion, sinking her with all hands aboard [Blind Man’s Bluff, Sontag and Drew, 1998].
There’s also the case of scientists/engineers working in environments that aren’t conducive to cross-specialty study or public review. I doubt that Monsanto wants it’s researchers to solicit peer review of their genetically modified seed even after its released on the market.
To prove no. 5, you need to illustrate some cases where the negative consequences were reasonably foreseeable, but not looked for because the scientist’s narrow focus precluded that line of inquiry. You need to demonstrate that the person who developed DDT could reasonably have determined its effects on the food chain, but didn’t. You need to demonstrate that the doctors who developed antibiotics could reasonably have known that their widespread use would lead to antibiotic-resistent bacteria, but didn’t look into it (and not that they knew it was possible, but accepted the risk, or thought that the benefits made for a good trade-off).
no. 4 is also troublesome, since you seem to be assuming that specialization is the be all and end all of the practice of science. While we agree that scientists specialise, we don’t agree that scientists never raise their heads outside their cubicle walls. It’s my opinion that scientists always have something of a general science education in their background (at least insofar as their degree required classes in other specialties), and that they generally have some facile awareness of work in other fields. Since you’re the one making the argument, you’ve got to support this premise as well, that specialization is indeed too narrow.
Finally, you need to clarify no. 3. You need to say something about the limits of scientific responsibility as determined by foreseeably consequences. Yes, if a drug company releases something untested, they’re doing wrong. But if they test it for twenty years, find no adverse reactions, and release it, are they still responsible? Remember, Thalidomide was approved by the FDA.
That’s a long post, and will be irrelevent if M3 says that I’ve unfairly caricatured his argument. Hope that’s not the case.
I’ll be in the drawer if anyone needs me.