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Dear Social Scientists,
Just because you're out actively working against discrimination policy and similar things, and "hard scientists" (chemists, physicists, etc) are working in a lab, that does not mean that they don't care about the ethics and moral implications of their work.
- Amred
Soooo, yeah. My Sociology prof said in class today, and this is word for word: "Sociologists have to decide if they have a moral and political obligation, and what that is. That's what separates us from the hard sciences - a chemist sitting in a lab mixing chemicals doesn't have any sort of moral or political obligation."
Okay. There is all kinds of wrong in this statement. My dad is a research chemist. He works for the government, in a renewable fuels lab. His lab has been doing all kinds of research and testing on ethanol fuel since the 70s, as well as other fuel types that could reduce America's dependency on foreign oil. And you best be-fucking-lieve that his work has moral and political implications, and that he cares about them. In fact, ALL scientists have to deal with the moral implications of their work.
Think about it: If a chemist working in, say, a cosmetics company didn't have any moral obligations, they could just put, say, lead in foundation cream, and not care about what happens to the people that use it. But (for the most part), they don't, in part because of the moral obligations they have (don't poison people) and their company needing to keep a good image (this company doesn't poison its customers, so it's a good company).
Scientists in real life are not like the mad scientists of movies. They do care about how what they're doing may change the world. The work they do is just as important as policy change - if there were no geologists, for example, we wouldn't have earthquake engineering (the field that studies how earthquakes effect structures and tries to figure out how to build things that won't topple over in a quake).
So no, just because the hard scientists are not in the public eye very much, campaigning for social change, does not mean that they don't care about the public.
Sorry for the rant, this just reeeeeally annoyed me. I didn't say anything when it happened, but if it's brought up again, I will fucking call that prof out on their bullshit.
Just because you're out actively working against discrimination policy and similar things, and "hard scientists" (chemists, physicists, etc) are working in a lab, that does not mean that they don't care about the ethics and moral implications of their work.
- Amred
Soooo, yeah. My Sociology prof said in class today, and this is word for word: "Sociologists have to decide if they have a moral and political obligation, and what that is. That's what separates us from the hard sciences - a chemist sitting in a lab mixing chemicals doesn't have any sort of moral or political obligation."
Okay. There is all kinds of wrong in this statement. My dad is a research chemist. He works for the government, in a renewable fuels lab. His lab has been doing all kinds of research and testing on ethanol fuel since the 70s, as well as other fuel types that could reduce America's dependency on foreign oil. And you best be-fucking-lieve that his work has moral and political implications, and that he cares about them. In fact, ALL scientists have to deal with the moral implications of their work.
Think about it: If a chemist working in, say, a cosmetics company didn't have any moral obligations, they could just put, say, lead in foundation cream, and not care about what happens to the people that use it. But (for the most part), they don't, in part because of the moral obligations they have (don't poison people) and their company needing to keep a good image (this company doesn't poison its customers, so it's a good company).
Scientists in real life are not like the mad scientists of movies. They do care about how what they're doing may change the world. The work they do is just as important as policy change - if there were no geologists, for example, we wouldn't have earthquake engineering (the field that studies how earthquakes effect structures and tries to figure out how to build things that won't topple over in a quake).
So no, just because the hard scientists are not in the public eye very much, campaigning for social change, does not mean that they don't care about the public.
Sorry for the rant, this just reeeeeally annoyed me. I didn't say anything when it happened, but if it's brought up again, I will fucking call that prof out on their bullshit.
