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There seems to be some disagreement on whether undergraduate chemists should receive training in ethics as part of their undergraduate degree. It occurs to me that people may not fully understand what it means to be an ethical chemist. 1/n
Firstly, ethical behaviour is safe behaviour. Your COSHH risk assessment is an ethics form. You're legally obliged to work safely and follow local legislation but that's because some dimensions of ethics are enshrined in law. Not hurting co-workers is ethical 2/n
2nd: ethical behaviour is a branch of research integrity and academic conduct. That's right folks, it's not ethical to fabricate or manipulate your data in order to falsify success. And it doesn't matter what level you're at, you report work faithfully. 3/n
3rd: ethical behaviour requires scientists to consider the questions they are asking and the methods they use to answer them. There are countless examples of unethical studies out there, do you really want your students to graduate without a sense of the history of our field? 4/n
Examples of this include studying new chemicals (drugs) on populations who cannot give informed consent or who are coerced into participation. But also the hype we apply to new molecules - claiming everything will cure cancer just to get funding is unethical. 5/n
4th: there's a climate emergency going on, or hadn't you noticed? Chemistry is a direct contributor to the systematic degradation of the ecosystems on this planet. So ethical chemistry would take that into consideration, right? 6/n
5th: the overlooked privilege of chemists is that we handle pure substances that have the capacity to do tremendous harm. Ethics is the framework that guides our thoughts and decision making processes around what, how and why we do what we do. 7/n
I deleted my original 5th tweet because I didn't have enough space in a tweet to articulate my point clearly and my wording was awkward and with potential to cause harm. So I deleted it...that would be ethics again. 8/n
Finally, chemistry needs to get it's mindset into the 21st century not remain stuck in C19th. Diversity, inclusion, decolonising, sustainability - these are all critical components of a modern chemistry education and they all relate to ethical behaviour. Get on with it. /end
PS, resources EuChemS working party on ethics https://bit.ly/3a1LNfJ
The Ethical and Social Dimensions of Chemistry: Reflections, Considerations, and Clarifications https://bit.ly/30yLiXf
Ethics in Science: The Unique Consequences of Chemistry https://bit.ly/3fFZNNg
RSC Ethics https://rsc.li/33AqwbH
Chemistry World Article: https://bit.ly/2XBEZQV
A Directed Framework for Integrating Ethics into Chemistry Curricula and Programs Using Real and Fictional Case Studies https://bit.ly/30xNGxw H/T @SarahRawe1
