VTU RPE COURSE ON INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS

Kambadur Muralidhar PhD FNASc FASc FNA

Honorary Professor, UoH
Department of Systems and Computational Biology
Hyderabad-500046
Email: kambadur2015@gmail.com

VTU RPE
 Definitions, Branches of
Ethics, Ethics & Morality,
2 Introduction Ethical Issues & cases,
1.2
to Ethics Moral Judgements and
Ethics, Moral Philosophy,
 SOME ISSUES OF CONCERN in HIGHER EDUCATION

• declining interest in admission into science courses,

science careers, and pursuit of science, as indicated
by flight of bright students to other branches of
human knowledge and careers,
• absence of equity in access to quality education in
science as education in modern science especially
biology is very cost intensive.
• declining standards of teaching Natural
Science, Social Science and Humanities,
particularly of Biology at school,
undergraduate and post-graduate levels,
 Contd--
• The taking over of educational training, from
main stream schools and colleges, by coaching
centers for getting admission into professional
courses.
• Conflict of interest between personal and
professional lives of students, practitioners and
preachers of science.
• Increasing perception of science as an
esoteric activity unrelated to daily life
experience as well as social, economic
and cultural problems.
 Rishi Sunak doing puja to cow at home
and promising political help to Beef exports
in public! A British political philosopher
says there is no conflict between private
belief and public official duty!
Contd---
• unmanageable learning burden for students and
surprisingly for teachers,
• the dichotomy in the level of joy between doing
science and probing science,
• pursuing science without scientific method,
• confused thinking and wrong perception of science
especially biology as an unethical activity etc.
• Poor Infrastructure in terms of accessible
and affordable facilities including library,
laboratory, supportive administration etc.
on one hand and uninspiring and
incompetent Faculty on the other hand are
two major reasons for the sorry state of
affairs in HEIs of our country.
 Should everyone do PhD?
• No. It is a long journey. You need passion,
patience and commitment.
• In practice, it is not anywhere resembling an ideal
activity. There is no joy in its pursuit, in over 90%
of the cases.
• The system is moth eaten and is a crumbling
structure.
 Cond.---
• There are very few real mentors who nurture
students, departments etc. Incompetence, lack of
scholarship and talent among faculty is appalling.

• 99% of people in academics are there for getting

career benefits and not to achieve anything
worthwhile. Most of them do not inspire anybody.
• Academia has become a Ponzi scheme and doing a
good PhD is not worth the torture and agony.
• There is highest unemployment/underemployment
among PhDs.
• Funding is very restrictive and pattern less. Leaders
have no vision. Mafias hijack funding, awards etc.
1% of people get all the funds, awards and
patronage.
 Diagnosis

The whole thing is an Ethical Issue

Morals, Laws & Ethics
 Professional ethics
Expected social conduct among members of a group
(religion, science academies, lawyers association,
medical practioners etc.) constitutes ethics/best
practices of that social group. It is not subject to
judicial scrutiny. There is no crime & punishment
situation. It is voluntary activity/behavior. Social good
takes precedence over individual success.
 How to recognize unethical practice?
Any action (doing experiment, writing a paper,
collecting data, making a claim, giving popular
lectures, making a selection, giving away
awards, promoting an individual or a cause etc.)
which has an intention to ‘cheat’ the system,
peers or educated layman can be labelled as
‘unethical’. Obviously, the desire to cheat has to
be proved.
•There are no scientific procedures for this.
Intelligence prevents any conscious effort
to cheat. Ethical concern, therefore,
becomes a necessity for all philosophical,
scientific or even religious investigations,
all of which seek ‘TRUTH’ apparently.
Atlantic Puffins choose mate for Life!
Conflict between Law and Ethics

Surrogacy and ART- the case of a film

actress.
One publisher, more than 7000 retractions
Alison McCook
Science 26 Oct 2018:
Vol. 362, Issue 6413, pp. 393
DOI: 10.1126/science.362.6413.393
Nature Briefing <briefing@nature.com>

• Russian journals retract more than 800 papers

after ‘bombshell’ investigation
Dalmeet Singh Chawla, Jan. 8, 2020 , 6:25 AM
• Thousands of abstracts of conference presentations,
most by authors in China, were declared flawed.
• Some 40% of the retractions in the Retraction Watch
database have a single curious origin. Over the past
decade, one publisher—the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in New York
City—has quietly retracted thousands of conference
abstracts.
 Science is a new philosophy of life seeking truth in the
structure and functioning of ‘Nature’. Experimental Natural
philosophy or Natural science is a product of Renaissance in
Europe (15th century). It limits its questions to material world
including living organisms. No supernatural
principle/phenomena admitted. Revelation is not a scientific
method. Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant,
Bertrand Russel, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and others
defined science and explained it. It does not demand
faith/belief. On the other hand, faith does not demand logic.
• Natural Science had only one aim i.e. to
understand the Structure and Function of
Nature.
• To this was added an additional aim by Rene
Descartes in the late 17th century in saying that
science should enable man to control nature
and derive benefits for human welfare especially
make it more comfortable.
 Ethics of excellence
• Scientists work for recognition and not for for
discovering the truth.

• No award/honor decision/selection (e.g. Nobel

Prize, Bhatnagar Award, Academy Fellowship etc.)
is unanimous. At best it is based on consensus and
at worst it is acrimonious ( read political!).
 The Colonial system of higher education including experimental
science education was conspicuous by:
1. the absence of emphasis on quality science of the highest order in
India contradictory to what they emphasized in Europe (read England)
2. admission of people from lower middle class families eager for jobs,
social security and not for critical thinking.
3. for training a large number of administrators and professionals but
not people with scientific temper.

Science was in conflict with day to day life of the common man and
educated layman.
 Science- stakeholders
• Science is objective, Scientists may not.
• Science is self correcting, Scientists may not.
• Science is Noble, Scientists may not.
• Science is inclusive, Scientists may not.
• Science is impartial/Fair, Scientists may not.
• Science is rational, Scientists may not.
• Science is a study, scientists are human.
Bandhan Goyal, Academic Pot
•Normal science requires intelligence to
solve problems. Intelligence is convergent
thinking. Creativity is divergent thinking.
Average science progresses by small
increments. This is accomplished by
intelligent and interesting work.
•When ‘paradigm shift’ occurs in any field
(in the words of Thomas Kuhn), it is
precipitated by creative work of
extraordinary quality (e.g. work of
Charles Darwin in Biology or of Einstein
or Max Planck in Physics)
Take a look at 10 randomly selected creative
geniuses.
Lord Buddha, Picasso, Aurobindo, Mozart, Edison,
Einstein, SN Bose, Noam Chomsky, Isaac Newton
and Michelangelo.
Humanities and technology fields have creative
geniuses. Only basic science of highest quality
requires creativity. Normal science does not.
• Technological creations remain in public
memory/consciousness for a long time.
• Many basic discoveries, did not become famous until
a technological intervention made them famous. (E.g.
Penicillin, vaccines, electricity, dyes, fabrics etc.)
• Anything ‘useful’ to mankind is considered greater
than mere fundamental scientific information. E.g.
plant physiology vs green revolution or tissue culture
based golf field, immune response and vaccines.
Does that mean we ignore basic science?

Certainly not. We have to look at science as part

of education. Over 5000 years we have forgotten
the aim of education.
Procedure is more important than numbers!

Does scrapping of awards signal

misplaced priorities?
Aniket Sule
The Hindu, 2nd October, 2022 issue
Post-truth: then and now
TM Krishna, Musician Intellectual
The Hindu, 2nd October, 2022
(Magazine section)
 Learning atmosphere

• Both ‘guide’ and ‘student’ should be ‘seekers’.

• Necessary financial support should be provided or
created. This means fellowship, hostel facility, and
recreational facility to the student. This means
secure job and salary to the guide.
 Nature of Career
• Career is a way of earning a living in a formal
and organized system of hierarchical salaried
positions or jobs.
• How to become an employee and rise in the
professional social ladder is referred to as
shaping a career.
• Talent is necessary to succeed!
WATSON’S THUMB RULES:
• AVOID DUMB PEOPLE
• BE PREPARED TO GET INTO DEEP TROUBLE
• HAVE A GOD FATHER WHO WILL SAVE YOU
• NEVER DO ANYTHING THAT BORES YOU
• GET OUT OF SCIENCE IF YOU CANNOT
STAND UPTO YOUR PEERS
 THREE SPHERES OF SCIENCE CAREERS
• UNIVERSITY SYSTEM SET IN AN
EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT.
• THE R&D INSTITUTIONS OF THE
MINISTRIES
• THE STRATEGIC RESEARCH
INSTITUTIONS OF DEFENSE and
SPACE DEPARTMENTS
Each has a different mandate. Mismatch between mandate and
manpower (employee) leads to problems.
• There is more mismatch in the university setup
between mandate and manpower on both
positive and negative sides. On the one hand
‘academic aristocrats’ ( in the words of Arthur
Koestler) who function like research institutions
and who have less than contempt for teaching
and education have invaded university system
and are increasingly visible.
• On the negative side, a significant proportion
of the faculty is unworthy and incompetent,
violates every rule in the book, has its own
image of what constitutes success in the
career and breed clones. What you see is nth
rate mediocre constantly feeling insecure,
antagonizing and destroying talent. Such
people cannot nurture departments and
universities.
•There is a pathological destruction of the
university system of academic work
culture both by implosion caused by
mediocrity and by explosion, surprisingly
by external but indiscriminate funding.
conflict of interest
“This fashion of ignoring these advances has persisted until
even very recent times with no mention of the work of the
Kerala School in Edwards’ text (1979) on the history of the
calculus nor in articles on the history of infinite series by
historians of mathematics such as Abeles (1993) and
Fiegenbaum (1986). A possible reason for such puzzling
standards in scholarship may have been the deeply
entrenched Eurocentrism that accompanied European
colonization.”
Ethics of Mentorship
 Research Dilemmas

1. Basic vs Applied work

2. Applied vs Translation Research
3. Teaching vs Research
4. Professional work vs exclusive passion
5. Locally vs Globally important work
 Where do ethical issues come?
• While there is no science of ethics, there is ethics of
science and ethics in science!
• Animal Ethics and Biomedical Research
• Development and Environmental Health (Ethics of
Science)
• Biodiversity conservation and Bioprospecting (Ethics
of Science)
• Career, Craze for social recognition (E of Science)
 Cond.--
• Plagiarism of data, results and of ideas.
• Nurturing academics vs building careers
• Publish, Patent and Perish i.e. deciding among
choices.
• Teaching- Evolution and Creation of Life by ‘GOD’.
• Is innovation encouraged in practice?
 Research Funding
• But what actually results is not institutional
growth and health but individual empires get
established.

• FUND INSTITUTIONS AND

INFRASTRUCTURE BUT NOT INDIVIDUALS.
Publishing
An unpublished research work is as good as not done.
In the olden days, printing and publishing journals was
a service to community and was run on low margins of
profit and on ethical principles. Today publishing has
become an unethical business. A handful of greedy
publishers have monopolized over 90% of publishing
and are run for huge profits.
 Cond.-
• Hiding behind pay walls, publishers have made the
primary producers of research findings and written
articles to pay heavily to publish and later access their
own published articles. Professional society journals
are charging high as page charges. Even Open Access
journals (Scientific Reports, PLoS etc.) charge heavily.
 What is the solution?
Modern experimental Indian Science comprises mostly
camp followers. Colonial rulers brought us western
science in all aspects i.e. raising questions, identifying
problems, pursuing research, the experimental
approach, the vicious circle of publishing, citation,
impact and recognition etc. Indian scientists largely
follow the work of US and European scientists ignoring
more than 50% of work done by non Europeans and
non USA based science.
Open Science and Open Access publishing will only
solve the problem partially. We need to address not
US generated problems but nationally relevant
problems. We need to emphasize originality of work.
We need to reestablish the best practices of Western,
Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Chinese, Jain traditions of
doing Science. Science like philosophy and Religion
seeks Truth and Ethics is the basis of this approach.
 Philosophy is Needed for Science and
Religion as it is time to Reconcile
1. Philosophy gives critical thinking abilities. Logic is it’s strength.
2. Ancient philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Thiruvalluvar
etc. have impact even today.
3. Natural Science can not explain leave alone solve, at least today,
all problems and issues (cannot explain feelings and emotions,
origin of thoughts, thinking process, spiritual experience like
compassion etc.)
4. Philosophical analysis helps leaders of business, science,
industry, politics and governance.
Neither art nor science can ever flourish in
conditions dominated by the primitive instinct of
self preservation.

S.S.Bhatnagar
Those that do not know the torment of the
unknown cannot have the joy of discovery.
Claude Bernard
ATTITUDE TO MAINTAIN
“ Keep cheerful friends. Keep learning. Enjoy
simple things. The tears happen- endure,
grieve & move on”.

George Carlin,

(Hollywood Comedian)
Thank You