Week 5 Blog Second Draft
In general, the majority of people view scientists on a pedestal of logic and intellectual integrity but imagine this,
YOU are a young scientist about to publish a very significant paper in a very distinguished publication,
but YOU discover that that there is a potential error that no one else will spot but if the error is true it will undermine YOUR new brilliant hypothesis. Would YOU publish anyway?
During the Lecture given by Mark Hocknull on the 29/10/25 titled “Ethics in Science” this scenario was given and
discussed amongst the attendees and many participants said that they would not publish because of potential harm the error could have caused.
A minority said they would add an addendum to the paper stating there might be an error then release a paper correcting the error.
This leads to the Ethics of science, Mark introduced three Ethical theories Kantian, Utilitarian and Virtue.
Kantian ethics is “locating the moral quality of acts in the principles or maxims on which the agent acts and not primarily in those acts’ effects on others.” [1]
which means that Kant believes we have a duty to follow the moral law and that being a good moral person is to rationally follow the rules and respect your fellow people.
Utilitarian ethics is the belief that “It denies that moral rightness depends directly on anything other than consequences” [2] this means that if the consequences of an action
results in a better outcome for most people affected then it was morally good. Virtue ethics can be identified as “the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character,
in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules” [3] this means that to be virtuous they must have a good character like courageous and charitable.
Remember that paper scenario mentioned earlier? It could be based on a fraudulent research paper authored by physician Andrew Wakefield titled
“Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children” which was published in
The Lancet, a British medical journal. [4] The paper falsely claimed links between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.
The fraud involved data selection, data manipulation, and two undisclosed conflicts of interest
To conclude his lecture Mark gave a list of the six virtues of an ethical scientist and they were Honesty, Objectivity, Tolerance, Doubt of certitude (being alert to possibility of error),
Unselfish engagement (temper ambition to goal of science) and finally Accountability.
Mark stated that following these virtues of a scientist allows for more ethics in science leading to a
more transparent scientific community that could advance the scientific community whilst keeping its principles as ethical scientists.
References
[1] Alexander, Larry and Michael Moore, “Deontological Ethics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2025 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), forthcoming URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2025/entries/ethics-deontological/.
[2] Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, “Consequentialism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/consequentialism/.
[3] Hursthouse, Rosalind and Glen Pettigrove, “Virtue Ethics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2023 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/ethics-virtue/.
[4] Wikipedia contributors. “1998 fraudulent Lancet MMR autism study.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 4 Nov. 2025. Web. 8 Nov. 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_fraudulent_Lancet_MMR_autism_study
9463
The date, title, and name are all included, nicely done. Be careful with some of your grammar, capitalisation (especially of “you” and “your” etc.), and spacing.
Good overview of the different theories of ethics and the core values scientists should uphold.
Nice inclusion of an example of unethical research. Maybe consider expanding on the potential societal impacts of falsified or unethical research to show the importance of these issues.
Posing the questions at the start of the seminar adds a nice hook, and you’ve done a good job explaining the three theories of ethics in an accessible way.
It would be nice to include an external source that comments on the issues of ethics in science itself.
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1, Blogs overall presentation: The blog does include the date title and name of speaker throughout which is well done. The grammar and the way the blog is lay out needs to be worked on as you have separated sentences like they are new paragraphs midway through. 2/3
2, Accuracy of reporting the seminars take home message: The message that Mark was aiming to get across has been reported accurately and the information has been explained well. 3/3
3, Accuracy of contextualisation for the research: While throughout the writer have made good links to the social a research context of the topic, they could have made it more explicit about both. 2/3
4, Additional research and use of external sources: There is additional research present throughout the blog, and they have used good quotations, but they could have used some research that directly affects the ethics within science. 2/3
5, Writing style and level for audience: The blog is written in a way that is easy to ready and the way they open with a question is a good tool that gets readers interested about what they are going to read about. 2/3
Overall: 11/15, Overall it is a good blog with some changes to the layout and some more details through out it will be much better.