Physics Commons^™

Research Vs. Teaching: An Ethical Dilemma For The Academic Physicist, Alvin M. Saperstein

Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse

The usual discussions of academic ethics and freedom revolve around the issues of what we may teach. Here, I'm concerned with how we teach and examine. Thus this paper is concerned with process rather than substance--perhaps an unusual concern for an academic but currently of interest to me, having recently served a year in the federal bureaucracy where process is dominant over substance.

A physician who knew of improved procedures to facilitate the health of a patient but chose to use older, proven less effective, means, purely for his/her own convenience, would clearly be guilty of medical malpractice--unethical behavior. I …

Should Physics Students Take A Course In Ethics? Physicists Respond, Bonnie Wylo, Marshall Thomsen

Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse

Should physics students take a course in ethics? A National Science Foundation grant was written by the authors in an attempt (in part) to answer this question. One might first ask, why might physics students take a course in ethics? There are three reasons that might combine to persuade one of the necessity. First, the formal training can be quite practical and useful in the daily life of a physicist, as discussed below. Second, the National Science Teachers Association suggests an ethical component in the training of high school physics teachers (NSTA Standards for Science Teacher Preparation, available at www.nsta.org). …