Lab Lit
jstemwedel | May 1, 2007We just hit the point in the semester where my "Ethics in Science" class discusses the novel Cantor's Dilemma by Carl Djerassi. For those who inhabit the world of scientific research -- and for those who don't but are hungry for an insight to how human relationships and scientific activities are entwined -- it's a nice little novel. (Indeed, I've discussed it already in a couple other posts.)
What I'm going to discuss in this post is a situation that's pretty much at the end of Cantor's Dilemma, a situation where my view of what was most likely to happen after the last page (in Novel-land,…
jstemwedel | June 7, 2006Near the end of the "Ethics in Science" course I teach, we read the novel Cantor's Dilemma by Carl Djerassi. It does a nice job of tying together a lot of different issues we talk about earlier in the term. Plus, it's a novel.
While it's more enjoyable reading than the slew of journal articles that precede it, Cantor's Dilemma is a little jarring for the students at first, because it contains whole passages that aren't directly relevant to the question of how to be a responsible scientist. As one of my students synopsized: "Science. Sex. Science. Sex. Science. Sex."
Upon reflection,…