Pilar Armanet Armanet, co-chair of the session, opened the session by greeting the audience and stressed the importance of the ethics for the science and technology community as a whole. She then briefly introduced the key speaker of the session: Professor Dr. Prapon Wilairat.
Prof. Prapon gave an introduction about ethic from a practicing scientist's viewpoint He addressed that science is the attempt to understand human and environment by doing an experiment and technology is the application of scientific knowledge to serve the mankind.
In the presentation, there are 3 main misconduct issues that fail to recognize; (1) Fabrication; (2) Falsification; and (3) Plagiarism, by copying from textbook and pasting in report but not recognize or give credit to the writer. Prof. Prapon emphasizes that plagiarism can be avoided by putting the reference number on the paragraph and footnote under page of report. All authors must contribute significantly to the publication. And the scientist should be honest in their reports.
Focused on the experiment ethics, there are two types of experiment on non-living and living things. For scientist in the life science, experiment always involves with living things. GMOs experiments for example, scientists usually use plants and animals for experiments. So we need to protect the Right of Plants and treat animal humanely. Another example is on the project of human cloning. There are 2 types of cloning; reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning which uses embryo stem cells from human. The ethic issue is when the experiment has to destroy some eggs, is it immoral?
The issue about ethics in biology especially concerns the genetic of life from plant, animals, and humans have raised under the “bioethics”. Bioethics refers to the issue that involve with medicine and life sciences related to environment.
In conclusion, science and technology development is a coin with two faces, one face presents the development for a better life for mankind, and where as the other one presents the impact of the development that can be harmful. So the scientists need to concern about the ethic and bioethics to distinguish between the two faces of the coin.
Associate Professor Dr. Sumontha Promboon, the other co-chair of the session, showed her admiration for Dr. Wilairat's inspiring presentation. As for Dr. Promboon herself, the pursuit of science is the lifetime education as science teaches her not only the truths of nature but also the relevant ethical considerations. Therefore, science is like a wisdom, religion, communication and cooperation for her. Dr. Promboon made a transition to the two responders: Professor Dr. Ravi Silva from Sri Lanka; and Associate Professor Dr. Palangpon Kongsaeree from Thailand to continue the session.
Professor S. Ravi Silva, emphasized on the importance of sharing information. Tradition of sharing and exchanging ideas was instrumental in the development of Quantum theory. This tradition leads to the discontinuation of information among scientists through out the world. However, this traditional means of communication may be under threat due to the influence of industry and commercial pressures now forced upon universities around the world. The dissemination of scholarly research has ensured that readers become aware of current research and methodology in their fields, preventing duplication of experiments, and raising awareness of new techniques.
One of the most significant achievements has been the development of the World Wide Web (www), a tool for sharing information among fellow scientists. WWW offer an excellent medium for sharing and discussing research results, just as private correspondence and printed learned journals have in the past.
Given the profound influence Science and Technology has on the future success or failure of our civilization, it would be wholly unethical to stifle progress by not allowing the widest access to cutting edge research. Pursuing short-term profit from the publishing research data is unjustifiable. There will be plenty of opportunity for business to benefit from the output of Science and Technology further down the line. The free flow of knowledge should not be stemmed by short-sighted greed, especially with the opportunities offered by information technology.
Associate Professor Dr. Palangpon Kongsaeree, the other responder of the forum, addressed the issues affecting the ethics of science and technology: knowledge-based society; capitalism; economy-driven scientific development; and profit-driven science. In response to Dr. Wilairat's talk, he raised two points concerning scientific experimental data: truthfulness (e.g. accurate complete record-keeping) versus fabricated data (e.g. falsified invented results). Experimental errors from negligence is another issue of his consideration as well. Then, Dr. Kongsaeree touched on a variety of ethical concerns arising from new technologies: cloning and robotics issues; the negative impacts of nanotechnology (e.g. nanowaste); issues of modern but costly drug discoveries. Finally, Dr. Kongsaeree ended his talk by proposing the audience to examine the past failures of science and technologies such as the effects of PCB, DDT and Freon and thus to focus on the ethics of youth through education, information technology and the process of ‘think[ing] globally and act[ing] locally' to make a better future.
Ms. Laura gave a speech about vision and activities of International Federation of Medical Student Association (IFMSA). The vision focused on basic medical ethic in 5 main issues; morals in medical practice, Hippocratic, Humans' rights, Cultural differences, and in the best interest of individual patient.
Teaching ethic in medical school has no universally used curriculum and varies from country and university to another. All medical students should receive the education and learn more about ethic.
IFMSA is an independent and non-political association, recognized by WHO and work relatively with UNESCO. The mission is to concern on the global health, improve health and contribute to provide medical service to people. The IFMSA arranges 5 main activities providing to public; (1) Ethic teaching ; discussion and debate on patient's right and ethic practice, collaboration with Worlds Medical Association and Trying to achieve international standard in medical education; (2) Patient; concerning patient advocacy and humans' right, establish the project on training youth on HIV and human's rights, and building aging and health project network; (3 ) Society ; create the protection on health for future generation, provide education on ethical aspect, and do the survey on opinion of young people on ethic; (4) Colleague ; treat as a family member, provide exchange program and training; (5) Research , raise awareness of unsolved issue in medical and pharmacy, make manual of ethic research and bioethics, etc.
In conclusion, the education on medical ethics should be provided to all medical students so that they can concern more about the important of ethic. And all medical students should contribute themselves in promoting medical ethic in order to provide proper services for people.
Madhav Nepal, the last speaker of the Youth Forum and the other UNESCO invited student, made a brief presentation of the ethics of science and technology. He has an opinion that the issues of ethics are automatically connected with politics. He also mentioned the challenges faced by the science education due to the high costs of education, which is a serious problem for developing countries or the so-called ‘third-world'. Therefore, Nepal emphasized that the science education should be designed and conducted for people, not for trade or industry.