Science Faculty Perceptions and a Book Proposal

Most undergraduate science majors are not required to take philosophy of science or science and society courses. Thus, their exposure to the ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) arising from advances in science is governed by their interests and often very limited. I was interested to determine if other genetics professors were concerned about the inclusion of ELSI issues into the curriculum for their students and conducted a survey (Booth & Garrett, 2004) to determine where, if anywhere, students were exposed to these issues within their curriculum (general education, ELSI requirement, within their course). While there was overwhelming agreement that it is important that students engage with ELSI topics, very few programs or instructors take responsibility for ensuring that this occurs. Most instructors reported devoting less than 5% of class time to ELSI issues, which translates to <10 minutes a week of instruction/exposure for students.

The majority of genetics professors reported time pressure was the principal reason that they did not teach as much ELSI as they would like to and inspection of current genetics texts shows that this material is rarely, or only peripherally, covered. There is currently no good resource where issues resulting from advances in human genetics and biotechnology are assembled for seamless integration into mainstream genetics courses. I will discuss my proposal to develop a supplementary book (e-resource) that is designed to encourage science faculty to increase their teaching of ELSI issues through its content relevance and ease of integration with the standard curriculum and pedagogy.

Also see full session on: Genetics and Society Book Proposal