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I'd like to comment on the question posed at the end of class regarding whether scientists should abide by an ethical code. The example of the Manhattan Project was offered: should the scientists involved have continued their research on nuclear fission when they knew that it would result in the massive destruction of human life? While I am decidedly against weapons development myself, I feel that scientists should not be held to an ethical code. Instead, I feel that scientists should be held to scientific integrity. Scientists should be required to accurately present their data, without fabrication, to the public. Without this requirement in place society cannot trust anything that a scientists claims. In addition, I believe it should be the right of any scientist to refuse to work on a project that they are ethically opposed to. However, I do not think that the projects that scientists work on should be limited by a predetermined ethical code. The entire purpose of science is the pursuit of knowledge, to try to better understand how the world around us works. The discoveries made can then be used to advance (or hurt, depending on one's perspective) all aspects of society, whether it be health care, transportation, agriculture, architecture, or even defense/military operations. Thus, scientific inquiry is extremely useful to society. Just because one is against a particular application of scientific knowledge does not mean that society is better off without the knowledge in the first place. If governments want to ban certain applications (such as nuclear weapons), and they have the support of their constituencies on the matter, then that is the governments' right. However, scientists have not spent years gaining expertise in ethics; they've spent years gaining expertise in acquiring and interpreting data. As such, scientists should not be expected to question their every move, to determine if the data they acquire could one day be used for nefarious purposes.