Ethics in Science and Engineering

3 Credits

Ethical issues in science and engineering and their resolutions are examined. The main topics will be ethics and scientific truth (including issues of proper data analysis, proper data presentation, and record-keeping), ethics and other scientists and engineers (including issues of attribution, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, mentoring, and inclusion of under-represented groups), ethics and the practice of engineering (including responsibilities of engineers to clients, ecological issues, and conflicts of interest), and ethics and society (including funding priorities, moral issues, and human and animal subjects). Class meetings will be organized around discussions, case studies, and student reports. The course is aimed at postdoctoral students, graduate students and advanced undergraduate students who wish to ponder the important contemporary questions about the ethics of how science and engineering get done.