As students at the California Institute of Technology arrive on campus for the fall semester, they're finding that a new ingredient has been stirred into the curricular mix.
The Caltech catalog now lists an undergraduate major--a four-year degree program of required courses in science ethics and history--and a graduate minor called Science, Ethics, and Society. The courses--some new, some that have been taught before--cover subjects like weapons research and arms control, biotechnology, the environment, and scientific misconduct.
A little more than a year ago, bioethicists became electronically linked with the Bioethics Online Service, an information resource administered by the Center for the Study of Bioethics and the Office of Research, Technology, and Information at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Arthur R. Derse, associate director for medical and legal affairs at the center and director of the service, says he and colleagues started the resource because people from a ...
