• Question: Have any of your ethical beliefs got in the way of your work?

    Asked by anon-225916 to Sameed, Jose, joannabarstow, Heidi, Freya, Chris on 12 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Joanna Barstow

      Joanna Barstow answered on 12 Nov 2019:


      Not really, no, although they certainly influence the way I approach my work – for example, I try to be a good and supportive colleague, especially to people who are junior to me.

    • Photo: Freya Addison

      Freya Addison answered on 18 Nov 2019:


      This year I worked with Biologists, most of them were vegetarian and one was vegan. The juxtaposition of leading a vegan lifestyle and then killing insects was odd but the justification was we kill an insignificant proportion of them to study and research them, to promote them and save the insect population and biodiversity. Although I was party to this, I couldn’t do it myself even though I am an omnivore. I understand how important this work is and is why I am continuing in doing this and working on this project. We have to do an ethical review each time we do any sort of work in the environment to ensure that we uphold good practice and that we limit any, if at all damage that we may do. The project has the potential to have a massive impact on monitoring insects, insect decline and biodiversity for flying insects, and thus we have solid justification. And the impact that we have in killing these insects will not actually be seen in the environment itself, it makes no difference to the population.

    • Photo: Sameed Muhammed

      Sameed Muhammed answered on 19 Nov 2019:


      No, in fact scientific principles often promote good ethical practices. Similarly, good ethical principles allow you to become a strong ethical scientist.

Comments