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Responsible Conduct of Research: Ethics in Research

That was what today's lecture in Practice of Science was about. I found this to be a very interesting topic, especially with a lot of the controversy between science and religion having to do with research; mainly stem cell research and cloning. But I'll get to that in a second.
In the science realm, conducting research and gaining credit for it are nasty processes that cause great pains, as my teacher puts it. I had no idea how ruthless it was in the scienctific world, meaning the science community that conducts research for the furtherance of knowledge and betterment of humanity.
Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) is basically the universal law of research and science in the USA; the code of ethics for science differs in each country, as you can imagine, due to the different backgrounds and cultures of each country. The RCR has this whole code for publishing and researching, laws for research, ethic law, processes that need to be approved before research, etc. to keep the researching world in line with a good ethical code; well, the good ethical code defined by scientists. The main concern for the RCR is research conducted on animals and especially, humans.
The reason for the RCR first started back in 1932 with the Tuckegee Syphilis Study in Alabama. Basically a team of researchers selected 399 poor , black males that had syphilis to test what would happen if these men were untreated with curable prescriptions and treated with different chemicals (I say chemicals because they were not approved medicines with one of the treatments having to give the "patients" doses of arsenic). Remember, this was in the middle of the Great Depression with anyone willing to do anything for food, shelter, or just a little bit of cash, which sounds really good when a team of scientists invite you to come live in their research facility for 40 years with free food and accommodations, telling you that you just have this rare blood disease that will be treated in those 40 years. The experiments were somewhat similar to those the Nazis used on Jews and other test subjects, with experimentation of chemicals and unauthorized drugs to see what would happen to the Syphilis.
This study was started because the Syphilis epidemic in the South in the 1930s with no effective treatment yet discovered around the late 1940s. When the drug was found to treat and effectively suppress Syphilis these 399 males were excluded from this treatment to see what would happen to them if Syphilis was left untouched. It was finally leaked out in 1972 and the study was shut down with the results disclosed. The debate in the scientific world is whether those results should continued to be left in the dark or published for the "good of many".
Today the controversy is not Syphilis but stem cell research and cloning. Where is the line drawn? Where do ethics come in and say, "this is going too far"? In the scientific perspective, this is just research that can benefit mankind, which it could possibly do with stem cells being used to help grow cells that have once been destroyed by specific and, currently, incurable diseases as well as a better treatment for cancer.......but to get the stem cells scientists need fertilized human eggs and then comes the question well isn't that a live human being or is it just a group of developing cells....I'm not going to get into that because that would take like 4 posts to try and summarize, the point is which code of ethics applies...scientific (just research) or the common religious opinion (that's a human being, not a test variable)?
Cloning is the other hot topic in scientific research....man creating man instead of God creating man (man being used for the term humanity, women are also included of course). God creates
man with a soul, so if man creates man does he have a soul? These were questions that I thought of in class today......Do cloned persons have souls? Do they have personalities? I know these are not too important questions and I have an opinion on these matters but was just seeing what anyone else thought and I thought these were interesting questions and topics (with stem cell research, cloning, code of ethics for both, etc.), being a science person in all........well, kind of.....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Hope you all have a great day of feasting, sharing of good times, and just being able to enjoy one another's company.
I'm here in Williamsburg with the family watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. The 'Heighty Tighties', which is the ROTC marching band at Virginia Tech, marched in the Parade which was pretty cool to see. Of course, the announcers, talked about the Tech massacre which kind of dampened the mood a bit but it was nice to honor them in that way. This is a good break with the family coming together and I'm excited to my other sister who is coming up tomorrow with my niece. There's just something about celebrating holidays that puts most people in the best of moods with all of life's troubles just seem to be put on hold. It is a nice feeling.
I watched Freedom Writers on Tuesday after hearing about clip that was used in the Social Justice track at 222. The clip was the scene where no one in the classroom knew what the Holocaust was except one kid. Overall, the movie was pretty good, a "change the world" kind of movie as Shane would put it.....haha it's a good phrase for this kind of genre. I've never really had a passion for helping out with Social Justice, I've done a lot mission work, but never really was "inspired" to do more until recently and I think this movie helped with that. Anyways, have GREAT Thanksgiving!!! :)

Self-Absorbed

"I'm not lonely as along as I have me." Have you ever thought that? Or how about, "I don't need anyone else, just me and God"? I have. Quite recently, well a few nights ago. I am wrong when I think such things.
How many times have we been self absorbed? Only thinking of ourselves? Not wanting to be involved in anyone? Just taking the easy route out? Using the excuse that, " I only need to focus on my relationship with God"? Rethink that and look in the Bible, God's telling us something quite different.
Before I dive into scripture let's think about this. When we limit ourselves to only knowing a few number of people we limit our relationship with God. We limit our growing relationship making it a standstill relationship which is dangerous place to be. In my experience this is when I'm usually convicted; God getting my attention, me realizing something is wrong, confessing it, and being committed to work through it with the result of a character change and growth in my relationship with God. Kind of tangent, but back on track. When we limit ourselves to a few that we are most comfortable with and that are the easiest to know we limit ourselves to God. We limit our love, thus relationship, thus growth. Why? Because we can't love God if we don't love people, Christians and non-Christians.
The second point, how do we further the Kingdom of God when we hang out with only Bobby Joe and Sally Rue? How do we spread the love of Christ and the gospels when we only hang out with a limited number of people that we are comfortable with, how do we grow?
Let's look at what God says about all this. We can't love God unless we love his people. We can't love Christ unless we love his people. Look at 1 John 4:20-21 and 1 John 5:1-3. 4:20"If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother he is a lair; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21) And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also."Notice the verb, not should, or could, but MUST. If Christ is in us how can we hate our brother? We would hate Christ who is in him, thus; hating Christ. Look at 1 John 5: 3, "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome." What are His commandments? 1) Love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. 2) Love your neighbor as yourself. There are no other commandments greater than these". Mark 12:30-31. So Jesus lays out for us, love God, love people. Further on we see that loving God is through loving His people. Read the whole book of 1 John, also look at James 4:11-12 where James is talking about not judging one another because you are actually judging the law, and what is the law in this case? I think it's Jesus. The word in flesh. See the picture? We can't experience a living, loving God if we don't have relationships. If we were meant to just know God through ourselves, Eve would not have been created. I don't think I explained this well enough due to lack of time but it's an important concept we all need to focus on.
The second part, furthering the kingdom of God I think is really just loving, caring for people and sharing the Gospels. We share the gospels just by caring for people. How? Because that is Christ's commandments and His life. We need to make sure that we don't surround ourselves in a bubble of comfort where we don't want to move out and meet, know, care for people. I know I've fallen into this trap and it's not healthy, my relationship with God was seriously degrading and lacking the essentially component; love. IV has been moving in both of these directions and being a part of it is has really made me grow a lot with relationships with people and with God.
Are you pursuing people? Caring for people? Are you pursuing Christ? Is your relationship growing or is it at a stand-still? Taking the easy way out, not working through the hard, or just making sure life is only about comfort? Is your main focus loving God and loving his people or is it seeking what's easiest and most comfortable? Are you being self-absorbed?

I just, don't know what to do.......

This is me right now. Question mark. I just don't know what to do with this, the next step? how to react? to say? I'm lost and it hurts a little bit. But there is a higher purpose for all this and something good will come out of it. Just right now it's a big question mark.
I was suppose to pick up a table and chairs from my boss' sister but had no vehicle to transport it and when I called her she didn't answer. Well, those are excuses, she called back but I didn't get it until around 730 because I was playing Frisbee golf with Doug and then dinner.
Glad this week was over. Kind of a rough one with some big tests and homework assignments. Then a conversation just made me feel like absolute crap and then two others, back to back, were really encouraging so it was good to have that to recover from.
Life's one big question mark....?