Aims: To familiarise the student with the organisation of science, engineering and technology as collective human enterprises, laying some emphasis on areas associated particularly with technical communication, funding, and professional ethics where there may be differences of opinion and potential conflict.
Learning Outcomes:
After taking the unit students should inter alia be able to
discuss science technology and engineering as collective human enterprises, making reference to such aspects as technical communication, funding, and professional, social and environmental responsibility;
take a responsible part in a group project;
play a responsible part in an oral presentation of the findings of a group project;
recognise the inherently mutable nature of the prevailing social paradigm;
engage fairly with matters of controversy and formulate their own opinions.
Skills:
Facilitated - intellectual, practical, key
Content:
Contemporary science & engineering: organisation, funding, communication, and professional responsibility.
Ethics and values: some principles and implications.
Sustainability: implications for science, engineering & technology;
Professional responsibility / social responsibility: duty to employer, the Public Interest, environmental preservation.
Reasoning and "truth" in science, engineering and in other disciplines: politics, economics, ethics. Science, technology, engineering and progress
The prevailing social paradigm: other paradigms?
Funding of science & engineering: possible conflicts of interest, piper and tune? Openness of research.
Publication of science & engineering: guest authorship, ghost writing, financial interest.
Intellectual property: and the public good, patenting of natural products.
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