Summary learning goals biomedical sciences and society (AB_1011)
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Course
Biomedical sciences and society (AB_1011)
Institution
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU)
these documents provide a summary of the lecture notes and articles used in the lectures, a summary of the articles needed for and discussed during the tutorials as well as important notes from the tutorials and a summary of the learning goals which serves as a summary for the whole course.
Biomedical sciences and society learning goals/ summary of terms
Lecture1 and tutorial 1
Explain what is meant by the term intertwinement of S&T and society
S&T and society emerge through mutual shaping, they influence each other. They do not develop in
isolation from each other, but through complex interaction.
Explain what is meant by the statement that the development of S&T is a messy process
Their development is usually fork-shaped: scientific and technological developments are often
unexpected and off-shoot from a completely different trajectory
Explain the four views on S&T and society
- Interactive view
o Society uses technology as a tool to achieve its own goals
o Technology is neutral
o Society shapes technology
- Deterministic view
o Technology is autonomous & determines society’s cultural values, social structure
and history
o Technology shapes society
- Interactive adaptive view
o How can society reinvent itself in the context of its technological development
o Technology co-shapes society
- Interactive designing view
o Technology and society influence each other
o What kind of world do we want to live in and how can technology help to create this
world
o Technology and society co-shape each other
You are familiar with actor’s different perspectives on and arguments for/against the
technologies discussed
You can illustrate the foregoing with examples (vaccines, NIPT, gene-edited baby, the pill,
cochlear implant)
Tutorial 2
You can distinguish norms from values
Norms: action guiding rules; rules, guidelines and expectations for actual behaviour
Values: important ideas or beliefs in a community serving as motivation for action
You understand and are able to critically discuss Sparrow’s take on normal, culture and
disability
- What is normal?
o What is normal is guided by our institutions. Normal bodies are those that normal
people have.
o There is not one universally perfectly normal body since there are already so many
different kinds of bodies we see as normal
- What is a disability?
, o Majority sees deafness as disability because it is a loss of one of the senses
o The claim that being deaf is a disability relies on assumptions about prevailing
institutional arrangements
- What is culture?
o The possession of a shared history, unique language, institutions,
art/music/literature/cuisine and shared experiences are all important for a culture
o The question of whether something is a culture or not has always been a hard one
You know and understand what informed consent is, including
Informed consent is an important element to protect people in biomedical research
- Its historical development
- Nuremberg code (1947-1948, in response to WW2 trials)declaration of Helsinki
(1964)Tuskegee controversy, 7th revision of declaration of Helsinki (1972, in response to
Tuskegee syphilis study controversy)
- Failure to live up to its norm
- HeLa cell line is an example of a faulty system. There are laws to protect patients and their
samples, however these laws state that samples are allowed to be published when a patients
name is removed. The problem is that anonymity fades aways when these samples are DNA
samples
- Four elements
o Relevant information has been given
o Participant has understood said information
o Participant is able of consenting
o Participant makes an autonomous decision and is not coerced into making one.
Lecture 2
Explain the term emerging technologies
Technologies which have radical novelty ( change the way in which nature or society are build) and
effects that are yet unknown. There is often a lot of controversy surrounding these technologies
(factual uncertainty and normative diversity)
Recognize the structure of social dynamics around emerging technologies
There is either uncertainty about facts regarding the technology (like in the example where it isn’t
known how harmful fake soccer grass is) or normative diversity, where there is uncertainty about
norms instead of facts (like the HPV vaccination uncertainty)
Understand and explain the terms science as culture and theory-ladenness
Science as a culture: science is not purely rational but depends on persons, groups and cultures.
Theory-ladenness (Popper): observations are always informed by our previous experiences, therefore
observations are never objective or value-free facts, but the product of human choice
Understand the term reflexivity in science and reflect on the roles of values in scientific
development: how values inform defining a problem, understanding a problem and identifying a
solution and illustrate this in the case of increasing rates of depression and skin burns
Reflexivity in science means the examination of one's own beliefs, judgments and practices during the
research process and how these may have influenced the research. Your values will determine whether
you think of something as a problem or not. Solutions are formed based on what explanation you think
is the reason for the problem.
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