What is the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)
US government instituted in second world war
MIT man who headed was in charge of allocating military and government funds for engineering and science
Displayed a shift in structure on how funds were obtained for research
How were funds for research obtained prior to the establishment of the OSRD?
Private foundations like the Carnegie Foundation
Sample question: • What is your opinion on the ethical standing of Facebook’s emotional contagion experiment? Explain your reasoning. Contextualize your answer with a discussion of public policy on human research. (List possible topic points)
o Pillars of Institutional Review Board
Voluntary/Informed consent
Ability to opt out at any point of the experiment
o Private companies like Facebook are not liable to these pillars
o We could say that even though Facebook cannot be held to these protocols, it still has a moral obligation to oblige by them
Could go the other way and argue they don’t need to pay close attention to these protocols
o Can look at the Tuskegee Syphilis case where doctors withheld information on the availability of treatment in order to continue examination of syphilis effects
What function does Intellectual Property serve?
serves as a tool to encourage innovation, grants right to keep others from using your invention w/o permission, translates as an invention into value that can be bought, sold, and used, gives monopoly selling rights to inventor until expiration
What are patents? Also list possible upsides and downsides and other related information
covers inventions that are new, useful and non obvious
Downsides of Patents - potential to limit medical devices, and other expensive items
Patent wars between Apple and Samsung
Can actually limit innovation
America Invents Act, 2011
First to Invent or First to File - US used to be first to invent, but soon changed it to first to file
What are copyrights? Also list possible upsides and downsides and other related information
No filing needed, for the life of the author + 70 years. Rights to creative products such as books, music, movies, software, photos; grants right to use copy, display, perform, and create derivative works
Protects “expression of ideas, can file copyright for $35 -> allowed to sue if so
What are trademarks? Also list possible upsides and downsides and other related information
Perpetual (as long as used in commerce), must register it. Cannot be similar to another trademark that’ll cause confusion. Cover’s a company’s name, logo, tagline, words, phrases, designs, sounds that associated with company’s goods and services
Can you patent a human gene?
ACLU v. Myriad Case; US Supreme Court Case, 2013
Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas cannot be patented. We have similarly argued that patents on human genes are a barrier to advancements in medicine and research because they grant a monopoly on the genes themselves.
Sample question: Why is it a moral imperative that engineers and scientist effectively communicate their work to society? Discuss an example
o Important for engineers/scientists to be able to explain this to policy makers in order to allow them to make appropriate laws to better society
o Examples include:
Albert Einstein’s and Leo szilard’s letter to FDR about the dangers of the atomic weapon
Tech outpacing law like in stem cells
Sample Question: Describe Leo Szilard’s 1939 letter to FDR and 1945 letter Truman. What is significant about the letters?
The first letter was a plea to FDR to make the bomb in order to fight against Germany who was possibly also making one.
The 1945 letter was a petition amongst 70 scientists urging Truman never to use the bomb again after Germany was defeated as there was no longer a need to use such destructive force.
It’s significance rests in the fact that this was one of the first times scientists came together to warn the public about an issue they are all concerned about
Who was Leslie Groves
Director of Manhattan Project
Who was J. Robert Oppenheimer?
Groves appointed Oppenheimer as the scientific director of the Manhattan project to govern the sciences behind project
Under Oppenheimer, created the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Brought in best physics minds to work on problem of creating the bomb. Result of the lab’s work led to the Trinity test which was first ever atomic bomb test
After war, joined the AEC group to advocate against the creation of the hydrogen bomb