We just hit the point in the semester where my "Ethics in Science" class discusses the novel Cantor's Dilemma by Carl Djerassi. For those who inhabit the world of scientific research -- and for those who don't but are hungry for an insight to how human relationships and scientific activities are entwined -- it's a nice little novel. (Indeed, I've discussed it already in a couple other posts.)
What I'm going to discuss in this post is a situation that's pretty much at the end of Cantor's Dilemma, a situation where my view of what was most likely to happen after the last page (in Novel-land,…
Lab Lit
Near the end of the "Ethics in Science" course I teach, we read the novel Cantor's Dilemma by Carl Djerassi. It does a nice job of tying together a lot of different issues we talk about earlier in the term. Plus, it's a novel.
While it's more enjoyable reading than the slew of journal articles that precede it, Cantor's Dilemma is a little jarring for the students at first, because it contains whole passages that aren't directly relevant to the question of how to be a responsible scientist. As one of my students synopsized: "Science. Sex. Science. Sex. Science. Sex."
Upon reflection,…