The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) has established guidelines for undergraduate programs in biochemistry and molecular biology (Voet et al., 2003). The society has now received a grant from the Teagle Foundation to access the relationship between the goals of a major in biochemistry and those of a liberal education (Wolfson, 2007).
Here's a list of skills that biochemistry and molecular biology undergraduates should obtain by the time they graduate.
- Understanding of the fundamentals of chemistry and biology and the key principles of biochemistry and molecular biology.
- Awareness of the major issues at the forefront of the discipline.
- Ability to assess primary papers critically.
- Good quantitative skills such as the ability to accurately and reproducibly prepare reagents for experiments.
- Ability to dissect a problem into its key features.
- Ability to design experiments and understand the limitations of what the experimental approach can and cannot tell you.
- Ability to interpret experimental data and identify consistent and inconsistent components.
- Ability to design follow-up experiments.
- Ability to work safely and effectively in a laboratory.
- Awareness of the available resources and how to use them.
- Ability to use computers as information and research tools.
- Ability to collaborate with other researchers.
- Ability to use oral, written, and visual presentations to present their work to both a science-literate and a science-non-literate audience.
- Ability to think in an integrated manner and look at problems from different perspectives.
- Awareness of the ethical issues in the molecular life sciences.
I'd like to start with the last one "Awareness of the ethical issues in the molecular life sciences." How important is this in a biochemistry/molecular biology undergraduate program? Who do you think should teach it? What kind of issues should we cover? Should there be some instruction on ethics philosophy?
Wolfson, A.J. (2007) Biochemistry and Undergraduate Liberal Education. Biochem. Mol. Biol. Educ. 35: 167-168.
Voet, J.G., Bell, E., Boyer, R., Boyle, J., O'Leary, M. and Zimmerman, J.K. (2003) Recommended curriculum for a program in biochemistry and molecular biology. Biochem. Mol. Biol. Educ. 31: 161-162.
My undergraduate education was in Biology, not Biochemistry or Molecular Biology, but I see lots of overlap on that list with other science disciplines, and I have several friends who did major in Biochemistry and/or Molecular Biology (MBB from here on). So I feel somewhat qualified to comment on the list. Plus, this is teh intarweb, where anybody can say anything. Ignore my opinions as you see fit.
ReplyDeleteI think everything on that list is at least desirable, and many are critical, in the process of earning a Bachelor's degree in MBB. However, some of the criteria seem rather vague - what are the fundamentals and key principles of biology, chemistry, and MBB?
Others look quite good but I am doubtful are explicitly taught at most universities - for example, while presentations and formal lab reports are common, I don't think many students present scientific work (their own or a summary of others') to a science-non-literate audience.
I'd also caution against over-emphasizing some of the more obviously-useful laboratory skill sets, like working safely and effectively and preparing reagents properly. These are very important skills that I would hope a B.Sc. in MBB would include, but they can also be easily acquired at many community colleges and similar instutions through one or two-year certificate programs. I would hope the other, B.Sc.-specific skills, especially experimental design and study critique would get more emphasis.
As for the ethics question: I think this is another issue that falls into the "good idea but probably not widely taught" category.
Should there be some instruction on ethics philosophy?
I'd say yes. I think the fact that I never took a philosophy course at all during my undergraduate degree is a defect in my education. A general philosophy of science course would be a good starting point, and maybe one or two other courses, perhaps at the level of 2nd or 3rd year, could also be appropriate. A course specifically tailored to ethical issues in the life sciences, for example, would probably be a good addition to a B.Sc. in MBB.
Presumably such a course would be taught by a professor in the Philosophy department. Medical Ethics is, I imagine, a large topic within such departments, so I don't think it would be difficult to find somebody in such a department who is familiar with the relevant literature and current issues. I don't know though, never having tried to take such a course.
Will you be posting Dr. Wolfson's list of requirements for a Liberal Arts degree, too? I'm curious about the amount of overlap between the two degrees. Hey, wait, the article is only two pages long, I can just read it...
I see no corresponding list of requirements for a B.A. Hmmm...
I'd like to start with the last one "Awareness of the ethical issues in the molecular life sciences." How important is this in a biochemistry/molecular biology undergraduate program? Who do you think should teach it? What kind of issues should we cover? Should there be some instruction on ethics philosophy?
ReplyDeleteOkay, I TA in enginnering writing, not science writing, but this same question was raised for engineering majors at my institution, so I'll go ahead and give my opinion.
The accredidation board actually required my institution to incoroporate a unit on ethics into our technical communication course. This is definitely tricky, and since last year was it's first year, our portion on ethics still has some bugs we need to work out. However, I think it's a worthwhile thing to teach. At the beginning of the semester, students were polled to see if they considered themselves "ethical" people, and they all said yes. However, they were thinking of ethics almost entirely in terms of an academic setting - don't plagiarize, etc. They weren't considering ethics in terms of things like globalization (does outsourcing do more harm than good to other countries?) and other more abstract concepts. I think it's really important that undergrads at least get a sense that ethics doesn't just go beyond not cheating or stealing.
allyson says,
ReplyDeleteThe accredidation board actually required my institution to incoroporate a unit on ethics into our technical communication course.
I understand that this is becoming common in many American schools and perhaps in other countries as well.
But for me it raises a number of troubling issues. For one, I'm convinced that biochemists are not very good at teaching ethical reasoning or, for that matter, even recognizing an ethical problem. I'd like to require that every university student take philosophy courses. Those courses should include instruction on rational arguments and logic. Part of it should involve how to recognize an ethical problem and what to do about it.
So far, I've seen very little evidence that incorporating "ethics" into courses on biochemistry or technical communication will accomplish the goal we should be aiming for. In fact, I fear that it might be counter-productive since the "ethics" will be taught by amateurs.
Don't these requirements make the assumption that any university Professor is capable of teaching the philosophy of ethics? Is that a valid assumption? It seems ridiculous to me and yet I seem to one of the few people who even question the assumption.
Maybe it's because I'm one of the few Professors who don't understand ethics. :-)
They weren't considering ethics in terms of things like globalization (does outsourcing do more harm than good to other countries?) and other more abstract concepts. I think it's really important that undergrads at least get a sense that ethics doesn't just go beyond not cheating or stealing.
Let's think about the question you raised: "Does outsourcing do more harm than good to other countries." In what sense is this an ethical question? Surely it's a question that has an answer. All we have to do is collect the data and decide whether the country in question is better off or not. If we don't have enough data then we can debate our impressions of the validity of the question but does that make it an ethical question?
There's a tendency these days to call every difficult question an "ethical" question. Do you think that's what your accreditation board was thinking? Do they simply want you to offer more courses that raise difficult questions that the students can debate?
Short-circuiting data collection and analysis by calling an issue an ethical question is an unpleasant prospect I hadn't considered. Is the working definition of "an ethical question" merely "insufficient data to reach a firm conclusion"?
ReplyDeleteThe field of ethics is concerned with the standards of judgement we use to make decisions. Hence, if we were to attempt to answer "does outsourcing do more harm than good to other counties" a student of ethics would attempt to define the standards by which we measure harm. Is harm measured in terms of money or jobs created or factories created or people displaced by new factories or loss of cultural heritage? By what standard shall we judge?
ReplyDeleteI suppose a biochemist might collect data on the question "do Jewish ghettos in Nazi Germany cause more harm than good to the German people." And with enough data of the right type that biochemist might determine that Jewish ghettos harm the German people. And in short order the next decision might be to isolate the ghettos and annilate their occupants. But if we approach the problem with ethics we might first stop to wonder what constitutes harm and good.
I think this raises the point that policies and laws should be decided in the political arena and not in scientific laboratories, corporate boardrooms, or government bureaucracies. Decisions to assign ethical choices to data are lazy policy-making and will prove disasterous.