IngentaConnect THE SCIENTIST AS STATESMAN: BIOLOGISTS AND THIRD WORLD HEALTH

Author: Carvalho, John J.¹

Source: Zygon, Volume 42, Number 2, June 2007 , pp. 289-300(12)

Abstract:

One of the most threatening problems the world faces is the growing poverty crisis and the related human rights inequalities and the spread of diseases in underprivileged areas. Human rights and relief organizations try hard to contain the devastation of these interconnected difficulties. What is the role of the biomedical scientist in this endeavor? The challenges that biomedical scientists face in their research lead us to question whether scientists can go beyond the time-consuming realm of experimental investigation and engage the issues of society in a more public way. I suggest how the scientist's role can be expanded in our complex and precarious world, introducing the idea of the modern biomedical researcher as scientist, scholar-philosopher, and statesman for the scientific community and the larger human rights community. I provide examples of where the scientist can interface with human rights organizations, medical doctors, political and civic leaders, and the science-religion dialogue. My argument reveals the emerging role of the biomedical scientist as one of public service in addition to and beyond the realm of the experimental investigator. This role, however, is formidable, and I list some of the obstacles it entails.

Keywords: environmental ethics; evolutionary biology; global health; global inequalities; globalization; human rights; liberation theology; preferential option for the poor; science and philosophy; science and religion; science and society; social justice; theology of disease; Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2007.00289.x

Affiliations: 1: Postdoctoral fellow and winner of the National Research Service Award in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, 423 Brookline Ave. #117, Boston, MA 02215;, Email: john_carvalho@hms.harvard.edu.

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