ASTRONOMY RESEARCH I

Qualitative Research AST15 - Assignment 1

Name: Marc edzel g. danao section: pcas-10-401a

PRACTICE: IMAGINE A STUDY TESTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A COVID-19

VACCINE. USE THE FRAMEWORK TABLE

research scientific
society
participants community

- Moral principle - Respecting people's

- Acting responsibly and
rights and dignity
with integrity
- Weighing risks against
benefits. - Seeking justice

IT HAS BEEN ARGUED THAT RESEARCHERS ARE NOT ETHICALLY

RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MISINTERPRETATION OR MISUSE OF THEIR
RESEARCH BY OTHERS. DO YOU AGREE? WHY OR WHY NOT?

I agree with that argument. Let me first discuss a scenario/story:

We all know that the atomic bomb is a weapon that comes from the fast release of
energy using nuclear fission (of course on the nuclei of a heavy atom). It produces a huge
blast from the way it was released, leaving dense radioactivity on the affected area. It was
used during World War II by United States (using the Enola Gay) to Japan in 1945 on
Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It caused a massive destruction for both infrastructure and lives
from the Japanese people. Behind this weapon is no other than J. Robert Oppenheimer,
or commonly known as “The father of the atomic bomb”.
 He was the one who led the Manhattan Project, an R&D project during the second
World War, when the United States joined partially on the Allied Forces in 1939 until
becoming a full part in 1941. It disbanded on post-World War in 1947. Oppenheimer (with
his colleagues) use the research of Enrico Fermi (for the nuclear reactor), Otto Hahn, and
Fritz Strassman (both for splitting a Uranium atom for nuclear physics progress) to make
his own research and calculation for making the bomb. They produced two atomic
weapons derived from the said researchers. Their weapons were the primarily concern
during the Cold War, even now. Because of Oppenheimer’s doing, the nuclear ethics is
born. It is said to their policy that “no one are responsible for making nuclear weapons
except to its maker, no other than their origin”. Even Oppenheimer was affected, even
saying:

“Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds”

This scenario shows that every researcher has its own limit when it comes to their
“research responsibility”. It is like in real life when you make an object, like an axe, for its
cutting wood purposes and someone use it for killing a people, who should be
responsible: you or the killer? Of course, the killer! You have the limit for the
responsibility, and it is all about in purpose . As Fermi, Hahn, and Strassman get to
produce research in nuclear physics that contributes “indirectly’ to war, it is not their
purpose to make a destructive weapon. They did their research for non-vile purposes,
to help the community or the world, to get advanced, not to step backwards. If we don’t
agree to that argument, so the blame should tag it also to Marie and Pierre Curie, who
were the pioneers for understanding radioactivity?

Of course, it started an ethical dilemma on who is “good” or “bad”. But since we are
talking about the “responsibility”, I stand that they are not. It is for the people to take
care on how they are using other’s research. It is for the researcher to take diligence .