Does studying science make you a better person?

[Electric Monk]

A new study suggests that scientists are more likely to have a strong moral compass than those outside the field

Want to be a better person? Spend more time thinking about science.

That’s the implication of newly published research, which finds people who study science — or who are even momentarily exposed to the idea of scientific research — are more likely to condemn unethical behavior and more inclined to help others.

“Thinking about science leads individuals to endorse more stringent moral norms,” report psychologists Christine Ma-Kellams of Harvard University and Jim Blascovich of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Their research is published in the online journal PLOS One.

The researchers describe four experiments, all conducted at UCSB, that back up their surprising conclusion.

more...
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/23/does_studying_science_make_you_a_better_person_partner/

I'm cross-posting this from GD so it sticks around longer
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2559261

[Warpy]

1. Or maybe better people are drawn to science

rather than corporate business models.

[dimbear]

2. This idea has certainly produced some interesting literature. For instance, H G Wells'

"The Island of Dr. Moreau," Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and much later the series about Jurassic Park.


Classify these under the exception that tests the rule.

[Mopar151]

3. Some of it is about truth

And a lot is about the ability to think things through, so's you are more in tune with the consequences of being a skeezball.

[Xipe Totec]

4. Homo Scientificus According to Beckett

One of the truly profound essays I have read in my life.

http://www.ini.uzh.ch/~tobi/fun/max/delbruckHomoScientificusBecket1972.pdf

It has been over 35 years since I first read this essay by Max Delbrück, and it still inspires me and haunts me today.

What is the nature of the scientific mind? What drives a scientist?

Delbrück was a German-American biophysicist. He won the Nobel prize for discovering that bacteria become resistant to viruses (phages) as a result of genetic mutations.

In a recent article in Scientific American; The Right Way to Get It Wrong, it mentions Delbrück, along with Neils Bohr and Enrico Fermi, as scientists who have made spectacular mistakes that have driven science forward. Quote:

"In the 1940s Max Delbrück, the key founder of molecular biology, based his research on a number of incorrect and misleading assumptions. He would go on to win a Nobel Prize."


So why am I posting this?

Because Delbrück has a different opinion regarding the effect of science on people, or people on science.

[PADemD]

5. It didn't work for Joseph Mengele.

[furtive_pygmy]

6. scientists

Well scientists tend to be more empirical and perhaps neutral to certain things, although it's probably that scientists are a particular type of personality that would be like that anyway.

[lastlib]

7. well, if you try to ignore science, you wind up as a Republican.....

...so that can't be good....

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:



Exhibit C:




I rest my case. Better to study science.

[goldent]

8. So was it scientists...

who conducted the study that determined that studying science makes you a better person?

Hmmmmmmm

[napoleon_in_rags]

9. I totally believe it.

As somebody who was raised religious but went toward secular science, this makes sense to me.

Mystical / religious thought is beautiful, but married to its own shadow. But once you move beyond the mysteries of good you also move beyond the mysteries of evil. Both concepts lose their power, and you see the world as it is. Contrary to religious talking points this doesn't make you evil: the devil disappears along with God, and moral acts have a kind of beauty still.

I don't want to bash faith - the key is what defines your your mode of thinking. If its reason, you will be capable of morality. If its not, you will yearn to be moral, while doing things that aren't. And when you see this, it will always be some devil's fault, so no learning takes place, you can never change, never escape that shadow.

[hue]

10. IMHO "Yes"

[struggle4progress]

11. To make good ethical decisions, one must be willing to attempt to set aside

one's preconceptions to search for actual facts, so I can believe that scientific training could help with at least that one component of ethical-decision-making

But there are other components to good ethical-decision-making -- such as respect for, interest in, and empathy with other people. These may involve different portions of the personality than those required for analytical thinking or laboratory skill