Ethics of Biology Education and Ethics in Biology Research in India- A Philosophical and Sociological Perspective

Abstract

Education is necessary to free our minds and to enable it to think for itself. Education has two components: One, that enables us to earn our living, and two that liberates our minds and raises individual consciousness to its highest level. The aim of higher education has been under constant change for the last five thousand years. Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Islamic systems of education operated in India till the advent of British rule. Through British rule, we got the western system of education including western experimental science. India had only theoretical science and Mathematics till then. In ancient India, paraa vidya (higher education) was distinguished from aparaa vidya not by the number of years spent by the student but by the nature of problems addressed and the purpose and outcome of education. Research has always been a part and parcel of higher education in India. Individual curiosity-driven fundamental research was the ideal that all academicians followed. When this ideal of pursuing research was institutionalised in the early forties, teaching and research got separated. Ministerial institutions did research, and Universities and colleges did mostly teaching. A social fact of these systems is that they were flooded with middle-class people. Middle-class people want social recognition and approval for whatever they do. Scientists are no exception. Western science demands logic, ethics and rational analysis, while eastern religions demand faith. We got science from the West, but we forgot the scientific temper. This took a toll on the quality of science produced and as a consequence, the quality of science education.