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Comment by cauthon | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like you just haven’t taken a good ethics class. I was required to take one in grad school (comp bio/biost at) taught by a law professor. Every week we were assigned a case study on a real-world ethics problem, such as the Duke/Potti scandal [1]. We wrote up answers to 5-6 discussion questions ahead of class, then spent the class time in small group discussion rather than lecture. I think it was one of the most valuable courses I took in grad school.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anil_Potti

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I don't understand, what's the controversy with Potti? The dude was a piece of shit - what else is there to discuss? I'm not being condescending I genuinely don't see any nuance like you're stating. When is it ever okay to fabricate data?

> When is it ever okay to fabricate data?

When you want to deliberately sabotage something. What may have its place, but obviously not in such case (obviously not applicable in cancer research like in this case).

Which should be obvious to anyone who has made it to 18 years of age.

> a real-world ethics problem, such as the Duke/Potti scandal [1].

Why is this an ethics problem? That's just "normal" scientific fraud, isnt it? What is there to discuss?

I think you're right the problem is the course. For example I also had a great ethics class, but it was bioethics, not technology.

Part of the problem is you think that software engineers should take a course in software engineering ethics. The problem here is like the GP says, it boils down into a class of are you dumb enough to pick the obviously unethical answer and fails to teach any ethics.

I wonder if requiring an ethics class that focuses on an orthogonal topic, for example requiring software engineers to take a course in business ethics, might be more effective since they can focus more on the actual system process of ethics and less on how it effects their own personal career, and thus be more willing to honestly evaluate ethically grey scenarios.

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