scientific ethics in relation to whales, fisheries, sonar use

1. Positivism and ethics
• Positivism: foundational methods of
inquiry
• Logic and maths as the foundational
basis of natural laws
• Science should proceed through a
rigourous process of deduction from
basic definitions and self-evident
principles of reason
• Science can be built brick by brick
from observing the world
• Prediction or verification, replication by
others, corroborating experimental
results, or real world applications –

2. Maths wrong; are models revised? Ethics?
Robert Nadeau in The Scientific American argues that:
The 19th-century fathers of neoclassical economics—the theory that underpins
the global market system and industrial agriculture—used maths to make
economics more of a scientific discipline. These economists—William Stanley
Jevons, Léon Walras, Maria Edgeworth and Vilfredo Pareto—developed their
theories by adapting equations from 19th-century physics that eventually became
obsolete. Neoclassical economics has also become outdated. The theory is based
on unscientific assumptions that are hindering the implementation of viable
economic solutions for global warming and other menacing environmental
problems.
http://www.theoben.blogspot.ca/2008/06/economist-has-no-clothes.html

3. Progress & ethics
• Justification – scientific criteria were developed
that were independent from moral, ethical,
religious or political norms
• Until recently the main limits to interference in life
were of a technical kind: what is possible? Now
scientists are faced with ethical limits: what is
acceptable to do in biotechnology?
• In 1999 in Europe the cloning of animals was
grouped together with food biotechnology as the
least accepted application of biotechnology
• This was so even though the assessed application
of cloning was medical; a use that generally has
higher public acceptance

4. Ethics in Science
Henry H. Bauer, Professor of Chemistry & Science Studies
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA
24061-0227
• Why do scientists study some things but not
others? Why is it scientific to speculate about how
the universe began but not scientific to study
UFOs or whether the Loch Ness monsters exist?
What makes science so much more reliable than
sociology?
• "science studies", or "science & technology
studies", tries to understand not only how science
works but also how it affects society and politics
and religion - and how those affect science.
Nowadays, a lot of interaction between science
and the rest of society has to do with ethical
questions about science.

5. Internal ethics
• "A Michigan judge ordered the University of Michigan . . .
to pay $1.2 million in damages to a scientist after a jury
found that her supervisor had stolen credit for her
research and that the university had failed to investigate
properly."
• July 1993: Leo A. Paquette, professor of chemistry at
Ohio State University; and James H. Freisheim, former
chairman of the Dept of Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology at the Medical College of Ohio . . . plagiarized
grant applications the scientists had reviewed"
• August 1993: "Kekulé was a German supernationalist
who invented the dream [about the ring structure of
benzene, a snake biting its tail] so he wouldn't have to
cite previous work . . . by researchers from Austria,
France, and Scotland"

6. http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/
• In 1993 Professor Harry Gibson gave colleagues
in the Chemistry Department copies of his letter to
a granting agency about a proposal he had been
sent to review. He wrote, "Unfortunately, the
proposal was plagiarized from my proposal of
1990".
• In his memoir The Double Helix, Nobel-Prize-
winner J. D. Watson described getting data that
its owner would not have wanted him to see.

7. Ethics in Science
Internal External

8. The scientific community on scientific
misconduct
• Rustum Roy, Professor of Materials Science at Penn
State, himself an outspoken critic of some corrupt
practices in modern science, used a press conference
to announce a new method for making synthetic
diamond, and justified that as "the only way to prevent
. . . a small group of peer reviewers . . . [having] an
advance chance to duplicate the work in their labs".
• In X-ray crystallography, it had become routine to
publish structures of complex substances without
giving the raw data, so that others couldn't do proper
checks or build on the work.

9. science progresses with sound,
reliable results only to the degree
that scientists are honest.
• In the hurry to develop high-temperature
superconductors "scientific results were
announced first in the press to gain a few
days on other groups. . . . [One researcher]
applied for a patent [and then] submitted a
paper containing two systematic mistakes
making it useless to any reader. . . . [and
gave] a press conference . . . announcing -
without giving any detail - the discovery . . . .
Only . . . at the latest possible date, did he
send his corrections to the journal".

10. Ethics in Science Congress Graduate School for
Production Ecology & Resource Conservation
(PE&RC) Date: Thur Nov 28, 2002
• To what extent may one intervene in an ecosystem to keep it
stable? Is it acceptable and justifiable to kill an endangered
species because it might otherwise jeopardize the well-being of
humans or other more endangered species?
• If research is not allowed in one country, should you then go to
another country where it is allowed?
• Should much money be spent on research on life-extending
medicines, whereas thousands of lives in third world countries
could be saved with the same amount of money?

11. On Oct 30 in the Debate on the Kyoto Protocol held in the David Strong
Bldg at Uvic one of the scientists said the only thing wrong with nuclear
technology is that the waste was not being used properly

14. Cold war technology
• Spin-off technologies from the cold
war—sonar, satellite data and the
Global Positioning System (GPS)—
have led to an unprecedented decline in
fish stocks worldwide, according to a In a Perfect
UBC study. Fisherman now have an
unprecedented view of the ocean— Ocean: The
enabling them to guide their nets State Of
around sea mountains, drop them into Fisheries And
deep ocean abysses, and navigate Ecosystems in
almost every rock pile like an the North
underwater video game.
Atlantic
Ocean, Daniel
Pauly

15. In a Perfect Ocean: The State Of
Fisheries And Ecosystems in the
North Atlantic Ocean, Daniel
Pauly
• The total weight of tablefish—species eaten
by man—in the oceans has declined by a
total of 85 percent in the last century and
continues to decline at 2 percent or more per
year. Many species are being hunted right
down to the last fish.

16. Cold war military technologies have
devastated global fish populations Bijal P.
Trivedi National Geographic Feb 25, 2002
• The US Geological Survey produced detailed three
dimensional maps of the ocean floor using sonar. With
sonar maps fisherman can identify the best regions to
fish and the improved GPS directs their ships precisely to
that spot. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) releases a daily fax to Atlantic
swordfish fleets with satellite pictures revealing sea-
surface temperatures around fishing grounds. Big fish—
like swordfish and bluefin tuna—are attracted to fronts
where cold and warm waters meet. The satellite data
guides the fishermen directly to these fronts. Many fishing
vessels now carry sonar to locate schools of fish.
•

17. Cold war military technologies have
devastated global fish populations Bijal P.
Trivedi National Geographic Feb 25, 2002
• Some nets are even outfitted with sonar to allow fishermen to
steer their nets around obstacles and keep fishing lines at the
same depth as their target. The bluefin tuna trade is so
lucrative—one fish fetches $10,000 or more in Japanese fish
markets—that fishermen even hire pilots to cruise around in
spotter planes to locate a school of tuna, which at six to nine
feet long, are easy to spot.

18. • A diet containing a lot of fish should lower the risk of a
heart attack. No says Professor Frans Kok of the
Human Nutrition and Epidemiology Group at
Wageningen University (published in the New
England Journal of Medicine). The effect of mercury in
fish almost completely negates the protective effect.
Kok’s international research group examined 700 men
in 8 EU countries and Israel. They discovered that the
concentration of mercury in the men’s toenails was
much higher when there was more fatty acid from fish
in the fat samples.
• About two thirds of the mercury in the sea comes from
environmental pollution. Fish and algae convert this
inorganic mercury into methyl mercury which
deactivates enzymes in the human body that are
needed to protect cells, and it also contaminates
cholesterol and encourages the formation of blood
clots.

19. The researchers separated the effects of
mercury and fish fatty acids by statistical
analysis. The group with a higher intake of
mercury had a fifty percent higher chance
of a heart attack than the group with lower
mercury intake. But because the higher
risk group had absorbed the mercury
through fish they still received some
protection from the fatty acids. Without
this, the chance of a heart attack would
have been 116 percent higher.
http://resource.wur.nl/wetenschap/detail/mercury-levels-
in-fish-undo-protective-effect-of-oily-fish-in-the-human-
die/

20. Dr Michiel Kotterman of the fish research institute
Rivo found that fish at the top of the food chain
were the worse sources of mercury. Swordfish
and the shark contain about one milligram of
mercury per kilogram. Tuna, trout, pike and perch
have a middle score (a tenth to a half of the
amount found in the high group). Shellfish have a
low mercury score.

21. sonar system vs marine
mammals
• SAN FRANCISCO,
October 31, 2002 (ENS)
- A federal judge issued
a preliminary injunction
stopping the U.S. Navy
from deployment of a
new high intensity sonar
system that could hurt
marine mammals with
its loud signals.

22. http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/sonar.asp
• Granting a request by five environmental groups (NRDC, the
Humane Society, the League for Coastal Protection, the
Cetacean Society International, and the Ocean Futures Society)
the U.S. Judge ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service
issued the Navy a permit that likely violates federal law (Marine
Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, the
National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative
Procedure Act.

23. U.S. Navy Sonar System Blocked by Federal Court
Environment News Service (ENS) 2002
• On July 15, the Navy received its permit to "harass marine
mammals" while operating low frequency sonar on 2 ships to
detect submarines; remaining outside the range of their onboard
weapons (the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low
Frequency Active sonar (SURTASS LFA)). The sonar relies on
very loud, low frequency sound to detect submarines at great
distances. This sonar has been measured at 140 decibels 300
miles away from the sound's source.
•

24. • Judge LaPorte claimed "It is undisputed that marine mammals,
many of whom depend on sensitive hearing for essential
activities like finding food and mates and avoiding predators,
and some of whom are endangered species, will at minimum be
harassed by the extremely loud and far traveling LFA sonar."
"Deployment of LFA over 75 percent of the
world's oceans, more than 14 million square
miles in the first year alone, threatens marine life
on a staggering and unprecedented geographic
scale“.

25. U.S. Navy Sonar System Blocked by Federal Court
Environment News Service (ENS) 2002
• There are two types of sonar. Passive sonar listens for noises in
the water. Active sonar sends out a loud, low-frequency signal
and waits for responding signals that bounce off distant objects
such as submarines. Scientists claimed that, during testing off
the California coast, noise from a single LFA system was
detected across the breadth of the North Pacific Ocean.
• Still, in granting the permit, the National Marine Fisheries
Service said the sonar will have "no more than a negligible
impact on the affected species,“ and "will not have an
unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of these species
or stock(s) for subsistence uses.“
•

26. will not have an unmitigable adverse impact
The mass stranding of multiple whale species in the
Bahamas in March 2000 and the simultaneous
disappearance of the region's entire population of
beaked whales has been linked to a U.S. Navy mid-
frequency active sonar system. In late September, new
mass strandings occurred in the Canary Islands as a
result of NATO military sonar, and in the Gulf of
California two whales died as the likely result of an
acoustic geophysical survey using loud air guns.

27. 12/31/2001) U.S. Navy finally admits
North Pacific Ocean testing of sonar system caused mass
stranding and deaths of whales in
Bahamas after x-rays find noise-induced
bleeding, ruptured membranes, and other
signs of trauma to their ears, brains and
throats. The report, approved by Navy
Secretary Gordon R. England, concludes
that the Navy should "put into place
mitigation measures that will protect
animals to the maximum extent practical"
during peacetime training and research
efforts. But the report also allows for the
suspension of such protections in the
interest of "national security," a broad
exemption that has yet to be defined in
practice.

28. • The report, a joint project of the Navy and the National Marine
Fisheries Service, grew out of the beaching of 16 whales and a
spotted dolphin on Bahamian shores over 36 hours starting
March 15, 2000. Seven of the animals - five Cuvier's beaked
whales, one Blainville's beaked whale and the dolphin - died.
Ten other whales were pushed back to sea, and their fates are
unknown. Beaked whales are too poorly understood to know
whether they are endangered.

29. • The strandings coincided with a nearby Navy exercise meant to
improve coordination among ships sailing through enemy-
infested channels. The test involved middle-frequency (about
3,000 to 7,000 cycles per second) sonar studies in which
underwater noises of about 230 decibels were generated.
Tissue damage in sea animals is known to occur at about 180
decibels, and a 230-decibel sonar sound is about 100,000 times
louder than that (the decibel scale increases logarithmically).

30. • (Ken Balcomb runs the Bahamas Marine Mammal Survey on the Bahamian
island of Abaco. Balcomb and his colleagues cut off two dead whales' heads.
"We went to the local restaurant and put them in the freezer," - each head was
about 4 ft long and weighed 200 pounds. National Marine Fisheries Service
scientists flew out to study the beached carcasses. Arrangements were made
with Darlene Ketten, a whale hearing specialist with Harvard's department of
otology and laryngology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to
perform three-dimensional CT scan studies of the frozen heads.
• The X-ray studies showed bleeding around the inner ears, along with trauma
to the auditory system and parts of the brain and throat sensitive to intense
pressures. In one animal, the ligament that holds an eardrum-like membrane
taut had ruptured, evidence of having been exposed to a powerful physical
force.

31. • Other studies found that all but one of the animals had been
healthy (the dolphin was diseased, and its death was not linked
to the Navy), and the report ruled out other causes of injury. It
remains unclear whether the whales were fatally injured by the
sounds themselves or whether the sound-related injuries
disoriented the animals, sending them ashore, where they
overheated and drowned, said NMFS. Navy spokesman Patrick
McNally said the Navy believes that the injuries were caused by
the unique characteristics of Bahamian underwater topography
and other factors, and that similar tests may still be appropriate
in other waters.