Doping, not just for jocks anymore...

[dickens]

http://www.slate.com/id/2188747

The interesting ethical point of the article is the scientist who suggested that using brain-enhancing drugs will improve his science and therefore human knowledge/life.

I don't know, the idea makes me squick a little.

Comments

[omnifarious.livejournal.com]

I think jock's and scientists using performance enhancing drugs are fundamentally different. In the case of jocks, their direct competition with their peers is part of the entertainment value of watching them. Using those drugs is like a chess player who uses a computer to help him or her analyze the board.

But a professional chess analyst is expected to use a computer. The analyst is in indirect competition with other analysts, but the competition itself isn't a part of why we read their analyses. It isn't 'cheating', it's doing their job better.

And I think the same can be said of scientists. They do compete with other scientists to produce results, but the competition isn't why we pay them. We pay them to find things out, to create and test hypothesis and come up with workable theories with a lot of predictive power. Their use of performance enhancing drugs isn't cheating, it's giving them the ability to do their jobs better.

So I think directly comparing them as the article does isn't exactly the right thing to do.

[talkswithwind]

It's an interesting ethical question. Doping in sports is pretty clear cut unethical since it changes fundamental ability in ways that are not equitable across the sport. To a lesser extent we're getting similar arguments about equipment, witness the recent thing about the new Speedo swimsuit and the world records it has allowed athletes to obtain. Equipment is one thing, but pharmacology is another thing all together. The drug cocktail that works for one athlete may not be as effective for another athlete. Anyone can buy the fast swimsuit, but if their physiology says that that particular 'roid is only 80% as effective in them than others, well... that's a "level playing field" problem.

In the science realm, on the surface, it sounds just fine. They're all in there to further our knowledge of the universe. Yet, at the same time it is also a competition, measured in published papers, peer acclimation, and the few awards. Science funding is never guaranteed, and generally goes to those with a record of producing. Do 'level playing field' arguments also apply in the scientific realm?