Ethics and Politics of Science, Technology and Medicine
You should answer four questions in total. Answer one question from
Section A and three questions from Section B. All questions carry equal
weighting.
Begin each answer on a separate sheet.
Write legibly and on only one side of the paper.
Answers must be tied up in separate bundles, marked 1, 2, 3, etc.
according to the number of the question.
Attach a completed coversheet to each bundle and complete a master
coversheet listing all questions attempted. It is essential that you write
your examination number and not your name on the coversheet and on
each bundle.
You may not start to read the questions printed on the subsequent
pages of this question paper until instructed to do so by the
invigilator.
Page 2 of 2
SECTION A
1. Should scientific experts always be respected?
2. Should medicine be purely evidence-based?
3. Has the ideal of value freedom been important for science?
SECTION B
4. What does consent do in medical contexts?
5. How should we decide how to ration scarce healthcare resources?
6. Is rational choice theory a successful scientific theory?
7. What assumptions about values should economists make?
8. Is technological determinism a good way to characterize the role of
technology in society?
9. Must a sociologist of science be a relativist?
10. Should the results of medical science be protected by intellectual
property laws?
11. Have the climate sciences recently become captive to political activism?
12. Explain the significance of ‘the masses’ to scientific policy-making and
research in the People’s Republic of China under Mao.