Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
36
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate
Dictionary
(Springfield, MA: Merriam-
Webster, 1990).
stochasticity arising from temporal and
spatial heterogeneity in environmental
factors and among exposed individuals.
Ignorance includes measurement error,
indecision about the form of the
mathematical model, or appropriate level
of abstraction.'' Thus, variability can be
lessened by increased attention, e.g.,
empirical evidence, and ''translated into
risk (i.e., probability) by the application
of a probabilistic model,'' but ignorance
cannot. Ignorance simply translates into
confidence intervals, or ''error bounds''
on any statement of risk.
(at least by me) but perhaps, I shall.
Analyze that!
44
T. Hobbes, 1660,
Leviathan
.
37
Christian Scripture has defined faith as
''the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen'' (Hebrews
11:1). This is an extension of the Judaic
outlook for the ''promised land''
(a metaphor to the engineer's expectation
to see the designs reach the build phase,
to the medical researcher's search for
cures of obdurate maladies, or to the city
planner's long-range plan, envisioning
green spaces and copious public
amenities). This optimistic view lends
a temporal dimension to faithfulness. For
example, the concept of sustainability in
terms of public health and environmental
quality is a requirement to take (or to
avoid) actions based on their impact on
future generations. This means that
engineers must be faithful agents to
distant and future people. An action that
is most expedient for the present may not
be the best if it has severe effects in the
long run.
45
Lawrence Kohlberg,
Child Psychology
and Childhood Education: A Cognitive-
Developmental View
(New York, NY:
Longman Press, 1987).
46
J.B. Bassingthwaighte, ''The Physiome
Project: The Macroethics of Engineering
toward Health,''
The Bridge
32, no. 3
(2002): 24-9.
47
J.R. Herkert, ''Microethics, Macroethics,
and Professional Engineering Societies,''
in
Emerging Technologies and Ethical
Issues in Engineering
(Washington, DC:
The National Academies Press, 2004),
107-14.
41
See, for example, Physical Principles of
Unworkable Devices,
http://www.lhup.
edu/w
dsimanek/museum/physgal.htm.
Donald E. Simanek's humorous but
informative site on why perpetual
motion machines cannot work, i.e., their
inventors assumed erroneous
''principles.'' This site is instructive to
biomedical decision makers to beware of
''junk science.'' Sometimes a good way to
learn why something works the way it
does is to consider all the reasons that it
fails to work.
48
Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology (ABET), Inc.,
Criteria for
Accrediting Engineering Programs:
Effective for Evaluations during the
2004-2005 Accreditation Cycle
(Baltimore, MD: ABET, 2003).
49
I. Ajzen,
Attitudes, Personality, and
Behaviour
(Milton Keynes: Open
University Press, 1988).
38
This account can be found in J. Enderle,
S. Blanchard, and J. Bronzino, ed.,
Introduction to Biomedical Engineering
(Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic
Press, 2005).
42
50
My apologies to the originator of this
analogy, who deserves much credit for
this teaching device. The target is
a widely used way to describe precision
and accuracy.
A.H. Eagly and S. Chaiken,
The
Psychology of Attitudes
(Orlando, FL:
Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993).
51
Ibid.
39
The Pandora's box is an interesting and
useful ethical metaphor that conveys
the potential of unintended, negative
outcomes from a seemingly innocuous
or beneficial act. The term comes from
the Greek myth about a box left by
Mercury with Epimetheus and Pandora
for safekeeping. Epimetheus warned
Pandora not to open the box, but
eventually upon hearing voices asking to
be freed, Pandora's curiosity got the
best of her. She opened the lid and out
came diseases, vices, and other ills to
humanity. Hence, the myth has been
used as a warning not to unadvisedly or
prematurely rush into the unknown
(e.g., viral research, neurotechnologies,
nanotechnologies, and new drug
therapies). However, an often forgotten
part of the story is that Pandora
opened the box a second time and
''hope'' was released. Biomedicine and
engineering are modern manifestations
of this hope.
52
J. Piaget,
The Moral Judgment of the
Child
(New York, NY: The Free Press,
1965).
43
It is probably safe to say that most
engineers lack a substantial amount of
formal training in psychology and the
behavioral sciences, so no previous
background in these areas is needed this
text. However, I have observed many
engineers who are gifted in ''people
skills.'' Also, most have gained
knowledge and have read extensively in
these areas after their baccalaureate
education. An interesting and valuable
change in engineering education has been
greater emphasis on the student's grasp
of the social sciences and the
humanities.
My own educational interests were
a bit ahead of this trend (by three
decades), not due to prescience or an
unusual sense of what I would need to
prepare for the challenges of a very
rewarding career. No, my second major
in psychology was because I met
a beautiful young woman in a sophomore
course. She happened to be a psychology
major, so I found myself taking an
inordinate amount of social science
courses, which eventually translated into
a major. Oh, by the way, my insistence
paid off. I married her and we recently
celebrated our thirtieth anniversary. I
have never drawn a critical path or fault
tree for contingent probabilities of this
outcome, and the benefits derived
53
S. Vaknin,
Malignant Self Love:
Narcissism Revisited
(Macedonia: Lidija
Rangelovska Narcissus Publications,
2005).
54
C.G. Morris,
Psychology - An
Introduction
, 9th ed. (Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1996).
55
This is one of the problems with B.F.
Skinner's brand of behaviorism, as
articulated in
Beyond Freedom and
Dignity
(Hackett Publishing, 1971).
Certainly, persons act out on what they
have learned and that learning is an
aggregate of their responses to stimuli.
However, human emotions and empathy
are much more than this. Empathy is
a very high form of social and personal
development. So, although one might be
able to ''train'' an ant or a bee to respond
to light stimuli, or a pigeon to ''play ping-
pong'' (as Skinner did), even these lower
animals have overriding social
complexities. At the heart of humanity
are freedom and dignity, in spite of what
some behaviorists tell us.
40
Another way to look at uncertainty is
that it is a function of variability and
ignorance. This has been well articulated
by L. Ginzburg in his review of ecological
case studies in US Environmental
Protection Agency, 1994, Peer Review
Workshop Report on Ecological Risk
Assessment Issue Papers, Report
Number EPA/630/R-94/008. According
to Ginzburg, ''variability includes
56
Vaknin,
Malignant Self Love
.
57
The concept may be innate and
extended to other animals, such as
elephants sensing ''awe'' for their
ancestral graveyards.
