Gerard Toulouse Responds to PHELMA students

Dear Ray,

Many worthy and stimulating questions have been raised by your students,and I will attempt to provide constructive answers in orderly fashion.

Let me today answer the first initial objection, which I rephrase (a bit brutally, I admit) as:

"Ethics is relevant for scientists, not for engineers."

I made a Google search for the following expressions:
- scientific ethics: 41,000 references
- engineering ethics: 158,000
- medical ethics: 3,390,00
- business ethics: 4,770,000

These observations (crude as they are) provide food for thought. The Wikipedia notice for "engineering ethics" contains many interesting contents. However the French version is appallingly poor. Should not some of Phelma's students consider working to improve it? Perhaps in connection with students of Ecole polytechnique de Lausanne. Long ago, EPL produced a "Serment d'Archimède", Archimedean Oath for Engineers.

More later,

with best wishes

Gérard Toulouse


(see Students Comments)