As well as the field of science in general. Ethics inherently prevents scientist from doing whatever they want. If scientists could freely experiment with what they wanted, and with any test subject that they wanted, then many concepts and ideals that are important to science would disappear. Animal welfare and the use of human subjects, which are heavily monitored and regulated by the government, have little to no regulation compared to now. There would not be laws, mandatory training and protection for animal and human test subjects.
Many experimental treatments and drugs would bypass the extensive time spent using cultures and individual cells, mice and primates before going to the human subjects.
If at one stage, there are negative effects then they go back and try to fix what went wrong and start all over again. Scientist do not get to ignore issues or make changes and continue where they left off. Ethics also positively impacts what scientist research. It prevents scientist from splicing genes from a variety of species and combining them together and seeing what happens.
On a more extreme scale it tries to limit or prevent the creation of biological weapons, and other potentially dangerous drugs, bacteria that could put people and the environment at risk. While there are people who ignore ethics to create viruses and bacteria that could potentially wipe out an entire population, the idea of ethics and the laws that come from it were created to deter people from doing it.
Overall Ethics is the baseline for people’s decision.
While there are people that choose to ignore ethical/moral obligation, the large majority are gravelly impacted by ethics for the better. Since their origination ethics have become a guideline that causes people to think about the impact of their decision not only for themselves but also for the people around them. These impacts have an important role in the world of biotechnology. It prevents people from freely doing what they want with the available technology. It also restricts or eliminates people’s curiosity and greed at the expense of other and animals alike.
Ethics Plays an Important Role in Biotechnology. (2021, Dec 15). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/ethics-plays-an-important-role-in-biotechnology/