Mission Statement
The Stanford Scientific Magazine is a student-run publication with two goals:
1. To provide a forum for students in science and non-science fields to express their knowledge and perspective on the ethical, policy, and social implications of new scientific advances.
2. To explore and report on new scientific discoveries and research-in-progress in the Stanford scientific community through interaction with faculty and research at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Over the years, Stanford University has been home to scientists and students whose contributions have spanned every scientific field. Not only are the chronicles of Stanford history rich with examples of thinkers and innovators in science, but many Stanford scientists have also been outstanding humanitarians. Linus Pauling, for example, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and later took it upon himself to speak out about the destructive power of the nuclear bomb during the Cold War. He received the Nobel Peace prize for his efforts.
Now, more than ever, professors and students are being called upon to confront difficult ethical issues at the intersection of science and society. The general public is predominantly uneducated about the science behind revolutionary technologies. Stem cells and genetic testing are prominent examples. Those scientists and students who do understand the scientific details behind such technologies are all too rarely involved in addressing the social impacts and public perceptions of the new discoveries they make.
The Stanford Scientific Magazine is a magazine that serves as a forum for students at the undergraduate and graduate levels to consider the ethical and social implications of technology beyond the laboratory. For scientists, it is an opportunity to express their views and explain their work to the lay public. For non-scientists, it is an opportunity to engage with the science world and to understand how intimately tied it has become with the humanities.
How has technology changed the nature of the ethical decisions we are now facing? How can knowledge of science give us a better basis to understand these controversial topics? How can we prevent benevolent inventions from being used for destructive purposes? How can science be better utilized to confront social issues? What are the limits of science to provide a cure-all solution? How could existing technologies be better used to benefit poor, disabled, or third-world people? How can we better inform the public about technology to prevent fear-out-of-ignorance? When have scientists failed to weigh the real social impacts of their inventions and the potential problems?
Furthermore, in keeping with the spirit of the new Stanford Bio-X initiative to foster collaboration between students and faculty of different fields and departments, the Stanford Scientific Magazine seeks to educate the Stanford community about high-caliber research in progress at the school. This publication will provide a common forum for the sundry science-oriented departments, allowing students currently separated by departmental lines to gain a broader understanding of science across disciplines.
By reporting on faculty research and interviewing scientists, science-oriented lawyers, ethicists, policy makers, and industry-leading CEO’s, it will appeal to writers and readers in many academic disciplines. Students have ample opportunity to read the research papers of their peers in journals that publish their science theses, but have few opportunities to speak with faculty about research beyond the lab where they work or the professor for whom they work. The public and we, as Stanford students, must be better informed about the rapidly changing scientific world in order to make accurate judgments of the political, social, and ethical challenges that confront our generation. Our choices in these interesting times will ultimately determine the legacy and the type of world we leave to our children.
The Stanford Scientific Magazine will be published electronically as well as in print so that student’s voices may be also be heard by those outside the Stanford Community (www.stanfordscientific.org). Upon publication, it will also be circulated to institutes, research colleges, and libraries in addition to the Stanford undergraduate and graduate communities.
Addendum
The Stanford Scientific Magazine was created in the spring of 2002 by a group of conscientious science students to bridge the disconnect between scientific discovery and the application, social impacts, ethical issues, and policies that result from new technologies, especially those we have helped create.
Journals at many universities provide recognition and publish formal theses and science research papers annually. That is not the goal of this publication. Rather, The Stanford Scientific Magazine is a publication that serves as a forum for students at the undergraduate and graduate levels to consider the ethical and social implications of technology beyond the laboratory. For scientists, it is an opportunity to express their views and explain their work to the lay public. For non-scientists, it is an opportunity to engage with the science world to understand how intimately tied it has become with the humanities.
By enhancing scientific journalism at the school and fostering a dialogue among students and faculty, The Stanford Scientific Magazine aims to clear a path so that Stanford students may be given a forum (and encouragement), not just for their scientific contributions but also for their insight into the ethical, social, and policy issues that technology creates in the world at large. We are confident that students’ insights into the ethical and social impacts of science will prove to be as brilliant and important as their technological research.