In a sense, my whole career can be viewed as an attempt to articulate the legitimate role of ethics in science, on both a theoretical and a practical level. With my appointment to the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine as the person charged with developing and teaching the field of veterinary medical ethics and, shortly thereafter, serving as an “ombudsman for animals” charged with achieving consensus on animal use issues in science came a unique opportunity for testing theory in practice and for almost daily interaction with scientists on ethical issues. This activity in turn meshed well with my working with colleagues in the 1970s to write legislation protecting laboratory animals, in a real way articulating the emerging social ethic for animal treatment in a manner that would benefit animals without harming research and, ideally, improving it by underscoring the control of hitherto ignored deforming variables resulting from uncontrolled pain and distress in animal subjects.

Ever since I was a biology student in the 1960s, I had also chafed under science teaching that ignored ethical and conceptual issues raised by biological science. Funding from the National Science Foundation in the mid-1970s allowed me, together with molecular botanist Murray Nabors, to develop a year-long, five-credit honors biology course in which ethics and philosophy were taught as part and parcel of biology.