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Encyclopedia of Bioethics Lesson

The Encyclopedia of Bioethics covers topics broadly related to the field of bioethics. The introduction to the encyclopedia describes its scope as follows: Bioethics "can be defined as the systematic study of the moral dimensions--including moral vision, decisions, conduct, and policies--of the life sciences and health care, employing a variety of ethical methodologies in an interdisciplinary setting. The moral dimensions that are examined in bioethics are constantly evolving, but they tend to focus on several major questions: What is or what might be one's (or a society's) moral vision? What sort of person should one be, or what sort of society should we be? What ought to be done in specific situations? And how are we to live harmoniously?" Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Rev. ed. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan, 1995. p. xxi.

Because our topic deals with genetic engineering, or bioengineering, the Encyclopedia of Bioethics should provide us with extremely useful information. The Encyclopedia of Bioethics index is located at the back of volume 5. If we look up the term "Agriculture" as we did in the Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics we will find a major entry for Agriculture on pages 101-107 and a number of cross-references. The cross-reference of particular interest to us is the one dealing with biotechnology on pages 286-287. The entry on "genetic engineering use" also looks promising. Notice that the index does not list specific volume numbers like the Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics. That is because the pagination in the Encyclopedia of Bioethics is continuous. This means that page 1 begins in the first volume and the page numbers run consecutively, ending with page 2950 in the last volume. The Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics begins its pagination starting with page 1 in each volume.

You will notice that some of the entries in the index have numbers in a bold font, while others are in a plain font. The entries with numbers in bold font are references to major articles, the ones in plain font are references to minor entries. Here is the entry for biotechnology and agriculture on pages 286-287 that is listed in the index.. The entry is located in the "Biotechnology" article located on pages 283-289.

Looking up the term "Genetic Engineering" in the index we find the following:

The "Genetic engineering" entry refers to a major article and the subheading "in agriculture" is to a minor entry. Let's take a look at the "Genetic engineering" entry first.

The article covers both animal and plant issues related to genetic engineering and discusses religious criticism.

The Encyclopedia of Bioethics also includes extensive bibliographies with each article. Here is an example of the bibliography from the "Genetic engineering" article.

Now that you know how to use subject encyclopedias it is time for you to search them yourself. Print off the Encyclopedia Assignment and see how you do. When you are done with the assignment proceed to the Using Dictionaries Lesson.