Overlooked aspects in the education of science professionals: Mentoring, ethics, and professional responsibility

Science as profession is generally defined narrowly as research. Science education as preparation for a profession in research is usually perceived as course work and laboratory training, even though the necessary knowledge and skills to pursue a research career are more extensive and diverse and are learned in one-on-one interaction with mentors. A complete education of science professionals includes the values, ethical standards and conventions of the discipline since they are fundamental to the profession. Mentoring and education in the responsible conduct and reporting of research and in the ethical dimensions of science are among the professional responsibilities of scientists and need to be discussed as part of science education. Moreover, science as an enterprise is much more than research and includes a number of other components, including science teaching, science journalism, and science policy. Each of these contributes to the nature of science and its role in society.