Science Cafe: Bioethics (Mar 2025)

Science Centre Singapore's Science Café dinner series for adults aged 18 and above redefines nightlife with AI, art, cosmic mysteries, and more, enhanced by innovative experiences. Read on to relive our latest Science Café session on bioethics.

In a refreshing twist to conventional discussions, Science Centre Singapore's latest Science Café session, "Bioethics: Charting a Course With Your Moral Compass", held on Friday, 14 March 2025, transformed complex bioethical debates into engaging intellectual games. Following a buffet dinner and drinks, attendees put our distinguished speakers to the test, challenging them with bioethics topics through an innovative guessing game that sparked increasingly meaningful conversations.

Many of us might initially view bioethics as a daunting field, and understandably so. It often presents us with scenarios where there's no clear right or wrong—only difficult choices between competing values. The real challenge lies not just in making these decisions but in understanding and justifying our ethical reasoning. Sometimes, we find ourselves choosing what might be called the "least problematic option" among challenging alternatives.

We were fortunate to have two leading experts guide us through these ethical mazes: Dr Voo Teck Chuan, Head of SingHealth Office of Ethics in Healthcare and Advisor for the SingHealth Duke-NUS Medical Humanities Institute, alongside Dr Chow Chiu Leung, Senior Consultant Geriatrician at Changi General Hospital and Co-lead for SingHealth Duke-NUS Medical Humanities Institute in Bioethics.

The evening unfolded through two thought-provoking activities. The first was a clever word association game where groups contributed unique terms related to a bioethical topic—with the catch that duplicate submissions were eliminated. Our speakers then had to deduce the original topic from these clues, adding an element of playful challenge to serious subjects.

The second activity proved particularly revealing. Participants used voting cards to express their stance on various ethical scenarios, which grew progressively more complex. Take, for instance, the seemingly straightforward question about the ethics of consuming lab-grown meat. The discussion became more nuanced when considering scenarios like growing meat from one's own cells for personal consumption. It was fascinating to observe how opinions shifted as new layers of complexity were introduced.

Both speakers enriched the session with compelling case studies that left participants deep in thought. They introduced fundamental principles of clinical ethics, including beneficence (doing good), non-maleficence (avoiding harm), autonomy (respecting patient choices), and justice (balancing individual needs with societal resources). These principles often come into play in challenging scenarios where healthcare providers must make difficult decisions about patient care prioritisation.

Intrigued? Keep updated with our Science Café sessions to mingle with other science enthusiasts in our monthly informal dinner series. Join us for our next Science Café session on Saturday, 12 April, 14:00-15:30 as part of the Dot in Space festival at Singapore Science Park, where we'll continue to explore the fascinating intersection of science and society, but this time in the field of astronomy (open to ages 18 and up).

To discover more about bioethics, visit Science Centre Singapore's exhibition Bioethics: We Could, But Should We?to step into immersive dioramas portraying the ethical dilemmas posed by AI robotic surgeries, gene editing in human embryos, biological self-experimentation, and brain organoid research. Tickets to Science Centre Singapore are available on our website.

Text and photos by Lydia Konig
Featured illustration by Ai Xin Qin

Last updated: 24 March 2025