Real-Life Decision Making
You've been experimenting with the hormones of a particular type of bee found only in certain portions of the African rainforests. The purpose of the experiment is to find an anesthetic that can be used in a part of body that does not respond well to other anesthetics.
During the experiments, you and your team have found two hormones that can be used as anesthetics. They are hormones found in the poison the bee releases when it stings. Unfortunately, you have also found that both hormones are produced in relatively low levels.
The low production of the hormones would mean that large numbers of bees would have to be harvested in the testing phase to produce a synthetic version of the hormones. This could cause the bees to become extinct.
As you have learned through your research and experimentation with this species of bee, once a high percentage of any one colony is removed, the remaining bees seem to die for no apparent reason.
You must decide whether to tell the director of research about the risk of endangering this species of bee.
If you tell the director, she may pull the project as being environmentally unfriendly. If that happens, a potentially useful anesthetic will be lost. If you do not tell her about the risk, a species of bee could be destroyed, and this may cause other problems for the ecosystem.
What do you do?