Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You withhold the information and hope for the best.
You prepare a presentation that relies heavily on the benefits of the hormone that has been discovered. You do touch briefly on the possibility of over-harvesting, but you gloss it over with statistics that are skewed to suit your needs.
In response to your presentation, the pharmaceutical company prepares to conduct several harvesting expeditions. Each phase of the production will require a fresh harvesting. It is expected to cost the pharmaceutical company several hundred thousand dollars to complete that aspect of the project.
However, another animal physiologist on the team finds that when too many of the bees are removed from the colony, the remaining bees die off rapidly. This causes great concern to the other scientist. He reports it to the research director, along with his recommendation about how the harvesting expedition should be handled.
In the long run, the other scientist is asked to head the project. What's more, the other scientist has the opportunity to study that species of bee more in depth while he is in the field overseeing the harvesting process. His findings are later published in numerous scientific journals.
You should have reported the danger to the bees to the research director.
"There are some decisions in this career that don't come easy," says Louise Milligan, an animal physiologist. "When a tough decision comes along, sometimes you have to rely on your professional ethics to make the right decision."