Yet, to be sure, scientists are capable of morally atrocious behavior. They performed experiments at Auschwitz, and they serve today as psychologists perfecting torture techniques at Gitmo, as apologists for the tobacco and pesticide industries, and some, lavishly funded by the coal and oil industries, deny the existence of global warming.
Scientists are human, and thus vulnerable to all the usual temptations which flesh is heir to.
Still, for the scientist and scholar who chooses to pursue a moral life, the insight and discipline acquired from scientific training and practice offers a significant "boost" to that pursuit.
The "virtues of science" can even lead to saintly behavior. Consider the case of the Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize of 1975. Without question, Sakharov carried his allegiance to truth, and the habit of yielding to principle, beyond his laboratory. In this passage from his great 1968 testament, "Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom," note how the extension of scientific method to politics and social activism, conveys essential moral qualities and implications:
We regard as 'scientific' a method based on deep analysis of facts, theories, and views, presupposing unprejudiced, unfearing open discussion and conclusions. The complexity and diversity of all the phenomena of modern life, the great possibilities and dangers linked with the scientific-technical revolution and with a number of social tendencies demand precisely such an approach...
Out of his respect for the truth and the institution of scientific inquiry, Sakharov would never hide evidence, whatever the apparent personal advantage. By analogy, in his political dissenting he would not compromise a moral truth, even to save himself. When duty called, that was reason enough. It is this step, from the laboratory to practical life, that characterizes the saintly scientist. Saintly behavior is manifest when intellectual discipline of the laboratory, the willingness to accept evidence and follow the clear logical implications of perceived and discovered truth, is applied to personal life, even at the cost of personal sacrifice, and even when one has clear opportunities to "get away" with a distortion or denial of the truth and a compromise of one's principles.
Duty calls upon the scientist today, in and out of government, to stand strong against the superstition and corporate greed that is hacking at the roots of scientific inquiry, and for those in government to step forth and expose the corruption and censorship of scientific research that is rampant in the Bush Administration. There is no guarantee that scientific advancement will continue forever -- not, at least, in the United States. Like all valuable institutions, it must be defended, more so today. For if science is subverted in this country, it will surely flourish abroad in countries that will, for that very reason, supplant us.
It is time, in short, for the scientists to leave their laboratories and university classes now and then, and apply the morality inherent in their scientific activity to our schools, our politics, and our culture, lest that activity, and its moral advantages, be lost to us.
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