SCIENCE AS A MODEL FOR MORALITY
15th January 2002
The next issue, Number 68, will appear on 15 February 2002.
The notion, that 'science is just one story among many that we tell about the world', was found to be inadequate in AT 65. The 'science story' generates knowhow; other 'stories', however illuminating they might be in many ways, generally do not do so.
There is another piece of modish folklore - widely accepted among the intelligentsia - that science is ethically neutral. The thrust of this present AT is that science is not ethically neutral but actually has moral features that are valuable outside the more immediate scope of scientific endeavour.
Let us consider the research scene as it actually is - very often. This is not an ideal scenario but an account, based upon some first hand experience, of what actually happens. Let us identify, in research practice, any ethical precepts that science might entail.
The first thing to note is that solo researchers constitute only a tiny minority of the scientific labour force; research is almost always a team activity. The upshot of this is to identify the value of co-operation with other people - to emphasise the moral value of harmonising parity with leadership. The wider world would do well to take that value more seriously than it does.
The second feature of scientific work is that it is not, in general, undertaken from a starting point of selfless curiosity about the way the world is. Science projects are authorised, and paid for, by extra-scientific agencies whose executives, to whom the scientists are accountable, expect results. Recognisable accountability is a good thing and the wider world would do well to take that value more seriously than it does.
The third feature of science practice is the honest and open reporting of results so that other investigators can consider (and perhaps revise) what people claim to have discovered. Honest openness is a moral value. The wider world would do well to take that value more seriously than it does.
The fourth feature of science practice is the readiness with which researchers discuss their results with other interested people with a view to seeing what agreement can be reached and what matters need to clarified. The essential ethic in this is the humility to recognise that other people may have reason to think differently from oneself and that progress can be made by considering what they have to say rather than by quarrelling with them or trying to diminish them. The wider world would do well to take that value more seriously than it does.
These four values are not all that there is to said about morality but they are quite a valuable as anything to be found even in the more acceptable parts of the Decalogue and the Beatitudes. They are values that arise naturally in the process of 'doing science'.
These four values are very different from some that are often associated with religion - the importance attached to such individualised things as the nonconformist conscience and personally targeted revelation ...... the non-accountability, to the general body of believers, of such functionaries as bishops ...... lapses from intellectual honesty with the intention of preserving the faith at any cost ....... the presumption of infallibility and the practices of marginalisation and persecution often meted out to rival religions ..... and so on.
Of course there are scientists who are more interested in being control freaks than in being co-operators; there are scientists who 'cook' results and there are scientists who behave like the pampered prima donna when anyone challenges their conclusions. (I have met examples in my former professional capacity). Scientists are human - neither more nor less - but their work, if conducted properly, rests on values which the wider world would do well to embrace more more enthusiasm.
It is simply untrue that science is ethically neutral.
There is a footnote to all this in the form of a peculiarly misguided observation made by our Heir Apparent. He said that we should not treat the environment as a laboratory. (Does he wish us to treat it as temple?).
People who actually possess first hand experience of working in laboratories might prefer to say that we should subject our environmental impacts, precisely, to just those disciplines that are essential in laboratory work. Laboratories are places where sensitive and potentially dangerous resources are available for proper use in our attempts to fathom how the world functions and to inform our attempts to flourish the better in it. There are two general precautions to be taken when working in a laboratory - you try not to run it down and you try not to blow it up. With reference to the environment, it is our moral duty to posterity to bear these requirements in mind outside the laboratory as well as within it.
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