Monday, March 09, 2009

Science and Ethics

This morning I was cajoled into editing a piece by my son on ethics in science. The piece argues that ethics is not simply a side concern of science, but that ethics is the beating heart of the discipline.

My view is that at every stage of scientific development, the genuine scientist holds and maintains high rational values as standards. These rational values are the underlying ethics of science. They establish what a scientist should do. And to a large extent, this is what most actually do do.