Science – a gutsy human enterprise – built on good and evil #science #ethics

[image error]Wernher von Braun.

Brilliant rocket scientist.

Helped America reach the moon.

Nazi.

As we celebrate humanity’s first steps on the moon, ponder that. After World War II, the allies split up Nazi scientists as surely as they split up Nazi Germany. In America, we wanted to be sure that “our Nazis” were better than “Soviet Nazis.” Once Nazis were defanged, did it matter if some of them were living a good life? Did their contributions balance the agony they inflicted? Should we use Nazis research results at all?

There are few corners of scientific progress that are not tainted at some point in their history by immoral or unethical behaviour. Physics, biology, zoology, medicine, psychology, vaccine science, anthropology, genetics, nutrition, engineering: all are rife with discoveries made in circumstances that can be described as unethical, even illegal. How should we feel about making use of that knowledge? Especially when it could be of great service to civilisation and even save lives?

The antimalarial chloroquine, methadone and methamphetamines, as well as medical research into hypothermia, hypoxia, dehydration and more, were all generated on the back of human experiments in concentration camps. bbc.com

Read the article for more examples of science that, today, we condemn as unethical, illegal, and immoral. Is this the result of inevitable, and commendable, social progress? Have we increasingly found the Better Angels of Our Nature, leaving the nasty, brutish past behind us?

We can’t erase the past, so what should we do with it? Science isn’t the only place to debate this, but science can’t escape either.

[image error]When we use data obtained through abhorrent means, are we complicit in those vile acts? Or do we rescue something positive? Give meaning to those who suffered? Without, BTW, asking them. More distressingly, do we give tacit approval for future transgressions?

The answers will depend on who decides, who you are, which side of various experiments you sit on, and what results we’re talking about.

Don’t despair! I love science and celebrate its accomplishments. But, as Stephen Jay Gould noted, science isn’t the work of robots. It’s a gutsy human enterprise. The scientific method can save us from a lot of human error, but we are still the captains of our own souls.

Perhaps the most important problems stare us in the face, because we carry ethical issues with us into the future.