Science and ethical behaviour
Joseph Rotblat
Former president, Pugwash conferences Nobel peace prizewinner, 1995
on Science and Human Affairs
'Academies of science should explicitly include ethical issues in their terms of reference; this should be mandatory, rather than voluntary as is the case now'
Should scientists be concerned with ethical issues and with the social impact of their work? Should they accept responsibility for the human and environmental consequences of scientific research?
Such questions did not arise in the past, as there were hardly any such consequences. Scientific research was completely divorced from day-to-day life, and practical applications that could have resulted from university research were remote in time and space. It would take decades before an application was found, and this would have been taken up by different people - mostly engineers - in polytechnics or industrial laboratories.
It was this separation from practice that enabled the 'pure' scientists to build for themselves an ivory tower in which they sheltered, pretending that what they were doing had nothing to do with human welfare.
But all this was in the distant past, and bears no relation to the current situation. Today, science plays a very important - I should say dominant - role in human society. It affects every individual in almost every walk of life, and can determine the destiny of humanity.
The world community has many reasons to be grateful to science. The great beneficial changes that have occurred during this century were due to science and technology. But so were the new perils. The biggest impact resulted from the development of the atom bomb. If the huge nuclear arsenals accumulated during the Cold War had been detonated, it could have spelled not only the end of civilization but of the entire human species, and of many animal species as well.
Amazingly, many scientists still live in the ivory tower and advocate a laissez faire policy for science. Their logic rests on the distinction between pure and applied science. It is the application of science that could be harmful, they say. As far as pure science is concerned, the only obligation on the scientist is to make the findings known to the public. What the public does with them is their business, not that of the scientist.
To me, such an amoral attitude is immoral, as it eschews responsibility for one's actions. It happens all too often. There is much campaigning for human rights, but much less for their duties. I believe that each of us should be accountable for our deeds, and this should apply particularly to scientists, because of the great impact of their work on the human society.
In any case, the distinction between pure and applied science is nowadays hardly discernible, either in time or space. Practical applications often follow immediately after scientific discoveries, and are being pursued by the same people. Moreover, university scientists are encouraged to do applied research to enable them to become financially self-sufficient.
I hope that the scientists gathered at the World Conference on Science in Budapest will acknowledge their responsibility for the consequences of their work. By adopting the World Declaration on Science, and the document Science Agenda - Framework for Action, they would commit themselves to the ethical obligations arising from the pursuit of science.
The fulfilment of this commitment calls for certain measures to be taken, and I would like to make a few suggestions.
The first is that academies of science should explicitly include ethical issues in their terms of reference; this should be mandatory rather than voluntary as is the case now.
Next, I suggest that the academies set up ethical committees in different disciplines, and that research projects should be assessed by these committees to examine potentially harmful effects of proposed projects. Perhaps in the first instance this should be done in subjects that have a direct impact on the health of the population, such as genetic engineering. But it would be essential for the criteria used in the assessment to be agreed internationally, so that the same criteria are applied everywhere.
There is also a need for an ethical code of conduct for individual scientists, particularly for young scientists at the start of their career. Some sort of oath, or pledge, should be taken by them at their graduation, like the Hippocratic Oath for medical graduates.
Science academies and universities should be concerned about the trends in some branches of science to become motivated by financial gain for the industrial companies that sponsor them. The whole practice of patenting scientific findings, which often goes against the tenets of science, needs to be critically examined.
Finally, the problem of secrecy in scientific research, in particular the existence of national research laboratories in which thousands of scientists work in secret on the development of weapons of mass destruction - and the associated issue of the morality of such work - should be taken up either by academies, or by non-governmental organizations specifically concerned with the ethical issues arising from science research and its application.
This text was delivered to a meeting organized by Unesco in London on 3 June 1999. Sir Joseph Rotblat will address the World Conference on Science on 'Science and Human Values' on Saturday, 26 June.
 |  |  |  |
Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1999 Registered No. 785998 England.