Re: Fw: Setting moral and legal limits on scientists and their work

[Guest guest]

Lea,

I'll clean them . .

No problem.

Love,

Rogene

[Guest guest]

Thank you Dear Rogene:

I have to go to bed for awhile, but I will be back later. will scan

all the documents from our Dr. Blais...love you....Lea

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Re: Fw: Setting moral and legal limits on

scientists and their work

> Lea,

>

> I'll clean them . .

>

> No problem.

>

> Love,

>

> Rogene

>

>

>

>

>

>

> Opinions expressed are NOT meant to take the place of advice given by

> licensed health care professionals. Consult your physician or licensed

> health care professional before commencing any medical treatment.

>

> " Do not let either the medical authorities or the politicians mislead you.

> Find out what the facts are, and make your own decisions about how to live

> a happy life and how to work for a better world. " - Linus ing,

> two-time Nobel Prize Winner (1954, Chemistry; 1963, Peace)

>

>

[Guest guest]

Setting Moral And Legal Limits On Scientists And

Their Work

(The Washington Times)

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While I support any effort to block and expose the

infiltration of junk science and other irrationality

into public discourse, I thought " Scientists

Increasingly Find Themselves On Defensive " (Culture et

cetera, Jan. 15) to be one-sided. It was also naive in

the way it lumped together moral objections to how the

knowledge is obtained with junk science in the

courtroom and attempts to quash discussion of

politically incorrect facts.

Perhaps the best place to start is where the article

ended, with Teller's statement, " There is no

case where ignorance should be preferred to knowledge

- especially if the knowledge is terrible. "

This is the sort of prescription that sounds terribly

noble and fearless, but as a scientific statement it

is just silly posturing. In this case, however, we can

leave aside whether it is true, because it is

irrelevant.

The moral objections to research, say animal testing

and fetal stem cell studies, are to the means, not to

the resulting knowledge.

The Cato Institute's Milloy and the article's

author seem to be arguing, without quite saying so,

that because no knowledge should be forbidden, no

means of obtaining knowledge should be forbidden. This

is preposterous. Scientists are not above morality or

the law, nor are they above society. Scientists

cannot, and in innumerable cases do not, assert that

scientific ends, however wondrous the promises,

justify ethically objectionable scientific means.

Nor can scientists expect society to fund activities

it finds morally repugnant. The independence, the

extraordinary independence, that they are afforded

comes from a largely pragmatic recognition that is the

policy that is most efficient for obtaining valuable

results.

The misuse and suppression of knowledge for venal and

ideological purposes must be resisted by exposing the

facts and by scientific debate. However, moral

objections to research methods are proper subjects for

political and cultural debate.

Mr. Milloy fights the good fight against junk science,

but his complaint that criticism and political

restriction of scientists' means amounts to

" ideological " persecution is junk philosophy.

SEAN FITZPATRICK

City, N.Y.