Is Science Morally Neutral?

Moral Maze

BBC

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.4 • 623 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2016

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

In 1816, when Mary Shelley sat down to write her Gothic novel Frankenstein, it was a time of social, political and scientific upheaval. It has given us the archetypal image of the mad scientist single-mindedly pursing his grotesque experiments whatever the cost. "Frankenstein Science" has even become its own category, especially beloved by tabloid headline writers. 200 years on and the pace of scientific development has increased exponentially; the fact that Shelley's Frankenstein still has such a hold reflects the powerful role science plays in modern life and also, perhaps, the fear that we don't understand it or know how to control it. Now the head of the Science Council has said that scientists need their own version of the Hippocratic Oath and a regulation system of ethical standards and principles similar to doctors. Would more control give us better, more ethical scientists, or just restrain creativity and academic freedom? If we control scientists more closely, is there a case for arguing that we should exercise more control over the research they carry out? Is science morally neutral? Is it just the choices about how to apply scientific knowledge that are truly moral? In a world where advances in science have the power to profoundly change our lives and the lives of future generations, can scientists still rely on that distinction? This week scientists are meeting in America to discuss the controversial "gain-of-function" research on highly infectious viruses such as avian flu. Do we need more moral, ethical and democratically accountable oversight of research? Chaired by Michael Buerk with Giles Fraser, Claire Fox, Mathew Taylor and Michael Portillo. Witnesses are Belinda Phipps, Prof Terence Kealey, Prof Andy Stirling and Bryan Roberts.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4.
0:03.9	Good evening. Mary Shelley had a gloomy view of human nature. Not surprising, really. Nearly everybody who got close to her promptly died. Her mother a month after she was born, three of her four children as babies, and of course her poet husband who drowned. She herself didn't make old bones either, but lived long enough to dream up exactly 200 years ago, Frankenstein,
0:23.9	then as now, the emblematic incarnation of what Churchill was later to call perverted science.
0:29.5	For most of that time, there's been a philosophical argument about the nature of scientific research,
0:34.1	about whether the pursuit of knowledge is in itself a moral issue or whether it is
0:39.0	ethically neutral and the moral dimension lies merely in how its discoveries are utilized.
0:44.8	This seems to have come to a head in recent months, driven by concern about new experiments
0:49.0	with pathogenic viruses like bird flu that's been made transmissible to mammals, like trans-species genetics or the
0:56.1	recurring arguments over genetically modified crops.
0:59.6	Now the head of the Science Council, Belinda Phipps, has called for scientists to take a
1:03.9	kind of Hippocratic oath and be regulated like medical doctors.
1:08.0	The wider argument is whether science and scientific research in particular
1:12.0	should be directed so as to maximise the potential benefit to humanity and minimise the
1:16.8	potential harm. Those against the idea say, who decides what's good and what isn't? Will
1:22.4	important research be closed off for utilitarian or politically correct reasons. The value of some research, Einstein's
1:29.5	theory of relativity, for instance, only becomes evident decades, even centuries later. Science is
1:34.7	full of what Donald Rumsfield would call unknown unknowns. So is it possible, is it desirable,
1:41.5	is it essential to exert ethical and democratic control over things which, let's face it, few of us understand.
1:48.2	The morality of science.
1:50.1	That's our moral maze tonight.
1:51.1	Our panel, Claire Fox from the Institute of Ideas, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister, Michael Portillo, the chief executive of the RSA, Matthew Taylor, and the Anglican priest and polemicist, Giles Fraser.
2:02.6	Michael Portillo,
	...

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