The morality of scientists revisited

✍ Scribed by J. W. Grove

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 693 KB
• Volume: 34
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0026-4695
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00124201

✦ Synopsis

PROFESSOR SHILS was an unshakeable defender of the natural sciences against all those who seek to denigrate them--"the luddites of the intellect" as he once called them. But he was mindful also of the human dimension of the scientific enterprise, its failings as well as its successes. Although he condemned most contemporary criticism of science as "nonsensical" and nothing more than "superficial polemics", ~ he was clearly disturbed by a seeming rise in the incidence of dishonesty in research. During the 1980s Minerva carried several articles on the subject, together with a series of reports and documents, often accompanied by his own commentaries. In this memorial issue in his honour I offer some further thoughts on the topic.