Scientists are better than other people: yes or no?

My question is about the moral equivalence of the scientist.

I'm currently reading Steven Shapin's The Scientific Life which is, briefly put, a kind of biography of the modern scientist. (Here's the subtitle: "A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation.") Shapin is a professor of history at Harvard, well known historian and sociologist of science, author of several influential texts in the history of science, the sociology of science, and STS. One common thread in most of his work is the role of virtue and character in the history of science. In The Scientific Life, the first few chapters deal with the changing character of "the scientist." From the gentlemanly men of science who saw their work as a calling, to the twentieth century's professional paid scientist, who see scientific work as a job, a way to earn their daily bread, the identity of the scientist has changed as the content, meaning, and social position of science itself has shifted. These are heady, contemporary, cultural issues. They are all loaded with a good deal of subtext. Shapin's great skill is to historicize them.

So I ask what you think, here in 2008:
Are scientists morally superior to non-scientists?
Or are scientists just like everyone else (morally equivalent)?

(There are follow-ups, to be sure, along these lines: How do scientists deal with that oh-so-problematic is/ought distinction, from the descriptive to the prescriptive? For example, does the study of the workings of the physical world in a lab lead scientists to tell them, or the rest of us, how to live? Or is that work useful as description only? And the value of the science is that those descriptions can be useful for the political arena? I'm sure I'll have more to say about these once I finish the book, but if anyone's game, above is the basic query to any scientists out there, or non-scientists for that matter.)

More like this

Does Shapin use any scientists other than British ones for his study? I read his `A Social History of Truth', which made claims about the nature of science, but he seemed to discuss only British scientists, and rarely mentioned German or French or Italian scientists.

No, scientists are not (necessarily) morally superior. But scientists have built a system of doing their work that helps (but does not ensure) moral/ethical behavior in their endeavors. Roald Hoffman gave an interesting talk about this, which is linked from an older post of mine here.

Ahem. While the vast majority of scientists of yore were "gentlemanly" there have always been the odd female scientist, even in ancient times.

The concept that scientists are morally superior is repugnant to me, and I am a scientist. Though, like certain other professions (say, law, or medicine - which I guess reveals me as a physical scientist since I don't think of medicine as science, or journalism or whatever), there is a certain code of ethics. We do expect our peers to use the scientific method, to disseminate results employing the peer review, to report results faithfully, not to plagiarize, to seek knowledge for its own sake, to be as unbiased as humanly possible and even to have a certain sense of "fair play" and we are shocked when it is shown that a scientist has not meet these expectations.

By minouette (not verified) on 15 Dec 2008 #permalink

While I'm a Computer Scientist (a very different branch of science much more akin to engineering) and not engaged in the research/publishing cycle that so clearly defines more traditional Science, I would offer that most of the ethical codes and standards which define traditional science grew in situ to enforce the sort of values that Shapin appears to note. The development of strict codes of Peer Review, Anti-Plagarism, and Neutral Point of View is almost certainly in response in those same ethical arenas.

That having been said, anyone who has been rigorously trained in those ethical codes is likely to have them spill over into other areas of their life, besides science. It's likely that the proportion of "Ethical People" in the field of science is higher than in the general population purely because a Scientist is more likely to have had at least some formal training in Ethics.

Now, whether that makes them "morally superior" or not is another question entirely. I won't concede correlation between greater ethical behavior (even if it exists) and moral superiority.

If we assume that scientists are morally equivalent to other people but then factor in the assumption that scientists have a better grasp of reality on average (this is what science is about) then scientists are more effectively moral on average (the opposite point might be that an immoral scientist is more effectively immoral then the average person). It is difficult to be really moral if one is an idiot. I suspect that scientific principles of making decisions based on evidence, of acknowledging uncertainty, and of trying to eliminate bias all increase one's ability to make good moral choices.

I also read somewhere that there was a study that showed that children who are intelligent (not sure what metric was used) are more likely to be more empathetic then others. If that is true, and if the relationship continues to hold into adulthood, that is another argument suggesting that scientists are more ethical on average (although this does not mean that practicing science itself makes people moral, just that there is selection for intelligence and empathy, being correlated, gets pulled along for the ride).

Anyway, obviously there are some scientists who are unethical but, if I had to bet, my money is on scientists being more moral on average then the rest of the population in a given culture.

Thanks for the question. I have an extended response
here.