James Randi Quotes

The time has come to formulate guidelines for the ethical conduct of scientist, perhaps in the form of a voluntary Hippocratic Oath.

Questions have arisen about the policing of science. Who is responsible for the policing? My answer is: all of us.

My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics.

What standards are upheld by the scientific community affect the community internally, and also affect its relations with society at large, including Congress.

I object to a legal approach when settling questions of science or scientific behavior.

Researchers should always consider ethical concerns on scientific research and disclose their data to the public. Scientists also need to discuss issues surrounding their research with those who are concerned.

Our assessment of socio-economic worth is largely a sham. We scientists should not lend ourselves to it - though we routinely do. We should, instead, insist on applying the criterion of quality.

Even when EPA subjects its science to peer review, the agency often stacks the deck of supposedly independent advisory panels by including members who are EPA grant recipients.

When people don’t like the results that they are getting from honest scientific research, they try and discredit the researchers and the methods..

Science transcends mere politics. As recent history demonstrates, scientists are as willing to work for a Tojo, a Hitler, or a Stalin as for the free nations of the West.

It's very important for us to see that science is done by people, not just brains but whole human beings, and sometimes at great cost.

To address questions of scientific responsibility does not necessarily imply that one needs technical competence in a particular field (e.g. biology) to evaluate certain technical matters.

The tension between public and private science is powerful.

They cannot count on the press and they cannot count on Congressional committees to bring the problems of the scientific community to their own attention, or to police the scientific community.

Just because scientists have the knowledge to do it, the technology to do it, and some may even have a financial motive or other incentive to do it, does not make it right.

Accepting money from the federal government to conduct research places academic inquiry in the service of national interests.

Early on, when you're working in a new area of science, you have to think about all the pitfalls and things that could lead you to believe that you had done something when you hadn't, and, even worse, leading others to believe it.

If Baltimore's view, that scientists who do not take the words of authorities are far removed from the ordinary behavior of scientists, prevails in the scientific community, then something fundamental, very serious, and very disturbing is happening to the scientific community.

Science has become politicized, and that's an embarrassment.

We have little choice but to place a certain level of trust in scientists - even when it comes to the model-driven speculative discipline of climate change. And, need it be said, most scientists take great care in being honest, principled and precise.

If a scientist sidesteps their scientific peers, and chooses to take an apparently changeable, frightening and technical scientific case directly to the public, then that is a deliberate decision, and one that can't realistically go unnoticed.

I was shocked to find that there were actually climate scientists who wouldn't share the raw data, but would only share their conclusions in summary graphs that were used to prove their various theories about planet warming. In fact I began to smell something really bad, and the worse that smell got, the deeper I looked.

I've only actively promoted what we always hope is good science.

I don't think it would be a good idea for scientists to have more political power. Scientists as a group are more inclined to try to derive an ought from an is, than the population at large.

We all know scientists who in private life do not come up to the standard of truthfulness, but who, nevertheless, would not consciously falsify the results of their researches.