Serge Lang Quotes

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.

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.

However, I believe that it would be difficult to have legitimate scientists agree to participate.

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.

Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards.

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

I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.

There is need for more science in politics and less politics in science.

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.

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

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.

So, my advice to young scientists is, think critically about your work; probably don't blab unnecessarily.

It's for scientists to lay out the data and lay out what they think, and then it's for the public to make up its own mind. We don't live in a priesthood where some small group imposes its views on other people - that's not the way that science works, and it's not the way a democratic society should work.

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

We need to have much clearer regulations on things like corporate funding of scientific research. Things need to be made explicit which are implicit.

If you're a scientist, and you have to have an answer, even in the absence of data, you're not going to be a good scientist.

I claim that all those who think they can cherry-pick science simply don't understand how science works. That's what I claim. And if they did, they'd be less prone to just assert that somehow scientists are clueless.

Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honor, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.

But whereas skepticism and uncertainty have always been the heart and soul of science, confidence and certainty are the coin of the realm in much of today’s public discourse. Unquestioning confidence is deeply troubling for the scientific community because it is not the currency we trade in, and it has led people in America and around the world to question scientific enterprise itself. We should all be troubled when science is treated as if it were an ideology rather than a discipline.

We should all be troubled when science is treated as if it were an ideology rather than a discipline.

To mistrust science and deny the validity of scientific method is to resign your job as a human. You'd better go look for work as a plant or wild animal.

Never, ever, compromise on science.

Science itself is a humanist in the sense that it doesn't discriminate between human beings, but it is also morally neutral. It is no better or worse than the ethos with and for which it is used.

When reputable scientists correct flaws in an experiment that produced fantastic results, then fail to get those results when they repeat the test with flaws corrected, they withdraw their original claims. They do not defend them by arguing irrelevantly that the failed replication was successful in some other way, or by making intemperate attacks on whomever dares to criticize their competence.