Leonard Laster Quotes
Just as we have endeavored to maintain a separation between church and state, so too do I believe that we should try to maintain a comparable separation between basic biomedical research and politics.
Leonard Laster, Scientist & Chancellor, University of Massachusetts Medical Center, "No Politics at NIH," The Washington Post, February 14, 1993
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The Scientific Project that developed the Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer was the great physicist who directed the successful development of the atomic bomb so as to build the weapon before Hitler did in World War II. However, as the technology evolved, he had doubts as to the wisdom of creating even more powerful hydrogen weapons. His viewpoint was hurting the administration’s policy of rapid unlimited nuclear weapons development, and he was the victim of a character assassination whereby his security clearance was withdrawn. The “father” of the atomic bomb was the first American casualty of atomic weapons development.
This unfortunately happens in Congress all the time. A good example is {640730}.
She was referring to scientists who might have personal moral judgments regarding a scientific issue like embryos, stem cells, and abortion or animal experiments that are different from that of the government at the time, might have their job threatened if they refused to personally perform a procedure that was offensive to them.
Coburn advocated Congress appropriating money for research and then staying out of the details of how the research is conducted and which scientific or medical problems are researched.
While this quotation seems bizarre to us in modern America, there was some historical truth of this in Europe. Before political parties, the Church was the dominant political force, and no professor could be appointed whose views did not coincide with those of the church. Later political parties in many parts of Europe did concern themselves with the views of professors. However, America with its strong tradition of private universities built state public universities in the mold of Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia and Princeton where national and local politics were not major factors of appointment and retention of professors. Today it is very rare when a state legislature or government allows politics to become a factor in appointments of professors. The University of Virginia is the most dramatic exception where governors of the state serve for 2 years and when a new governor takes office, he replaces all the trustees and the University. These then have allowed politics to become a major factor in some dramatic cases. And the Federal Universities—the military service academies—do allow political views to encroach on the faculty appointment and retention decisions. However, this is rarely partisan in the sense of Democrat or Republican. But Professors who hold views contrary to BOTH political parties are rare.
