Winston Churchill Quotes

When the goals of science collide with moral and ethical judgment, there are certain times when science has to take a time-out.

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.

There is an ever-widening gap between what science allows and what we should actually do. There are many doors science can open that should be kept closed, on prudential or ethical grounds.

But the imposition of morality onto science, - where it does not belong - has become rampant in recent years.

Though many have tried, no one has ever yet explained away the decisive fact that science, which can do so much, cannot decide what it ought to do.

Is it right to probe so deeply into Nature's secrets? The question must here be raised whether it will benefit mankind, or whether the knowledge will be harmful.

This is a matter far too important to be left solely in the hands of the scientific and medical communities. The belief that surrogate mothers and clonal babies are inevitable because science always moves forward, an attitude expressed to me recently by a scientific colleague, represents a form of laissez-faire nonsense dismally reminiscent of the creed that American business, if left to itself, will solve everybody's problems. Just as the success of a corporate body in making money need not set the human condition ahead, neither does every scientific advance automatically make our lives more 'meaningful.' No doubt the person whose experimental skill will eventually bring forth a clonal baby will be given wide notoriety. But the child who grows up knowing that the world wants another Picasso may view his creator in a different light.

Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.

Einstein believed deeply that science should transcend national and ethnic divisions. But he watched physicists and chemists become the purveyors of weapons of mass destruction in the early 20th century.

I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it's unscientific. No scientist worthy of the name could say such a thing.

Scientific men are under definite obligation to experiment upon animals so far as that is the alternative to random and possibly harmful experimentation upon human beings, and so far as such experimentation is a means of saving human life and of increasing human vigor and efficiency.

Science had better not free the minds of men too much, before it has tamed their instincts.

Biological science is a tool, and like all tools, it can be used for good or bad. It’s like a knife blade with three edges: The edge that cuts, the dull edge that does not cut well and the edge that cuts what you do not want it to.

… work on synthetic biology, or synbio, had become so cheap that its practitioners were no longer classically trained biologists. This meant that there were no shared assumptions regarding the new field’s ethics, professional standards, or safety.

Dual use research of concern (DURC) is research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied by others to pose a threat to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, or materiel

The worst thing about being a drone pilot is that there is no intimate connection with what is happening in reality.

The powers of science are morally neutral — as easily used for bad purposes as good ones. In the excitement of discovery, we must never forget that mankind is defined not by intelligence alone, but by conscience. Even the most noble ends do not justify every means.

I try to do my science in a moral way, and, I believe that, ideally, science should be looked upon as something that helps us understand our role in the universe.

When are boots in the ground no longer going to have to even be people, and is that right? When does it become 'Star Wars?' When is enough enough? When do we put this time and energy into eliminating war or reasons for war instead of creating new technology to make war easier for us?

Science can and should inform debate about abortion and the law. But science does not resolve questions of moral value and moral choice.

I didn't want to spend my life contributing to the development of more atomic weaponry.

As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.

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.

If science has no country, the scientist should have one, and ascribe to it the influence which his works may have in this world.

I have faith, as I did when I announced my stem-cell decision in 2001, that science and ethics can coexist.