There is little talk in scientific circles of an ethics of belief. Most of the issues of science offer small temptation to our feelings to believe in one way rather than another. Of course when a man is offering a new theory to which he has tied his professional hopes, he is only too likely to overrate the evidence in hand and ignore what makes against his theory. It is said that Newton, as be approached the end of his calculations about gravitation and saw the great law coming nearer, could not trust himself in his excitement and turned over the final calculations to another hand. But here was a theory with tremendous implications, in which he as its discoverer had a personal stake. Most scientific problems might be settled in any one of many ways so far as most of us are concerned; we should find it difficult to work up any sort of passion for or against the binomial theorem or Ohm's law.
(Brand Blanshard, "The Ethics of Belief," Philosophic Exchange 2 [1971]: 81-93, at 90)
Note from KBJ: Blanshard died too soon. Science today is an unholy alliance between big business and big government. Individual scientists are caught up in a system in which, to survive, much less flourish, they must toe the progressive line. Hence "global warming," the biggest hoax in the history of science. Don't hold your breath waiting for science to become depoliticized. It's tainted, probably forever. The best we can hope for is to defund any scientific research programs that are politicized. Why should hard-working, tax-paying citizens be coerced into funding research that is designed to control them?
