Re: on atheistic principles? (was macroevolution or macromutations? (was ID) 1/2)

From: Tedd Hadley (hadley@reliant.yxi.com)
Date: Sat Jul 15 2000 - 15:34:21 EDT

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    Tom Pearson writes
      in message <3.0.6.32.20000714215949.0082dd40@panam1.panam.edu>:
    > >
    > >TH>By analogy, you might as well argue that
    > >>the scientist would have no reason *within his/her science*,
    > >>for not being immoral.
    >
    > Ted, a good deal of the research (including my own) done over the past
    > decade into the moral decision-making processes of scientists is beginning
    > to show that, in many cases, your suggestion above is false. Based on my
    > own investigations, it is turning out that bench scientists and research
    > managers in medical research labs and biotechnology firms display a strong
    > tendency to derive moral norms precisely from the scientific community of
    > practice they inhabit. In other words, it is precisely *within his/her
    > science* that many (perhaps "most"; the numbers vary a little) scientists
    > find the ethical standards that guide them toward "not being immoral."
    > Most interesting (and, initially, most dismaying) to me was the fact that,
    > among those researchers sampled, those who had been working in the field
    > continuously for 20 years or more and who were rated by their peers as
    > exhibiting "excellent" or "very good" ethical standards, "religious values"
    > ranked last among the list of possible sources for their moral standards.
    > These people (the morally-excellent 20-year veterans) reported that the
    > standards of moral rectitude that were implicit in the actual practice of
    > scientific research were their primary source for shaping their ethical
    > conduct. Again, these same people reported that "religious values" played
    > a very small role in determining appropriate choices and behavior when
    > functioning in their professional scientific role. For what it's worth.
    >

        That's very interesting. Although I was only considering the
        potential for moral guidelines as coming directly from the
        facts and data of science in what I said above, I didn't think
        about the community and principles of science as sources.
        Indeed, science can't work without what we all recognize
        --regardless of worldview--as honesty and truthfulness.



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