William Lawrence on the Need for Free Science
Lawrence eventually went on to broaden his attack. Science, he argued, had an autonomous right to express its views fearlessly and objectively, without interference from Church or state. It must avoid ‘clouds of fears and hopes, desires and aversions’. It must ‘discern objects clearly’ and shun ‘intellectual mist’. It must dispel myth and dissipate ‘absurd fables’.19 The world of scientific research was wholly independent. ‘The theological doctrine of the soul, and its separate existence, has nothing to do with this physiological question … An immaterial and spiritual being could not have been discovered amid the blood and filth of the dissecting room.’
Notes:
Science must operate without fear of oppression or reaction from authorities.
Folksonomies: freedom scientific integrity
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The Age of Wonder