Science Makes Scientists Virtuous

Part of the strength of science is that it has tended to attract individuals who love knowledge and the creation of it. Just as important to the integrity of science have been the unwritten rules of the game. These provide recognition and approbation for work which is imaginative and accurate, and apathy or criticism for the trivial or inaccurate .... Thus, it is the communication process which is at the core of the vitality and integrity of science .... The system of rewards and punishments tends to make honest, vigorous, conscientious, hardworking scholars out of people who have human tendencies of slothfulness and no more rectitude than the law requires.

Philip Abelson, The Roots of Scientific Integrity (29 March 1963)

• science
• virtue