Hippocratic Oath Quotes (1 quote)
The original Hippocratic oath… says that you should keep the patient alive under all circumstances. … And that’s a reasonably well defined goal since keeping the patient alive is biologically unambiguous. But to use science for the good of society is not so well defined, therefore I think [a scientific oath analogous to the Hippocratic oath] could never be written. The only unwritten oath is, of course, that you should be reasonably honest. That is, in fact, carried out to the extent that, although many things you read in the journals are wrong, it is assumed that the author at least believed that he was right. So much so that if somebody deliberately sets out to cheat he can get away with it for years. The number of celebrated cases of cheating or hoaxes would make a long story. But our whole scientific discourse is based on the premise that everybody is trying at least to tell the truth, within the limits of his personality; that can be some limit. … HIPPOCRATIC OATH FOR SCIENTISTS? IMPOSSIBLE TO BE UNAMBIGUOUS.
In 'Homo Scientificus According to Beckett', collected in William Beranek, Jr. (ed.),Science, Scientists, and Society, (1972), 135-. Excerpted in Ann E. Kammer, Science, Sex, and Society (1979), 279-280.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
