An essay published in the San Francisco Chronicle, no less, by British philosopher David S. Oderburg. It presents, in a more detailed, scholarly way, my perpetual question of those who accuse critics and questioners of the ethical standards of some scientific research as simply being religious fanatics who want to pollute the purity of scientific inquiry with religion and/or politics. Are there no ethical standards in scientific research? If so, what is their source?

It may be inviting poison e-mails to say it, but I venture to suggest that contemporary science is now so corrupted by the lust for loot and glory that nothing less than root-and-branch reform can save it. For a start, although I distance myself wholly from his anti-rationalism and methodological anarchy, I share the late philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend’s demand for a separation of science and state, or at the very least a radical curtailment of public financial sponsorship of scientific research. How could the millions thrown at scientists be anything other than a veritable inducement to misconduct? When you combine it with the innumerable honors and awards that await the next would-be secular savior of humanity, one wonders that fraud is not even more common than it appears to be.

This is egregiously so when it comes to medical and other clinical research that has potential direct benefits to life and health. When we look at embryonic stem cell research, however, the matter becomes even more acute. For not only are there the temptations already mentioned, but the research itself is inherently ethically flawed and so invites dissimulation, for instance, in the case of sourcing human eggs — as we saw at the outset of the Hwang debacle.

It would be an act of utter folly and of contempt for honesty and integrity were Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s beloved California Institute for Regenerative Medicine now to go ahead. Were a bishop to be caught doctoring the Gospels, I doubt any scientists would be rushing to approve the Church’s latest request for help to build a new cathedral. Why it should be any different for the secular bishops of science is difficult to discern.