The Myth of the Noble Scientist

Finally, I think we scientists are guilty of promoting, or at least tolerating, a false popular image of ourselves that may be flattering but that, in the long run, leads to real difficulties when the public finds out that our behavior doesn't match that image. I like to call it The Myth of the Noble Scientist. It arises, I think out of the long-discredited Baconian view of the scientist as disinterested seeker of the truth, gathering facts with mind cleansed of prejudices and preconceptions. Thus the ideal scientist would be more honest than ordinary mortals, certainly immune to such common human failings as pride or personal ambition. When it turns out, as invariably it does, that scientists are not at all like that, the public that we have mislead may react with understandable anger or disappointment.

The fact is that scientists are usually rigorously honest about the things that really matter to them, such as the accurate reporting of procedures and data. In other arenas, such as disputes over priority or credit, they tend to behave like the ordinary mortals they are. Furthermore, scientists are not disinterested truth-seekers, they are more like players in an intense, winner-take-all competition for scientific prestige, or perhaps merchants in a no-holds barred market-place of ideas. The sooner we learn to admit to those facts, and to distinguish carefully between serious scientific misconduct, and common human conduct by scientists, the better off we'll all be.

 

-- Conduct and Misconduct in Science by David Goodstein