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ee STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
By STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305

 

August 23, 1974

STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Department of Genetics
(415) 497-5052

Editor

Fortune Magazine

Time and Life Building
New York, New York 10020

' Dear Sir,

In your editorial comment "Truth and Consequences on Frontiers
of Science" you assert a Frankensteinian model of science that may be
widely held but has a dubious foundation in fact. Your remark was
"a doctrine that is widely and sometimes passionately avowed in the
scientific community - that scientists should be free to pursue the
truth all the way, and that any attempt to set a limit or call halt
represents intolerable interference with scientific freedom."

I question whether you can find a single instance of the assertion
of such a claim, There can, of course, be many controversial arguments
about the factual expectations of scientific work, including the possibility
of predicting whether the net consequences will be favorable or not in
any particular circumstance. But that is hardly a claim that science
may be pursued with total and utter disregard of the interests of other
human beings or of society at large. It is true that there are few
special restraints that single out scientists from other people in the
pursuit of their life and work, just as there are even fewer restraints
on the practice of journalism in a society that prides itself upon a
free press, But before quoting a myth of this kind, I would hope that
you would undertake as a matter of your own professional responsibility
to ask whether there was indeed one authentic example of it, I am hard put
to find a single instance where it had been claimed that "material
consequences of the search for truth" should be judged any less critically
if they are a side-effect of scientific investigation than if done in any
other context. Tragically, we are in an era today when experimentation
is being adjudged guilty until proven innocent in a fashion that is
scarcely applied to other lines of work, I believe that you are well able
to foresee the consequences of the continuation of such repressive policies
and for this reason ask your attention in avoiding contributing to then.

Sincerely yours,

5 Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr
LY. J.P. KENNEDY, JR. LARORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH IN MENTAL RETARDATION

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE