Murakami and Huzinaga

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Murakami on the "Scientist"

Let us examine the "new philosophy of science"; What does it say about the social responsibility of scientists? Since we do not have time to examine many philosophers's view, let us pick up Yoichiro Murakami, the most famous Japanese representative of the "new philosophy of science". Fortunately, he has published a book on this problem a few years ago (What is the Scientist?, Shincho-sha, 1994), as I have already mentioned.

Murakami referred to Karaki's book, but he didn't discuss it. Instead, Murakami developed his own view. Murakami understands the word "scientist" in a very narrow sense. According to him, scientists did not exist until the 19th century, because the word "scientist" didn't exist until then; thus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton and many other eminent persons in the history of science were not a scientist. I do not want to quibble with this strange view, because this view is not directly connected with our problem of social responsibility. Although Murakami wrote many books on the history of "science", in renaissance or in the 18th century, what he treated in these books was not, presumably, "science" but something else.

Anyway, granting that "science" and "scientist" in Murakami's narrow sense appeared in the 19th century, what does that show? What Murakami wants to see is that "scientists" formed a special group or a kind of community. And from this perspective, we can see the peculiarities of "scientists", and this is relevant to our question of responsibility-----this seems to be Murakami's point.

Recall Kuhn's view that science is promoted by a group of scientists----a scientific community----and such a group has its own "paradigm". Murakami seems to put forward his ideas on this line. But Murakami now presumes that scientific communities in the narrow sense appeared in the 19th century as professional communities comparable to those of medical doctors or of clergymen, on the basis of the following facts. A specialized type of knowledge distinguished from "philosophy" became manifest, and there appeared many people who worked on that type; those people began to teach in European universities, and the character of universities themselves began to change; and those people began to organize themselves into such organizations as British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) or American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); moreover, many associations for specific subjects, such as mathematics, physics, or geology appeared. Such professional communities, generally, have their own norms; so we have to examine what such norms have been for a scientific community.

Again, we have to notice that Kuhn was talking about the normative aspect of a "paradigm", but the content of "norms" was not clear enough, sometimes ambiguous. Murakami is now focusing his attention on the norms which govern the scientist's behavior as "a member of a professional scientific community", not as a man as a member of species Man, or as a member of this or that country, or as a member of a society in general. According to Murakami, we have to know the following features in order to discuss the social responsibility of the scientist:

(1) the qualification as a scientist (in a specific field)

(2) competition within a field and the importance of priority

(3) the evaluation of a scientist's work by a peer-review (by referees).

These features have become comspicuous since the 19th century.

First, there is a clear line which demarcates a professional scientist from laymen; a mere dilettante cannot be called a "scientist", because in any specific field of science, one needs systematic training and knowledge, in order to become a member of the scientific community.

Second, within a given field, scientists are competing with each other, for their accomplishments. The only norm which govens their activities as a scietist in that field is "free competition"; and if you find something new, in advance to any other, you have a right to assert your priority for this result. Usually, that result must be published in a professional journal; otherwise you cannot claim such a right.

Third, the evaluation of a scientist's work is made by several (chosen) members of the same scientific community; such evaluations by colleagues are called a "peer-review". Only by this means, the professional value of one's work and its priority can be determined.

In view of these features, Murakami draws the following conclusion about the scientist in comparison to that of medical doctors or of clergymen: a scientific community is essentially a closed community; a scientist does not owe any duty to people outside of his community. Medical doctors and clergymen are asked their responsibilities for their professional behavior by people outside of their communities, because their professions require to have connections with the outside world. Thus the scientist is peculiar in this respect. In a word, the scientist is irresponsible in its nature, and Murakami suggests that the beautiful phrase "the search for truth", regarded often as the aim of science, may have been a label that covers up this reality.

However, even at this abstract level, we can raise the following question to this view. First of all, any scientist must be a citizen of some country, presumably a professor at some university or a researcher at some institute; next, he has to apply for a grant in order to develop his own research; moreover, maybe he has teaching obligations, etc., etc.; thus he is in the midst of a "social web", so to speak, and the "irresponsibility" as scientist----granting Murakami's allegation---- may already be alleviated because of this fact. For, a scientist behaves not merely as scientist but also as a personality of various kinds with various rights and duties; this may impose the scientist many responsibilities, moral responsibilities in particular, which may wash out the "irresponsibility" as scientist. Then, one may ask: is there any real difference between medical doctors and scientists?

Murakami's "Case Study" on the Atomic Bomb

Now, such a severe opinion about the scientist as Murakimi's, however it may look appealing to laymen, may be groundless without some evidence from the actual history of science. He mentions several cases of "stealing" other person's ideas, of "selecting" favorable data for one's own theory, and other kinds of ugly incidents among scientists, including "first-rate" scientists such as Nobel laureates; and he argues that the features (1)-(3) (of last section) allow such wrong behaviors, and lack the mechanism to check them.

Then Murakami turns his attention to the "well-known" strory of the atomic bomb. But he does not try to test his view against this case; he uses this not as one of the best examples for illustrating "irresponsible" scientists; instead, he looks for some "responsible" scientists in this case. As I have already mentioned, Einstein's letter (1939) to President Roosevelt was the beginning of everything. This letter was written by Leo Szilard's advice (actually, Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller were also involved); Szilard is a Hungarian physicist; he is one of the ealiest to notice the possibility of the chain reactions of nuclear fission----if a first fission is triggered, neutrons emitted by this produce more fissions and lead to an explosion, and this is crucial for the atomic bomb----, and he is usually depicted as one of the very few "conscientious" scientists, and Murakami also endorses such a view. Let us review relevant facts about Szilard:

(1) He was wroking on the problem of nuclear fission, and he was aware of the possibility of application of this to weapons.

(2) Because of this awareness, he tried to persuade (unsuccessfully) other scientists not to publish his and their results; he feared Hitler's Germany may know this possibility.

(3) Because of this fear, he looked for various means for preventing this worst prospect; and in this context he urged Einstein to write to Roosevelt.

(4) Toward the end of the Manhattan Project, he tried, by writting a letter with many signatures of eminent scientists, to persuade the President not to use the atomic bomb against Japan.

Based on these facts and some others, Murakami highly praises Szilard:

This behavior of Szilard seems to be a rare valuable example; he used his knowledge as a specialist (...), and seeing the implications of the military pressure, he formed through sound inferences and good insights a comprehensive judgement about humans and human societies, by combining basic and precise insights or knowledge about the behavioral principles of nations and govenments, with his judgements of international military circumstances. This comprehensive judgement was not a mere judgmenht of a specialist in his specific field but far more than that. (Murakami, What is the Scientist?, 126-7)

Murakami also adds that there were many scientists, while participating in the development of weapons, strongly objected against the use of atomic bombs. Their wills, and maybe their consciousness of "guilt", formed a basis of such movements as Russell-Einstein Manifesto and Pugwash conferences after the war, Murakami admits. However, Murakami says he is not primarily interested in such "political" movements. He is more concerned about a "new form of responsibility" of scientists; that is, scientists realize some danger in their research and spontaneously impose certain restrictions or norms on their research itself. Murakami asserts that this new form appeared for the first time in the field of molecular biology in 1970's; and we will come back to this later.

But here, I wish to raise this question: Does the case of the atomic bomb show the "irresponsibility" of scientists, thereby supporting Murakami's view? Or does that show a form of "responsibility" scientists may take? Murakami should have stopped here and examined these questions in detail, but he did not. Moreover, Murakami's appraisal of Szilard seems doubtful, to say the least. If he is a historian of science, he should have examined more primary sources. As you may know, popular journalism often depicts Oppenheimer as a wicked scientist, and Szilard as a wise, heroic scientist. But I would say that the "responsibility" of a historian as historian must be to correct the mistakes contained in such a stereotype.

Huzinaga's Biography of Oppenheimer

I have to make clear my position at the outset. I do not want to pretend that I am a historian of science; I am primarily a philosopher of science, and I do not know as many historical facts as Murakami does. But as a philosopher of science, I know quite well how historical studies should be conducted and supported by historical documents and others. On this standard, Murakami's appraisal of Szilard seems little more than a secondhand summary. I can say this because Shigeru Huzinaga's comprehensive biography of Oppenheimer (I have already mentioned this) appeared recently (1996). In this, Huzinaga concluded, on his close examination of various sorts of primary sources, that the common image of Oppenheimer was quite mistaken, and so was the picture of Szilard. I have not checked all the documents Huzinaga quotes; but he tries to show all the documents to be checked. And as far as I was able to check, his references seem reliable. I cannot say the same of Murakami's book; he describes and evaluates Szilard, but does not show the evidence, nor the primary sources.

Now, what does Huzinaga say about Szilard? Huzinaga's description and evaluation of Szilard can be seen on pages 226-238 (Robert Oppenheimer, Asahi Shinbun-sha, 1996). Accoding to Huzinaga, Szilard was also one of those (talented but) ego-centric figures; Szilard tried to monopolize the credit of urging Einstein to write the famous letter; he tried to criticize the Manhattan Project because he could not play the central role in it; he tried, intentionally, to leave the evidence that there were some scientists-----himself, in particular---- who "conscientiously objected against the atomic bomb", etc., etc. I am not trying to endorce everything Huzinaga says. But Huzinaga certainly shows counter-evidence against such appraisals as Murakami's; and, ironically, this may support Murakami's main contention that scientists (as scientist, or as a human being) may be "irresponsible"! Anyway, we need close historical studies in order to substantiate such claims as Murakami's. That's the point I wish to emphasize here.

In passing, let me also briefly mention Huzinaga's appraisal of Oppenheimer, because this may be also relevant to our problem of the scientist's responsibility. Huzinaga accuses Oppenheimer because he was the director of the team for manufacturing the atomic bomb; because he did not object to the use of the bombs against Japan. But Huzinaga does not adopt the view that Oppenheimer was an evil, morally irresponsible man, or a bad scientist who made a bagain with the military men in order to fulfill his curiosity as a scientist. Huzinaga's judgment is that Oppenheimer (and almost all scientists working in Los Alamos, with a few exceptions) was, like most of us, a foolish man who could not realize what he has done until he saw the film of Hiroshima. Not only Oppenheimer, but most scientists in Los Alamos applauded at the first news of Hiroshima (August 6); but soon many began to feel gloomy; and many were shocked at the news of Nagasaki (August 9), 3 days after. Our imagination is limited and imperfect to this extent.

Huzinaga's message seems to be clear. He is trying to say as follows: The present people, knowing all the results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (if you look at a films or vivid pictures, you need little imagination to feel awful results), may think that if they were in Oppenheimer's position, they would not have behaved like him. You may even imagine that if you were in Oppenheimer's position, you would have behaved more wisely, and would have prevented Hiroshima's disaster. But this is wrong, Huzinaga is saying. Look all those people in Los Alamos; they believed in the rightness of their cause, and they worked almost selflessly in order to manufacture the deadly weapons; but they could not, and did not realize what their weapons may bring about until the weapons were actually used and the results were seen. It is too easy to condemn Oppenheimer and to imagine yourself unlike him. It is too easy to comdemn scientists or physics itself, unless you realize that you, with your good intentions, might well be just like Oppenheimer and his collaborators. Moreover, you have to realize there is a huge gap between the scietist's discovery of nuclear fission and the national project for the atomic bombs in the richest country in the world.

Of course we have to endeavor not to make similar mistakes again. But for that, we have to learn that such eminent persons like Oppenheimer, with all those good qualities and several defects, with honesty and integrity and talents but with limited imagination and some imprudence, may produce such grave results if involved in such a national project as the Manhattan Project. The attribution of all faults to scientists or physics does not solve any problem.

Murakami on Asilomar Conference [Added April 27]

Let's go back to Muramaki's view. I don't think he is going to support such a silly view that attributes all faults to scientists. However, he thinks that scientists should try to avoid disastrous results by imposing a certain responsibility on themselves, because they can play such a crucial role as Oppenheimer and his collaborators in bringing about such results as Hiroshima (I agree with this to a large extent). Granting all this, the question is: what sort of responsibility, and how does that work?

In this connection, Murakami tries to find a great significance in Asilomar Conference held at Asilomar, California, in 1975. As you may know, the development of molecular biology after the second world war opened a new prospect in biotechnology. Genetics after Mendel assumed theoretical entities called genes, and genes produce various properties of an organism, such as the color of your eye, hair, or the shape of a pea. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick found the structure of DNA, the molecular carrier of the genes. And in the 70's, a new discovery came: the technique of recombinant DNA. Using this technique, you can cut a DNA at an arbitrary location, and remove a part of that and put in its stead a new piece of DNA, thus producing a new DNA artificially.

Several researchers in this field realized the potential danger of this technique (we may be able to produce chimerical organisms by this technique!). And they proposed a moratorium on the research in this field. This sort of proposal, a group of scientists spontaneously appealing a restriction on their free research, had no historical prededents, Murakami emphazsizes. Their proposal evetually led to the Asilomar Conference for which about 150 researchers gathered from 28 countries. After a series of heated discussions they came to an agreement, including a proposal for security and for making guidelines for further research. In the United States, the National Institute of Health (NIH) has made such guidelines, and these became the model for other countries.

Now, what Murakami finds significance in these guidelines is that they include the necessity of Institutional Review Board (IRB) which must have members from non-specialists, members from outside of the field of modelular biology. Thus Murakami says that, historically for the first time, a scientific community has opened itself, and abandoned at least partially the principle of "peer review" (Murakami, 1994, 139). This was quite new, and was offensive to many scientists in other fields such as physics, Murakami adds.

I should like to add only a couple of comments on Murakami's view. First, the necessity of IRB does not seem to imply anything contrary to the principle of "peer review"; for the latter is concerned with the evaluation of scientific papers as scientific work, wheras the former is concerned with the evaluation of pontential danger or security of any proposed research. To this, Murakami may counter that IRB still works as a constraint on scientific research itself. But again, this sort of constraint is not quite new. If you want to do a certain kind of research, you need money and you have to apply for a grant, sometimes; and in such an application, you are supposed to emphasize the "social significance" or "utility" of your research. Moreover, committees for processing such applications are not composed on the principle of "peer review"; and sometimes a sort of "nepotism" comes in such a processing. This sort of problem belongs to a wider moral problems of science (not specifically to the problem of the scientist's responsibility), and it is already discussed, to some extent, in the 19th century (see, for instance, Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, bk.iii, ch.14, 7th ed., pp.402, 406; and Mill's famous defence of the freedom of thought in On Liberty, 1859, also touches on many issues, although he is not primarily concerned with science). Of course, we have to consider the problem anew in view of new predicaments.

Second, as far as I know, IRB still exists but is not working any more. I served as a member of such a board in Kyoto University for two years, several years ago. But everything became a routine work, and I was never called except for its first meeting; the subcommitee consisting of all the specialists is supposed to decide everything except for those applications which may cause grave problems, but the latter case never happened. Thus I think Murakami overestimates the significance of IRB.

Summary

Although Murakami further discusses the environmental problems, and makes several interesting suggestions for "open science" and desirable scientists, we do not have to trace his argument any further. It seems that, after all, we have to consider all these problems as a new ethical problem involving science and technology as an essential factor. And, for this, we have to ask the use of science within a complex structure of modern society; just asking about the "structures" or "norms" of a "scientific community" is insufficient, and the "new philosophy of science" is no better than the Marxist philosophy or the Logical Empiricism in this respect.

The crucial question at issue, if you ask the responsibility of the scientist, is still the role of the scientist as scientist; this is a normative question needing both (1) the moral basis of such a standard and (2) the clarification of the way the scientist can contribute to the welfare of human beings, or sentient beings, as Mill puts it. Murakami is no closer to the solution than Hempel was, some 30 years ago.

[to be continued .....]

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