> That seems more like a moral conclusion than a scientific one.
That distinction doesn't change anything. Even if you can keep that sort of language out of even the preprints, you'll have politicians citing the studies and making those statements themselves.
It boils down to this: if you tell people you're collecting data to help them, then you can't allow that data to harm them.
Regardless of what motivates scientists, they need the consent of people they are collecting DNA/etc from. That consent won't be given without some persuasive justification and that comes in the form of arguments about the good that will come from the research. If the research actually brings misery, you're going to have long term trust problems with the people you're trying to study.
No, I'm sorry, you haven't thought that through. Scientists don't research cancer simply because they're curious about "the truth about cancer"; they do it to cure cancer patients, because they think that's good. And despite how much "truth" they could discover by performing unethical experiments, ethics boards and the Hippocratic oath subordinate that goal to the broader ideas of medical ethics and what is "good."
> plenty are doing cancer research simply to get paid.
Presumably because they think being paid is good. Pure truth-seeking is fairly marginal.
> Why have you put the word "truth" in quotation marks here?
"Truth" and "good" weren't really the best words to use in either of the contexts I used them above ("knowledge" and "right" would have been more correct), but I wanted to specifically use those words because they were the ones you had originally framed the discussion with, so I put them in quotation marks to draw attention to the fact that I was reusing your words. It was kind of cumbersome, looking back on it.
> The truth is always good in my view.
Suppose a physicist in Nazi Germany runs away rather than help the German nuclear program to invent the atom bomb because he knows Nazi leadership would do terrible things with it. This is an example of a scientist choosing not to pursue knowledge because that knowledge would, in that context, be harmful. I don't think any truths are inherently harmful, but some are contextually harmful when known by certain people (e.g. Nazis), and I think it's ethically justifiable for even a scientist to prevent those people from learning those truths.
Everyone’s just trying to get that Nature paper. If torturing mice will do it you will torture mice. This kinda research is so hard that really you just care about getting your thing out there; thinking about abstract stuff like doing good is a luxury you can’t afford.
That distinction doesn't change anything. Even if you can keep that sort of language out of even the preprints, you'll have politicians citing the studies and making those statements themselves.
It boils down to this: if you tell people you're collecting data to help them, then you can't allow that data to harm them.