[Commitment and ambiguous complexity in scientific research]

The manicheistic temptation of concluding that the good, but also the best science, is the science made by scientists morally and ideologically committed to alleviate both physical illness and health and social inequalities, would take us far away from the painful complexity of the mixture of good and bad, right and wrong, bright and obscure, and from the ambiguities and ambivalent situations that may originate from it, in which not only scientific research but our entire existence is soaked. The scientist should see very clearly his obligations toward society and his fellow humans in order to resist the ambiguous complexity where the interest for a scientific result can be exploited for ignoble purposes or, as Robert N. Proctor reminds us in his recent book "The Nazi War on Cancer", where "the routine practice of science can so easily coexist with the routine exercise of cruelty." Research committed to prevention and to the struggle for health and social equity was for quite a while successfully hampered by closing the financial channels and depriving it of the necessary means. The block by lack of funds has been replaced in recent times by a block by plenty through the attraction exerted on many scientists by availability of conspicuous and sure funds for research on themes chosen by the economic power.